“Not the case?” Lucy raised a brow when she saw Simione’s hesitation. “Simoione, I had known Hawk Monsanto for long and he had never ever gave in to any woman before,”

“But he gave in to Feather,” Simione pressed.

​​

“Who knows what’s behind this Feather and Hawk’s love drama. It could be that their marriage is only for the sake of business. I heard M Conglomerate and Han’s Scintillait have some sort of business venture together,” Lucy answered, very suspicious about the whole affair.

“I heard they love each other,” Some little needles pricked into Simione’s heart when she said it and it unconsciously showed in her face. “Wasn’t Hawk Monsanto one of Feather’s major sponsors? He had been adoring her for years,”

“So what?” Lucy’s brow arched it. “Sisi, you know what, I don’t like how this conversation is going because to be honest, you are giving me some chills! Girl, you sounded like a woman in love with President Hawk,”

“Lucy, that’s impossible,” Simione fixed her face and with assurance added, “I’m not here for him. I’m here for Feather and I’m certainly not into Hawk Monsanto,”

“Well that’s good to hear,” Lucy was relieved. “Because Hawk Monsanto is not a good man to love,”

“I know,” Simione answered but her words lacked sincerity. For the first time in the last couple of months she was having some serious doubts of what she was doing and whether she should stop there or take risk and be burned. “But Lucy, why do you always say that?”

“Say what?”

“That Hawk Monsanto was not a good man to love,” She didn’t really give much attention to Lucy’s warning not until then and so she was curious what made Lucy say this.

“He is Hawk Monsanto Simione,” Lucy highlighted the name. “The name itself is dangerous, that’s all I can say,”

Simione upon hearing it didn’t ask anymore. She didn’t want to raise any suspicions on Lucy’s part and make her aware that something was bothering her inside. Besides, it’s only tonight that she had felt it so she was hoping it will all go away soon. Perhaps by morning, she’ll not even remember it at all.

****

The next morning, Feather had a pictorial for an elite magazine. Since she was planning to stay in the country for good, her manager Rose Feng thought it would be good for her to take part in the showbiz industry to keep her in the spotlight. 

Right then, Feather just walked into the studio where the photoshoot was held with Ami and the rest of her staff. When she appeared, she thought the whole ambiance was weird. The set up was nice and the preliminaries went on smoothly but everyone was acting a bit strange. She saw some staff  whispering amongst each other and some looked at her with unusual expressions. However, no one seemed to care to tell her what’s wrong, not even her own staff did.

“Ami is there something that I do not know?” Feather asked. She was in front of the mirror right now as her make up was being taken care off. She could feel everyone’s eyes on her as if she was carrying some sort of a weird tiara in her head.

“What do you mean Miss Han?” Ami asked. She herself didn’t know what’s going on and unlike Feather she didn’t notice any weird things running around. She had been busy looking up Feather’s business and schedule that day so she had not had enough time to get what’s going around.

“Maybe there’s nothing then,” Feather swooshed the thought off seeing how Ami had no idea about it. If there was something, Ami would surely tell her.

When she asked, only then did Ami realize that Feather’s mood wasn’t  that great and so to spare herself the burden of her random outrageous tantrum, she tried to lift her mood up.

“Miss, how do you like President Monsanto’s gift?” Ami intentionally opened up the thing to draw everyone’s ears in their conversation. Since she posted the pictures she had during that shopping free, Feather’s social accounts had been flooded by so many comments of envy. Netizens all praised Hawk Monsanto for being a very generous lover who never missed on spoiling their favorite ballerina.

As Ami expected, Feather’s mood did go from ‘meh’ to great. With sparkling eyes and smiles, she answered, “Oh Ami don’t you mention it. President was just being so generous as he had always been,”

Feather expected everyone to join in the conversation and compliment her, more so blabber jealousy statements like she had always heard from everyone ever since she got engaged to Hawk. 

Truth was although Feather was a well respected ballerina in the capital, her popularity was brought by her grandfather’s power and Hawk. Her grandfather had been discreetly paying off media companies to always feature her and had been sponsoring performances in London with fixed contract provisions of Feather being  the lead ballerina. This was the reason why Feather had been on many lead performances in Voltaire Ballet Company. Hawk too had contributed to her success as he had been secretly supporting her for years. 

However, because the ballet industry in London was a bit competitive, Feather struggled to get by in a foreign country. This was the  reason  why Feng Rose had been planning to make her go home and do ballet in the capital as she was already popular there. Besides, unlike in London, the ballet industry in this country wasn’t that strict and hard to infiltrate.

With this, while she was still working in Voltaire Ballet Company, Feather didn’t receive much approval especially with her fellow ballerinas. For them Feather was just lucky she had back up support but apart from that she’s just an ordinary ballerina like most them. And so Feather was always hungry for attention and appreciation. She craved it these days specially that since she got engaged with Hawk, she was always in everyone’s conversation with good feedback.

“O Miss I particularly like that necklace he gave you,” Ami added, trying to lengthen the conversation about the jewelry.  “You know what, I had my grandmother take a look at its picture and she said it was very very expensive. Oh Miss I’m very jealous! Gosh I cannot  contain my adoration for your soon to be husband. It was so obvious he was so in love with you!”

“Oh that necklace,” Feather tried to rummage her mind on what necklace Ami was talking about. She had brought so many necklaces during that shopping spree and she couldn’t figure out which one was it.

“Is the necklace you are talking about the Mariposa Verde?” Someone from the staff dared to ask and the question rang to Feather’s ears ever painfully. Damn! Out of all the jewelry Hawk brought her, that Mariposa Verde was seriously getting into her. If she wasn’t protecting her reputation then, she could have slapped the person who asked it immediately.

“I’m sorry Miss Han for interrupting,” The person who asked saw the angry expression that went onto Feather and so he apologized for it. “It’s just that it’s been a talk of the town how President Hawk almost made the Verde Jewelries Incorporated almost bankrupt because of it,”

“You fool! Of course it was the mariposa verde we are talking about!” When Ami heard the staff’s explanation, she suddenly saw the opportunity to brag a bit more. She didn’t really know the story behind the mariposa verde as Feather had not told her about it and that time, she had dismissed her early so she and President Hawk could have a date. However, with all the amount of jewelry Feather brought that day, she was sure one of them was the mariposa verde that everyone seemed to be fussing about.

“Is that really true?” Another staff member who was already too curious asked. Then she turned to Feather, questioning, “Did President Hawk really give the mariposa verde to you Miss Han?”

“Are you implying that Miss Han is lying?” Ami raised a brow at him as if threatening him for his audacity to question her boss. What’s with everyone today? They seemed to have grown some balls overnight that they went on questioning Hawk Monsanto’s future wife?

Feather too got so annoyed that she ended up shooting danger-like stares at that same person.

“No No Miss Ami,” The person waved his hands in front of them. “It’s just that there is an article going online about President Hawk giving the mariposa verde to…another woman…”

“Lies!” Feather couldn’t hold her anger with what she heard. Her anger rose to her brain in a way that she couldn’t say anything but just flushed a red burning face. 

“Impossible!” Ami dismissed such rumours immediately then went on chiding everyone. Seeing how enraged her boss was, she was planning to talk to the studio owner and request to have all those staff be fired right away. “How could you all believe such fake news and cast some filth on President Hawk’s devotion to Miss Han?”

“I’m sorry Miss Ami but I don’t think they were lies,” Many of the staff members already joined in the raging argument. 

“Enough!” Feather screamed on the top of her lungs to silence everyone. “I don’t know what you are all talking about but I won’t tolerate this nonsense conversation. Besides, I am Hawk’s fiancee. Would you rather believe the rumours than me?”