Bound By You

The large building structure of Lancaster Incorperated stood before me. It was a very intimidating sight and I almost felt like a person like me did not belong in a place like this, even though I was here as one of the cleaning staff. Still, it did not make me feel better, because I had never stepped foot in a place this classy before.

I watched as the people who worked here walked into the building, all of them in their very expensive suits, looking very clean and put together. Then there was me with my worn out tee-shirt and torn jeans and sneakers that have seen better days. A huge part of me wanted to walk away and just continue with my job at the bar, but this was a very good opportunity for me with higher pay. I would finally be able to pay my rent-my landlady, Mrs. Jones had been very kind to me and did not pressure me even though I owed her two months worth of rent, but I still felt guilty. I needed to pay her and I was going to, I just needed to let go of my anxiety and walk into the building and ask for a job.

I breathed in and out to shake off my nerves and then with as much confidence as I could muster, I walked into the building. The reception was even better than the exterior of the building. It was beautifully decorated and if I had been intimidated by the building, the inside of the building made me shrink.

I walked up to the receptionist, already feeling very self-conscious. The receptionist was a young woman, she looked like she was in her early thirties. Her hair was tied in a low bun and she wore a crisp, white shirt and a black pencil skirt, she did not notice my presence because she seemed to be engrossed by something on her computer.

"Hello." I said softly to get her attention.

She finally looked up from her laptop and acknowledged my presence, but not in a good way. She looked at me like she was trying to figure out what someone like me was doing in a place like this. She eyed me with a look of disdain on her face, which I should be used to getting from people by now, but it still always hurt all the same.

"How may I help you?" She asked rudely.

"I am here about the cleaning job." I explained to her, talking past the huge lump that I felt in my throat.

Her features finally relaxed, probably because my presence made more sense to her. "Oh, follow me." She said and got up from her chair and began to walk towards the elevator with me tailing behind her awkwardly. I might have been paranoid, but I could definitely feel people staring at me.

"Take the elevater to the sixth floor and talk to the lady in the office on the first door by your right. She will tell you what to do next." She said and then walked away before I could ask her any further question.

I took a deep breath and stepped into the elevator, hoping that I got the job and life would get a bit better for me.

***

HAYDEN

The day had only just began and I had already been pissed off close to a thousand times by my staff. Sometimes, I wondered if I was just very irritable or if everybody around me was just plain stupid.

I went through the documents that had been brought to me by my secretary, so many business proposals, deals and negotations that needed to be made. Everybody wanted to work with us at Lancaster Incorperated, but I only worked with the best which was why I always went through the documents by myself. I could not trust anybody else to not makse mistakes.

When it was thirty minutes to eleven, I grabbed my suitcase and walked out of my office for a meeting that I had by twelve. The moment I stepped out of my office, my annoying secretary, Diane, left her station and rushed over to me.

"Mr. Lancaster, do you need anything before we leave for the meeting?" She asked eagerly. That was what made her so annoying, she always did everything in her power to get my attention and it was disgusting. The only reason why I kept her around was because she was efficient and the process of looking for another secretary would just take too much time.

"No, I do not need anything. Plus, you are not coming with me, I can handle it on my own." I told her strongly.

I watched as her face fell, but I could not care less if her feelings were hurt, this was not a meeting that concerned her.

"Okay, sir." She nodded.

I stepped into the elevator and was about to press the button that would take me down to the ground floor when a small figure scurried into the elevator like a little hurricane.

"I am so sorry." She muttered when she mistakenly brushed my shoulders lightly, I had not gotten a good look at her face because her head was down as she looked into her bag for something. She must be new here because everybody knew that nobody entered the elevator at the same time that I did. I had never seen her here before and she certainly looked like she did not belong in a place like this.

"Excuse me." I told her strongly, causing her head to snap up and then I got a good look at her face and everything I wanted to tell her got stuck in my throat as I looked into her deep, green eyes. She was beautiful, unlike any woman I had ever laid eyes on. I had seen many good-looking women before, but none like her. There was something about her, she had a quiet grace about her that drew me in.

My breath hitched as I looked up to see the face of the man that I had just hit. The man was tall and commanding, and handsome in a way that I could not quite explain in words and from the way that everybody was looking at me like I had committed a major sin by being in the elevator with him.

A tall woman with long, blonde hair rushed over to the elevator with a cross look on her face, looking as though she wanted to pull my hairs out.

"You are not supposed to be-" She started to say, but he raise his hand up to cut her off.

"Allow her." He said and pressed the button to close the door. I saw the shock on the woman's face before the door finally closed shut. The man looked at me like he was trying to figure me out, his dark eyes roamed my body and I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. Standing next to him, I felt utterly insignificant and I wanted nothing more than for the ride to be over so I could step out of the elevator.

I swallowed hard as I tried to keep my composure, but I was too nervous. The man had barely said a word to me, and yet there was something about him that made me feel tensed. I could barely understand it, but it was hard to ignore.

I kept my hand clasped tightly in front of me to keep from fidgetting too much. I wanted to say something, but I was not exactly sure what I was supposed to say. I was not looking at him, but his silence was suffocating me. When I dared to look at him, I found him watching me. I could not read his expression-he didn't look angry or intrigued, his expression was indifferent. His cold, blue eyes swept over me in a way that made me feel more out of place than when the shallow receptionist had looked at me.

The ride felt like it lasted a lifetime. Finally, the elevator slowed to a stop on the ground floor and I found myself letting out a sigh of relief that it was over.

The doors finally opened and he stepped out before me, moving with a confident, predatory grace. He didn't acknowledge me, didn't give me any kind of indication that our brief encounter even mattered to him. Without a word, he just walked out, leaving me stunned for a few seconds before following him out.

When I walked out into the reception again, everybody was looking at me like I had lost my mind, just as the people on the top floor had done, making me wonder if there was something that I had done wrong. The receptionist who had been rude to me was now staring at me with a stunned expression on her face. She quickly recovered when the man walked by her.

"Good day, Mr. Lancaster." She muttered and he nodded in response.

I stopped walking as the realization and the gravity of the situation dawned on me. That was not just any man, that was Hayden Lancaster-CEO of Lancaster Inc., and my new boss. All of a sudden it made sense to me why everybody was staring at me. I quickly shook it off and continued to walk towards the exit, ignoring all the stares that I was getting.

Hayden was already way ahead of me and I was glad about it. I did not have time to think too much about the encounter with a man who would have probably even forgotten about my existence before the day was over. The only thing that mattered to me was that I had gotten the job at Lancaster. I decided to push all thought of him out of my mind. I needed to be home to get ready for my last day at the bar.

***

HAYDEN

I watched from my car as the girl walked out of the building with her head bent. There was something about her that caught my attention, something very different about her that pulled me to her. She was very different from what I was used to, the way she carried herself, not even the worn clothes she was wearing had dimmed her beauty. She had an air of humility about her.

Her eyes had been filled with uncertainty and I noticed that she had been trying her best the entire ride to keep herself composed. Women usually threw themselves at me, they were usually very predictable, but I looked at her and I could not tell what she thought about me. Maybe she was scared of me, maybe she was intrigued by me-I could not tell, and for some reason that grated on my nerves. I wanted to know everything that was going on in her mind.

I watched as she took a turn to the left and began to walk down the street. I started my car and followed her slowly, she was in her own little world, she still had not noticed that she was being followed. I did not even care that I was keeping a potential client waiting, all I cared about was knowing where she was going. The streets of London were a bit crowded, as it was a Monday and everybody was busy. I followed her to the dangerous part of town to a shabby looking apartment. I did not even have to wonder if the apartment belonged to her because she brought out her keys and put it in the locks. She jiggled it for sometime before she was finally able to get it open and she let herself in.

When I could not see her anymore, I leaned back in my chair, taking it all in. For some reason, I was angry about her living conditions when that had nothing to do with me. Why should I care about where she lived? As I finally drove away to my destination, I wondered what was it about a woman that I have just seen for the first time that has me so bent out of shape?

The thick smell of cigarettes hit me the moment that I walked into my apartment. I did not smoke and I did not drink either. I hated the smell of both, but the boys that lived next to me had a very huge appetite for it. My apartment was tiny, the wallpapers were peeling and my rotten mattress laid miserably on the floor, and the most annoying thing about the room was the fan that made noise as it spun, but I could not switch it off because the room was congested and hot.

I dropped my heavy bag on the floor, and I kicked off my sneakers and flopped onto the mattress. The encounter with Hayden Lancaster was playing over and over again in my head. The way his eyes searched mine as though he was trying to know what was going on in my mind, like he wanted to know all my secrets. There was something scary, yet thrilling about it.

I turned my face to the ceiling, wondering it my decision to work at Lancaster was the right one. I mean, it paid better than any other job I have ever had and I could survive on it for a very long time since I only had myself to take care of, but something about the place made me feel like there was danger lurking around in the shadows. I did not like the feeling I got from the place, but it was too late to back out. The job was the only way I had to having a more comfortable future than the one I had now.

I glanced at the note that I had put up on the wall-a note I had written to myself the night that my mother kicked me out of the house. "You are not trash, Cassie. You are worth it." I said it to myself everyday, but I still did not believe. How come my own mother did not want me? How had she believed a man that she had only known for three years over her own daughter.

I got off from my bed to get ready for work. One more night of sleezy drunks trying to touch me and then I would be free. I closed my eyes, deciding to get some rest before getting ready for work, but when I did, all I was met with were cold, icy eyes.

***

HAYDEN

I closed the door to my penthouse and threw my keys on the table. The sound of the locks engaging behind me were very comforting-it meant that I was now in my safe place where nobody could ever reach me.

The moment I sat down, hazel eyes popped into my mind again. The memory of her face and her eyes haunted me. There was something broken in her eyes. She was not weak, but there was something delicate about her, something that made me want to handle her with care. She did not look at me the way everybody else looked at me-with fear or with seduction, but rather, she looked at me with discomfort, like being in my presence made her nervous.

I poured myself a glass of scotch and walked over to the window that overlooked the city. The glass was cold beneath my fingertips as the beads of condensation slid down the glass. My reflection stared back at me in the window. I looked tired, probably from the countless sleepless nights. I could not remember the last time I had blissful rest.

I had a job to do the next night, somebody wanted somebody dead because they had become a liability to them. That was all this business was about-rich people who had people in their way and wanted to get rid of them and so they hired me.

I enjoyed the thrill of the kill, but I also enjoyed the mystery of nobody knowing about my life. It made me feel free in a way that I could not explain. Thinking of different ways to end a life... it was something that I lived for and with the life I lived, I could not afford any distractions, especially not the woman who had been on my mind for the whole day.

My phone buzzed and I pulled it out of my pocket to see a it was an encrypted message. "Client confirmed. Payment will be made immediately after the job is done to an offshore account."

I stared at the message for a while before I deleted it. Another life that would soon be taken. It has been over a decade and the thrill hasn't worn out. Being a killer was now a part of me.

I told myself that I did this because I had to keep Lancaster Inc. running and the money helped me pay my workers very well and live a very comfortable life, but deep down I knew the truth and that was I just liked the peace that came with taking a life.

A thought crossed my mind, taking me by surprise. How would the lady from today react if she knew about my past? Why I cared about what she thought about me was something I wasn't ready to understand. But I was watching her, it was only a matter of time before I would know everything about her.

***

CASSIDY

The bar was unusually full for a Monday night. A football match was on. A match between Liverpool and Manchester United that would soon cause a fight to break out before half-time. I wiped the counter for the fifth time in less than ten minutes. I was exhausted-my feet hurt and my back too, I just wanted this day to be over so I could get some rest.

I was halfway through my shift when the bar opened and a cold gust of air came into the bar. I knew it meant more customers, but I didn't look up to check who had come it. I was busy attending to my regulars, calculating how many hours I had left till I could leave this place forever and never look back. I was deep in thought when I heard a voice that I would recognize even in my sleep.

"You have the worst taste in hangout spots, Sheffield."

My head snapped up immediately and I saw Hayden Lancaster, and almost as though he could feel my presence, he looked in my direction and our eyes locked.