Knock knock.
"Valentina?"
Kaiser gently knocked on Valentina's door while calling her name. It had been a couple of hours and she had instructed him to wake her up if her alarm didn't.
Fortunately, he had completed everything he needed to do before they discussed the 'rules' she wanted.
"Valentina?" he called again and knocked while waiting for a couple of minutes.
"Excuse me, I'm coming in," he called out before opening the door to her room.
When he walked in, it was to see her splayed out on her bed in oversized pajamas. Her pillows were lying on the floor and she rolled around as if she were uncomfortable. Hearing her mutter something, he walked closer and bent over, gently shaking her so she could wake up.
"Valentina, wake up." He looked down to see her flushed cheeks and brows furrowed in a small frown. As he shook her gently, her eyes fluttered, the long lashes brushing her cheeks like butterflies before opening slightly.
The bright green eyes were half-lidded and she gave him a soft smile before whispering, "Body pillow."
As she closed her eyes, she wrapped her hands around his neck and dragged him on top of her. As he tried to catch himself, her legs wrapped around his waist, and he could only flip onto his back as she clung to him like a jellyfish with a surprisingly strong grip.
Like a small child, she wiggled as if she were trying to get comfortable and he could feel his shirt riding up as she kept moving her arms around.
As he tried to gently disentangle her, she clung even tighter, moving this way and that, massaging his body every which way and holding on so tightly, he felt her limbs would snap if he forcibly ripped them off. In the end, her head ended up on his chest, one hand draped around him while the other held his neck.
Sighing to himself, he gently shook her while marveling at her strength. If it wasn't for her steady breathing, he would have thought she was awake and messing around with him. Although he was reluctant to wake her up seeing how tired she was, he felt as if he should so he could leave.
"Valentina, if you don't get off I'm going to kiss you." he threatened.
The only response was her deep breathing as she started moving around on his body before she muttered "Comfy".
Feeling her rub on a particular part of his body, Kaiser gritted his teeth and began taking a deep breath while thinking of baseball, golfing, running on the treadmill, anything boring he could use to calm his body down.
As she continued wiggling, he quietly threatened her.
"Valentina, if you don't get up, I'm going to tease you endlessly for this. So much that you'll be red for a month." He warned her.
The only response was her deep breaths as she slept peacefully, tucking her face into his chest and gripping his shirt.
"Fine. I'll let you off this time Valentina. You're lucky you're cute."
Kaiser sighed before patting her back. Feeling the warmth of her body, and being surrounded by the scent coming from her and her bedding, he took a deep breath and felt his eyes closing as well.
It wouldn't hurt for him to take a nap as well.
As he drifted off to sleep, it felt like moments later he was awakened by little footsteps. His eyes snapped open and he caught sight of Luca staring at him with a look of betrayal on his face.
Luca's green eyes were narrowed in an angry frown and the finger he used to point at Kaiser was shaking from anger as he whispered "Traitor!"
Feeling somewhat guilty, Kaiser tried to explain, "Shhh...It's not what it looks like..."
Without even looking at him, Luca climbed up to the opposite side of the bed. He gently laid his head on Valentina and as if she sensed it, she quickly rolled over and wrapped her arms around Luca before going back to sleep.
Kaiser: "......" Was he that easy to abandon?
Looking over and seeing Luca's smug smile as he hugged Valentina and closed his eyes to sleep, Kaiser felt the urge to pinch his cheeks and fully stretch them out.
"Luca, get up and go to your bed," Kaiser whispered while looking at Luca fiercely. The only response was fake snores coming out of the boy's mouth as he waved at him.
"Luca.." Kaiser called his son's name in warning but the little child continued his fake snores that quickly turned real as he relaxed and fell asleep in Valentina's arms.
Kaiser: "......"
Looking at the cute scene, somehow he felt jealous and left out. After all, he was here first.
Fine. Whatever, he would just go to sleep as well. Sliding in beside Luca, he forcibly dragged him over and as expected, Valentina immediately began reaching out again in her sleep. Kaiser placed Luca comfortably on the other side of him and gently patted Valentina's back as she settled back to sleep.
Although Luca would be upset when he woke up, he didn't plan on letting anyone get in the way of him and Valentina cuddling. Not even his own son.
As his eyes closed and he fell asleep, the last thought that Kaiser had was that this was quite nice.
***
[Ding!]
[Sub-Task Completed – Clear Your Name]
[Reward Custom Body Scent with Special Effects has been received]
[Activate reward now?]
Valentina snapped awake as the system alerted her on her completed mission.
Sitting up as she rubbed the sleep from her face, she found that she wasn't alone in her bed. Laying next to her and taking up a large amount of space was Kaiser and next to him was Luca.
Confused, she looked around the room. She could have sworn she fell asleep alone, why did two extra people appear?
Kaiser gave her a self-satisfied smirk before greeting her.
"Good morning beautiful. Sleep well?"
"Why are you on my bed?" Valentina asked him with an arched brow.
"I came to wake you up but you said body pillow and basically chained me to your bed with your body. If you wanted to feel me up so much that you did it in your sleep, you should have said so. No need to be shy and repress your feelings, I'll allow you to do that any day." Kaiser replied with a sly smile.
Hearing the dreaded words of her sleeping habits that hadn't reoccurred since filming with Rio, Valentina felt her face turn red and she felt like fading out of existence, yet seeing Kaiser's cocky smile, she remembered why she had woken up.
The system had indicated that her task was complete which meant somebody had done something. If it wasn't her, then the only culprit would be the man in front of her.
"What did you do to Aaliyah?" Valentina glared down at him.
"What do you mean? I haven't done anything, I just came to wake you up." Kaiser replied innocently. Although his tone was innocent, the devilish smirk on his face spoke otherwise about his actions.
"Tell me why I don't believe you. What did you do to Aaliyah?"
"Not a thing," Kaiser replied with a smile although internally he was a bit shocked. How did she know anything had happened to Aaliyah considering she had been asleep the whole time? Could Roman have slipped her some information at the hospital? Vowing to have a serious conversation with Roman, he simply smiled at Valentina.
Not believing a word he said, Valentina quickly grabbed her phone and began searching for Aaliyah's name.
The first result was a news article by a popular gossip blog EMZ with the headline.
"Salazar vs Salazar, The True Snake Is Revealed."
Clicking into it, she saw a slightly grainy video with no sound of her and Aaliyah speaking with each other. The angle of the clip made it seem like Aaliyah shoved her down the stairs and showed the entirety of her slamming into the banister before rolling down the stairs, being caught by a blurred-faced figure, and coughing up blood that splattered everywhere before fainting. Then the clip ended.
A quick glance at some of the comments had begun denouncing Aaliyah and the posts that she made.
Although the newly released video didn't show the rest of what happened, fans were quickly stitching together the video Elena Piero had shared and making their own conclusion. Everything from the angle of Aaliyah's fall to the blood splatters to the identity of the attendees was being decrypted and think pieces were being created.
Comments were quickly deleted and replaced with apologies for doubting Valentina. Gossip bloggers were doing short videos of analysis on what they thought actually happened. Lip readers were coming out and trying to interpret the words being said on the video clips. The whole thing had turned into a royal mess.
Making matters even better, Aaliyah had taken down her original post and story and turned off all the comments on her posts as well. She was being blasted all across all platforms and her fans had stopped harassing Valentina and switched to trying to defend Aliyah. Unfortunately for Aaliyah, she continued trending along with Valentina and the film 'His Fair Lady'.
The writer of the article detailed what happened and denounced Aaliyah while the apparent owner of the building guaranteed the CCTV footage was undoctored which caused another round of frenzied comments.
In the comments, a few people still supported Aaliyah saying it was a doctored video and it was Valentina trying to make up a story to defend herself. Others defended her saying she hadn't even responded to the issue yet unrelated parties were coming out with information. Many others were just hooked on the drama about two young actresses who were from the same agency with similar names and birthdays having such public conflicts.
A popular blogger even floated a theory that this whole thing was a stunt by the film team to build hype around the movie by creating real-life drama that closely mirrored the film plot.
Only a few people actually cared about Valentina, many of the fans on her page asked for her to do a live and give them an update on her health.
After understanding everything that had happened, she held her phone up so Kaiser could see it.
"You didn't do anything right? Explain this." she arched her brow at him.
"I didn't. Do I look like a blogger? It's a mystery to me how that video got released." Kaiser shamelessly replied.
"I didn't need your help. I would have handled it."
"How? What was your plan to solve this?" Kaiser looked at her seriously, gently gripping her jaw and forcing her to look at him.
"I planned on sharing my medical documents on my story and having a live with my fans to explain the situation and putting out a statement," Valentina replied with a fierce expression.
"And you think that's enough? Documents can be fabricated as easily as a button click. You can explain until you're out of breath and no one will believe you. I think you're being a little naive in your treatment of your sister and family. Do you know what the first thing Aaliyah did once she went to the hospital? She asked her manager to contact the building security for the footage of that evening. I'm sure if she found an angle that supported her cause, she would have released it to the public and you would have been buried in insults and curses. But I had Roman grab the footage and backups first and shut the owner of the building up with the money."
Seeing that she still looked stubborn even as her eye widened in surprise, Kaiser continued relentlessly while poking her forehead.
"When your opponents are fighting dirty, you think you can beat them by being clean? By being nice? I don't know why you decided to set Aaliyah up in a public setting and I don't care. but if you're going to do it, you need to make sure it's clean and you cover all of your bases so you don't get caught. For that, you need money, power, and connections. You currently have none of that so that means you need to use your brain to think like a bad person or use the resources available to you. I am a resource available to you, why are you refusing my help, Valentina? Hmm?" kaiser sat up on the bed, leaning back against the headboard as he examined her.
"I would have figured it out some way or another." Valentina stubbornly insisted even as she rubbed her forehead.
Seeing her still being stubborn, Kaiser didn't mind pouring cold water on her wishful thinking. Although he admired her good heart despite what she had gone through, having such a soft heart that without being able to defend herself would get her eaten up in the industry and with her family as well. Even if she was resistant, he would force her to admit she needed help even if he had to break her ideals one by one.
"Is that right? Okay, then tell me, Valentina, what exactly was your plan that you would figure out for this situation if I hadn't done anything? I'm listening." Kaiser gave her the expectant look he reserved for executives at his company when they gave him a proposal full of holes.
Like a cat playing with a mouse, he calmly watched her with a light smile on his face.
Authors Note: This chapter was extra long so probably no chapter tomorrow. We'll see though
Kaiser being a meanie but that's why he's a boss
Knock knock.
"Valentina?"
Kaiser gently knocked on Valentina's door while calling her name. It had been a couple of hours and she had instructed him to wake her up if her alarm didn't.
Fortunately, he had completed everything he needed to do before they discussed the 'rules' she wanted.
"Valentina?" he called again and knocked while waiting for a couple of minutes.
"Excuse me, I'm coming in," he called out before opening the door to her room.
When he walked in, it was to see her splayed out on her bed in oversized pajamas. Her pillows were lying on the floor and she rolled around as if she were uncomfortable. Hearing her mutter something, he walked closer and bent over, gently shaking her so she could wake up.
"Valentina, wake up." He looked down to see her flushed cheeks and brows furrowed in a small frown. As he shook her gently, her eyes fluttered, the long lashes brushing her cheeks like butterflies before opening slightly.
The bright green eyes were half-lidded and she gave him a soft smile before whispering, "Body pillow."
As she closed her eyes, she wrapped her hands around his neck and dragged him on top of her. As he tried to catch himself, her legs wrapped around his waist, and he could only flip onto his back as she clung to him like a jellyfish with a surprisingly strong grip.
Like a small child, she wiggled as if she were trying to get comfortable and he could feel his shirt riding up as she kept moving her arms around.
As he tried to gently disentangle her, she clung even tighter, moving this way and that, massaging his body every which way and holding on so tightly, he felt her limbs would snap if he forcibly ripped them off. In the end, her head ended up on his chest, one hand draped around him while the other held his neck.
Sighing to himself, he gently shook her while marveling at her strength. If it wasn't for her steady breathing, he would have thought she was awake and messing around with him. Although he was reluctant to wake her up seeing how tired she was, he felt as if he should so he could leave.
"Valentina, if you don't get off I'm going to kiss you." he threatened.
The only response was her deep breathing as she started moving around on his body before she muttered "Comfy".
Feeling her rub on a particular part of his body, Kaiser gritted his teeth and began taking a deep breath while thinking of baseball, golfing, running on the treadmill, anything boring he could use to calm his body down.
As she continued wiggling, he quietly threatened her.
"Valentina, if you don't get up, I'm going to tease you endlessly for this. So much that you'll be red for a month." He warned her.
The only response was her deep breaths as she slept peacefully, tucking her face into his chest and gripping his shirt.
"Fine. I'll let you off this time Valentina. You're lucky you're cute."
Kaiser sighed before patting her back. Feeling the warmth of her body, and being surrounded by the scent coming from her and her bedding, he took a deep breath and felt his eyes closing as well.
It wouldn't hurt for him to take a nap as well.
As he drifted off to sleep, it felt like moments later he was awakened by little footsteps. His eyes snapped open and he caught sight of Luca staring at him with a look of betrayal on his face.
Luca's green eyes were narrowed in an angry frown and the finger he used to point at Kaiser was shaking from anger as he whispered "Traitor!"
Feeling somewhat guilty, Kaiser tried to explain, "Shhh...It's not what it looks like..."
Without even looking at him, Luca climbed up to the opposite side of the bed. He gently laid his head on Valentina and as if she sensed it, she quickly rolled over and wrapped her arms around Luca before going back to sleep.
Kaiser: "......" Was he that easy to abandon?
Looking over and seeing Luca's smug smile as he hugged Valentina and closed his eyes to sleep, Kaiser felt the urge to pinch his cheeks and fully stretch them out.
"Luca, get up and go to your bed," Kaiser whispered while looking at Luca fiercely. The only response was fake snores coming out of the boy's mouth as he waved at him.
"Luca.." Kaiser called his son's name in warning but the little child continued his fake snores that quickly turned real as he relaxed and fell asleep in Valentina's arms.
Kaiser: "......"
Looking at the cute scene, somehow he felt jealous and left out. After all, he was here first.
Fine. Whatever, he would just go to sleep as well. Sliding in beside Luca, he forcibly dragged him over and as expected, Valentina immediately began reaching out again in her sleep. Kaiser placed Luca comfortably on the other side of him and gently patted Valentina's back as she settled back to sleep.
Although Luca would be upset when he woke up, he didn't plan on letting anyone get in the way of him and Valentina cuddling. Not even his own son.
As his eyes closed and he fell asleep, the last thought that Kaiser had was that this was quite nice.
***
[Ding!]
[Sub-Task Completed – Clear Your Name]
[Reward Custom Body Scent with Special Effects has been received]
[Activate reward now?]
Valentina snapped awake as the system alerted her on her completed mission.
Sitting up as she rubbed the sleep from her face, she found that she wasn't alone in her bed. Laying next to her and taking up a large amount of space was Kaiser and next to him was Luca.
Confused, she looked around the room. She could have sworn she fell asleep alone, why did two extra people appear?
Kaiser gave her a self-satisfied smirk before greeting her.
"Good morning beautiful. Sleep well?"
"Why are you on my bed?" Valentina asked him with an arched brow.
"I came to wake you up but you said body pillow and basically chained me to your bed with your body. If you wanted to feel me up so much that you did it in your sleep, you should have said so. No need to be shy and repress your feelings, I'll allow you to do that any day." Kaiser replied with a sly smile.
Hearing the dreaded words of her sleeping habits that hadn't reoccurred since filming with Rio, Valentina felt her face turn red and she felt like fading out of existence, yet seeing Kaiser's cocky smile, she remembered why she had woken up.
The system had indicated that her task was complete which meant somebody had done something. If it wasn't her, then the only culprit would be the man in front of her.
"What did you do to Aaliyah?" Valentina glared down at him.
"What do you mean? I haven't done anything, I just came to wake you up." Kaiser replied innocently. Although his tone was innocent, the devilish smirk on his face spoke otherwise about his actions.
"Tell me why I don't believe you. What did you do to Aaliyah?"
"Not a thing," Kaiser replied with a smile although internally he was a bit shocked. How did she know anything had happened to Aaliyah considering she had been asleep the whole time? Could Roman have slipped her some information at the hospital? Vowing to have a serious conversation with Roman, he simply smiled at Valentina.
Not believing a word he said, Valentina quickly grabbed her phone and began searching for Aaliyah's name.
The first result was a news article by a popular gossip blog EMZ with the headline.
"Salazar vs Salazar, The True Snake Is Revealed."
Clicking into it, she saw a slightly grainy video with no sound of her and Aaliyah speaking with each other. The angle of the clip made it seem like Aaliyah shoved her down the stairs and showed the entirety of her slamming into the banister before rolling down the stairs, being caught by a blurred-faced figure, and coughing up blood that splattered everywhere before fainting. Then the clip ended.
A quick glance at some of the comments had begun denouncing Aaliyah and the posts that she made.
Although the newly released video didn't show the rest of what happened, fans were quickly stitching together the video Elena Piero had shared and making their own conclusion. Everything from the angle of Aaliyah's fall to the blood splatters to the identity of the attendees was being decrypted and think pieces were being created.
Comments were quickly deleted and replaced with apologies for doubting Valentina. Gossip bloggers were doing short videos of analysis on what they thought actually happened. Lip readers were coming out and trying to interpret the words being said on the video clips. The whole thing had turned into a royal mess.
Making matters even better, Aaliyah had taken down her original post and story and turned off all the comments on her posts as well. She was being blasted all across all platforms and her fans had stopped harassing Valentina and switched to trying to defend Aliyah. Unfortunately for Aaliyah, she continued trending along with Valentina and the film 'His Fair Lady'.
The writer of the article detailed what happened and denounced Aaliyah while the apparent owner of the building guaranteed the CCTV footage was undoctored which caused another round of frenzied comments.
In the comments, a few people still supported Aaliyah saying it was a doctored video and it was Valentina trying to make up a story to defend herself. Others defended her saying she hadn't even responded to the issue yet unrelated parties were coming out with information. Many others were just hooked on the drama about two young actresses who were from the same agency with similar names and birthdays having such public conflicts.
A popular blogger even floated a theory that this whole thing was a stunt by the film team to build hype around the movie by creating real-life drama that closely mirrored the film plot.
Only a few people actually cared about Valentina, many of the fans on her page asked for her to do a live and give them an update on her health.
After understanding everything that had happened, she held her phone up so Kaiser could see it.
"You didn't do anything right? Explain this." she arched her brow at him.
"I didn't. Do I look like a blogger? It's a mystery to me how that video got released." Kaiser shamelessly replied.
"I didn't need your help. I would have handled it."
"How? What was your plan to solve this?" Kaiser looked at her seriously, gently gripping her jaw and forcing her to look at him.
"I planned on sharing my medical documents on my story and having a live with my fans to explain the situation and putting out a statement," Valentina replied with a fierce expression.
"And you think that's enough? Documents can be fabricated as easily as a button click. You can explain until you're out of breath and no one will believe you. I think you're being a little naive in your treatment of your sister and family. Do you know what the first thing Aaliyah did once she went to the hospital? She asked her manager to contact the building security for the footage of that evening. I'm sure if she found an angle that supported her cause, she would have released it to the public and you would have been buried in insults and curses. But I had Roman grab the footage and backups first and shut the owner of the building up with the money."
Seeing that she still looked stubborn even as her eye widened in surprise, Kaiser continued relentlessly while poking her forehead.
"When your opponents are fighting dirty, you think you can beat them by being clean? By being nice? I don't know why you decided to set Aaliyah up in a public setting and I don't care. but if you're going to do it, you need to make sure it's clean and you cover all of your bases so you don't get caught. For that, you need money, power, and connections. You currently have none of that so that means you need to use your brain to think like a bad person or use the resources available to you. I am a resource available to you, why are you refusing my help, Valentina? Hmm?" kaiser sat up on the bed, leaning back against the headboard as he examined her.
"I would have figured it out some way or another." Valentina stubbornly insisted even as she rubbed her forehead.
Seeing her still being stubborn, Kaiser didn't mind pouring cold water on her wishful thinking. Although he admired her good heart despite what she had gone through, having such a soft heart that without being able to defend herself would get her eaten up in the industry and with her family as well. Even if she was resistant, he would force her to admit she needed help even if he had to break her ideals one by one.
"Is that right? Okay, then tell me, Valentina, what exactly was your plan that you would figure out for this situation if I hadn't done anything? I'm listening." Kaiser gave her the expectant look he reserved for executives at his company when they gave him a proposal full of holes.
Like a cat playing with a mouse, he calmly watched her with a light smile on his face.
Authors Note: This chapter was extra long so probably no chapter tomorrow. We'll see though
Kaiser being a meanie but that's why he's a boss
