Chapter Text
Aiah Arceta took a slow sip of her white wine and narrowed her eyes against the glare of the brilliant sun reflecting off the sea. She savoured the flavour of the cool, crisp, and slightly fruity tones of the alcohol and reached for a plump ripe strawberry, smiling a little as the juice dribbled down her fingers, the taste both tart and sweet on her tongue, complementing the wine. She was sitting on the deck of her brother’s yacht, listening to the sound of waves gently lapping against the side of the hull. Leaning back against her lounger, Aiah closed her eyes and listened to the distant sound of birds calling out to each other, the gentle roll and sway of the vessel almost lulling her to sleep. This decadent lifestyle was something else, she thought to herself, her shoulders twitching slightly as she tried to make herself more comfortable. There were no distractions, no city traffic humming in the background, no one braying for her attention or a signature or anything else. The fact was that, for once, she wasn’t being ferried to a meeting or taking her jet to consult with a trade secretary or CEO, no watching the numbers like a hawk. No nothing. All that was required of her was to sit back and enjoy the sun. It was peaceful here, soothing and quiet. She imagined that heaven felt like this.
This is heaven, she re-affirmed, taking another sip of the wine, shifting again.
Aiah paused in her mindless mental ramblings and snapped her eyes open.
“Boang,” she murmured definitively to herself.
I am in fucking hell.
“I thought we agreed. No laptops and no phones or any other technology” Bryan wagged his finger at her younger sister, watching as the woman, supposedly on vacation, swipe through her messages.
“You know full well that I didn’t agree to squat” Aiah replied, not bothering to look up, having finally succumbed to her boredom and dug out her laptop. At least she could keep her mind occupied, even if she was stuck in the same place for the next 10 days. She loved her brother and she enjoyed the company of Bryan and his wife but doing nothing else but swim, eat and chat would drive her very quickly very mad.
“Iah, you could at least pretend to be having a good time.” Bryan sighed and perched herself on the lounger beside Aiah.
“I know this isn’t really your type of deal, but you really have to slow down a little, give yourself a break” He paused watching as Aiah’s fingers sped across the keyboard, a small frown marring her beautiful brow. “Are you even listening to me, Iah?
“Nope.” Aiah blithely replied, finally tossing her laptop to one side and smiling at her brother. She lay back down and looked over at Bryan, grinning at his expression.
“Don’t frown like that, you’ll give yourself wrinkles and ruin your career in 3 easy moves.”
Her grin widened as Bryan stuck his tongue out at her.
“My career is not based solely on my looks,” he proclaimed, his tone haughty and his nose stuck high in the air.
At Aiah’s snort of laughter, he turned away and arranged himself decorously on his lounger, clearly taking the higher, more mature ground. He kind of ruined the effect by flipping his sister the finger.
After a few minutes, he sighed.
“I’m not kidding, Iah. I worry about you; you’ve not had a break of any sort in any years. You can’t keep going at this pace, you’ll drop dead of a heart attack before you’re 30 and then I’ll have to deal with Mama and Papa on my own and if that happens, I’ll really kill you.”
Aiah raised an eyebrow and looked over at her brother, chewing on her lip for a second while she composed a response in her head. She reached for her laptop and started playing with the apps, avoiding Bryan’s searching eyes.
“You deal with them pretty fine all own your own now, Kuya. Should I drop dead, as you eloquently put it, anytime soon, it’ll hardly make any difference to current proceedings.”
“Okay, but there’s always the understanding that this thing ...this feud or whatever that you all have got going on, will at some point come to an end.”
“Kuya, there’s no feud going on, they both told me that I was going to hell. Not really much I can say to that.”
Aiah’s response was casual but Bryan knew his sister and knew the indifferent answer hid a wealth of pain.
“Aiah they’re our parents, they’re stuck in their ways, they’re old.”
Aiah sat up straight, trying to quell the anger that started to course through her at his brother’s words.
“Kuya, do not start making excuses for them. They are both educated and supposedly enlightened. I know it was hard for them, it was a shock, I get it, but they turned away from me first. They said that I had no place in the family just cause I like girls too. They took away their love and now I just don’t care.”
“Aiah.” Bryan’s voice was full of sadness.
Aiah shook her head, her face determined.
“Kuya, I love that you’ve brought me here and I love that we’re spending time together but you and I both know we can only last in each other’s company for about 10 days before we start to go bat shit at each other, I really don’t want to start early by arguing over mama and papa. Okay? I love you. I still love them in some shape, I guess, but they threw me away and I’ve no reason to go back.”
Bryan sighed but knew her sister enough to leave well alone.
After a minute or two he looked over at Aiah, who was, once again playing with her laptop.
“Seriously, can’t you leave work alone for a day?”
“No, not really. And you’re one to talk. You’ve just come off one set and you’ve got 2 weeks of promo work before heading off to.. Where is it? Thailand? For your next film. You’re as much of a workaholic as I am, Kuya.” Aiah finished her email as she spoke and decided to take a quick look at the share prices in Europe.
Bryan opened his mouth to refute Aiah’s claims but closed it again, recognisign the truth. Damn, He hated it when Aiah won an argument. The sound of bare feet slapping noisily up the steps from the galley below brought a smile to his face as his winning reposte revealed itself in the form of his wife.
“But, at least I have personal life, someone special to come home to.” He smiled sweetly as Megan as she handed a chilled bottle of water.
“I just spoke to one of my friends, they say Cosmopolitan has you and Piolo Pascual on the front cover. They’re claiming that you two are long lost twins. How cool is that?” She finished excitedly and plunked down next to Aiah, offering her a bottle as well.
Aiah grinned at her comment straight off the back of Bryan’s reminder that she had no one in her life.
“This guy.. Really?” She pulled a comic face and then laughed out loud as Bryan leaned forward and cuffed Megan about the head.
“Hey, what did I do?” She complained, looking between two siblings. It wasn’t unusual for her to be the goat in the middle of their various arguments and but she had learnt the hard way never to get involved. If they were having a serious fight, he simply helped keep them tearing the hell out of each other and it was a lighthearted one, like now, she grinned and played along. She had been worried about how Aiah would receive her. They complemented each other wonderfully. Through her law firm that had handled some work for Aiah, she had found out that Aiah Arceta had a reputation for being implacable, hard and uncompromising, and she had been worried that she would think she wasn’t good enough for her kuya. She was pretty sure that Aiah had arranged for someone to discreetly look into her affairs, but that hadn’t bothered her; she had no skeletons in her closet and ran an honest legal consultancy firm. Though to start she had been little reserved, Aiah had always been charming and now, she felt like they were a family.
“Notwithstanding the fact that my wife is a start struck air-head, c’mon, Aiah surely you must want someone in your life. It’s been years since Mikhaela”
“I thought your ex was called Mikha?” Megan shifted over to her husband’s lounger and stretched out.
Aiah gave Bryan a sarcastic smile. “She was. Kuya is displaying his wit.”
“What are you going to do when you leave here, Aiah?” Megan asked the question for Bryan.
“Going back to work, of course. What else would I do?”
“Yes but where? Are you going back to Manila? You’ve been on the road for nearly 2 years, aren’t you getting tired of this project?” Bryan pipped up.
“The problem with society today is that it seems almost everyone wants to live in the world of reality TV. Aiah said, apropos of nothing. She put her phone down and flopped back on the lounger, enjoying the warm sun of the Saipan coast.
“Sometimes, even sensible, hardworking people only want their 5 minutes of fame. You’d think that when someone comes into their lives and says hey, I’ve got almost unlimited resources, and all my expertise is at your disposal for 3 months to help get your business off the ground, that they’d take it seriously.” She blew air out her lungs in exasperation, thinking back on the last 18 months. “But no, I had to deal with them asking when the camera crew was showing up or looking out for the secret filming.’ She shook her head, half in disbelief, half in amusement. “I had this one guy in Davao, he had a really sound idea but needed to get his ducks in a row. He re-mortgaged his house and his business to raise cash so he could get an entertainment lawyer flown out from Manila for a day to sit with me and work out the film and TV rights.” She shook her head at the gasps of shock from her companions. “I know, right? I couldn't believe it either. This twit jeopardized his family home, his life simply because he was convinced that he was going to be a big TV star.”
“OMG, what did you do?” Bryan was aghast and agog.
Aiah flashed her a look, and it made him shiver for a second. It reminded him that Aiah had worked on stock Debbieets for years and had built her fortune single-handedly, even before the rift with their parents.
“You don’t want to know.” Her voice was cold. But for only a second, within a blink of an eye, her expression changed and flashing an equally stunning smile she said, “What really killed it for me was when he asked if I knew PBB. There really was no going back from that.”
After the laughter had died down Aiah sensed that Bryan still had probing to do. He toyed with the idea of going below deck for a nap before dinner or taking a quick swim, anything to forestall her determined sister.
“Megan, do me a favour darling, go get some fresh strawberries, these ones are a little warm.”
Megan raised an eyebrow at the request but had grown to understand Bryan pretty well and realized that she wanted some privacy with her sister.
Aiah realized the same thing and swore to herself at being beaten to the punch.
“So Piolo Pascual and you on the cover of Cosmopolitan, huh? It’s only a matter of time before he starts auditioning for some of your roles.”
She knew it was a bit of a low blow, but she really didn’t want to have this conversation, whatever it was, with her brother.
“Piolo Pascual is a handsome and talented actor, we are casual with each other and tehre are plenty of roles for the pair or us.” Bryan trotted out his patented, gracious response to tabloid press queries about the supposed rivalry between them. He then leaned forward and pinched Aiah hard on the thigh.
“Ow.”
“Serves you right. That crack about Piolo was really mean, Aiah, you know how I feel about him.”
“I would have been more sorry if hadn't just left me black and blue,” Aiah complained, rubbing her thigh.
“Whatever, just listen to me. Just for a minute. Without arguing or interrupting,” he added as Aiah opened her mouth.
“I’m not trying to upset you, okay? I just want to know when you’re going to stop, Aiah. When are you going to stop running away?” Bryan's voice was gentle and full of the love and concern he had for her younger sister.
Aiah licked her lips, feeling her heart start to race. This conversation made her uncomfortable. She had no qualms about lying, not to anyone, but she knew her kuya could pretty much see right through her.
“I’m not running away from anyone, I’m just a little bored with the day to day. This 2 year thing is just a new challenge, that’s all.”
“Maybe you’re not running away from anyone, but you’re sure as hell as not standing still for anyone either. How can you meet anyone or form any kind of normal relationship when you won’t stay in one place for more than 5 minutes? You’re so scared of committing to anything that you’ve refused to let yourself just be.”
“It’s not that and besides I committed myself to Mikha,” Aiah said, a tad defensively. “You remember how well that turned out right?”
“Of course I remember. I know she hurt you badly but Aiah, not everyone is going to rip your heart out.”
“How do you know that? How can you possibly tell who will take your heart, carve it out of your chest and stomp all over it? Tell me?" Aiah burst out, the hurt flashing monetarily in her eyes.
“Aiah, I don’t know, but you’ll never find out if you don’t quit running.”
Bryan looked at her younger sister and sighed, Aiah wore an expression that could barely remember seeing on her face. She looked vulnerable and it broke his heart.
“You have to stand still, somewhere. Anywhere. Just stay and be who you are.”
Aiah pursed her lips but said nothing.
She gave her kuya a pointed look.
“You’re my sister and I love you, you just seemed a little tense” Bryan shrugged. “I don’t mean to make you feel bad, I .. I just want you to be happy.”
“I’m...” Aiah paused for a moment then elected to be truthful. “I’m not unhappy. Honestly, I’m not.”
The siblings shared a smile and understood all the things that weren’t being said.
—--
Dr. Stacey Sevilleja clasped her hands together and placed them on her lap under the mahogany desk. It meant that their violent tremble wasn’t witnessed by the enthusiastic young man who was perched on the edge of his seat across from her.
“I’m sorry, Shaun, I’m not sure I quite understand. Run it by me again, would you?” She could hear her voice, over the crashing roar of blood pounding through her; it sounded reDebbieably calm, a little stilted perhaps, but it didn’t betray her emotions. That was good. Not that he would notice. Shaun launched into his explanation again, almost tripping over his words in his excitement, but she tuned him out, belying her need for clarification. Stacey tilted her head slightly and stared at her business manager. Shaun Delos Reyes was knowledgeable and ambitious, which was why she hired him. He had a background in biomedics and he showed initiative, something she thought would be an asset.
“I know, this is a bit of a surprise for you, but I went out on a limb and gave Pio Castillo a call. I was up at UP with his son.. It's just too good an opportunity to pass up, especially seeing as he’s only in town for a few days.” He pushed his hand through his slightly long black hair and flashed a grin at her.
“I drew up an information pack and some ideas and we had a brief meeting. I could tell how impressed he was with our setup.. With what you’ve done, Stacey.” Shaun finally drew breath and leaned back in his chair, Stacey looked slightly stunned, though it was sometimes hard to tell with her; invariably polite and friendly, she was also incredibly reserved. After nearly two years of working with her, he often couldn’t tell what was going on behind her crystal dark brown gaze. Like right now, she should be jumping up and down in excitement at the prospect of potential investment from one of the nation's biggest pharmaceutical companies instead she was peering at him with a gaze that was beginning to feel quite cold. Perhaps he hadn’t made himself clear.
“Pio Castillo Jr wants to meet you, Stacey. I’m sure he’s looking to invest..”
“You gave someone outside of this company an information pack?” Stacey interrupted him, her voice still calm, measured. “What was in this information pack?”
“It was just standard stuff, you know, AGM stuff, that kind of bumph.” Shaun smiled gently at her; she could be a little skittish about sharing information, but he knew that this was an exception she’d definitely get on board with.
Stacey was suddenly glad that she had skipped breakfast. It was a dead cert that, had she anything in her stomach other than coffee, she would have hurled chunks across her nicely polished mahogany desk. As it was she swallowed down a deep breath, hoping against hope that her worst fears weren’t about to be realised. She held herself very, very still and gripped her hands even tighter together.
“Pio Castillo Jr wants to meet me and possibly invest in us based on AGM stuff, really?” She pressed for a more accurate version of events.
“Well, of course, I did have to show a bit of ankle, something to whet his appetite but nothing too…”
“What did you give him?” Stacey’s tone finally caught his attention where her stillness had not. He flushed at the clear censure in her question.
“I promise you, Stacey, it’s fine. I know him, I was at college with his son and besides, this is exactly what you want…”
“What did you give him?” Stacey repeated her question, her voice low but very clear and very cold. Shaun clocked that he might not be getting employee of the year award just yet.
He opened his mouth and was surprised to find that words wouldn’t come out. There was something about how his boss held herself so very still that made all “5’1” of him more than a little scared for his safety. She actually looked like she wanted to hurt him. Badly. There was something in her eyes.
Shaun swallowed and calmed himself down, he could handle this, she was just a slightly over-strung scientist. They were all prima donna’s when you came down to it, no different from any other dive. He leaned forward again and took the reins.
“Stacey, you need to calm down and listen to me. I’ve brought you exactly what you needed; a serious investor. Someone who understands your work and sees the potential. That's what you ask me for and that is exactly what I delivered.” He nodded firmly, confidently.
“What I asked you to do was to draw up a list of companies that were developing similar biotechnology. What I didn’t ask you to do was take 5 years of my work and hand it over to a competitor on a silver platter.” Her tone, still mild, was at odds with the harshness of her words. Shaun flushed again, this time in anger.
“Don’t be melodramatic, I simply took a small sample for demonstration purposes. He’ll have its basic uses verified by his labs and then we will meet to discuss terms.”
Stacey felt her heart sink at his words. It was actually worse than she imagined.
“You actually gave him a sample? You gave it to him?” She could barely hold it together and shook her head in disbelief, standing and striding rapidly across her office, trying to release the tension that was coiling throughout her body.
“Exlpain to me what’s to stop him replicating the formula and simply producing it on his own? He could patent it and call it something new and I spent the next 15 years in litigation trying to get my invention back.”
Shaun sighed. This again. He was actually slightly relieved.
“Stacey, we can trust Pio Castillo, he’s nothing like Dani…”
Stacey spun around to face him, her eyes flashing like streaks of lightning, her face flushed with colour. Shaun felt the apprehension come back. It was a little irrational, he knew. She wasn’t violent, at least he didn’t think she was. He’d never even heard her raise her voice, but there was a strange air of menace about her right now that he couldn’t ignore. Stacey stared at him for half a second and then went back to her seat.
“Well, Shaun, I wish I could say that it’s been a pleasure but your actions leave me both astounded at your stupidity and furious at your disloyalty. You’re fired, you’ll get a month’s pay. Get your things and be out of the office by noon. Leave your keys to the lab with MQ.” Her voice was quiet, dispassionate, she barely glanced in his direction, flipping open her laptop.
Shaun wasn’t quite expecting that. His mouth opened and closed a few times as he once again struggled to find words.
“If you’re about to tell me that I can’t fire you for this, I’m sorry but yest I can. On your way out you can ask MQ for a copy of your contract. There’s a very clear section on confidentiality, which you have just broken every which way from here to eternity. Be thankful that, right now, I don’t have the time to sue you for breach of contract.” Stacey finally looked up at the bemused Shaun and felt the fight and anger drained out of her. She almost wanted to weep but wouldn’t let him see that.
“You’ve probably just set me back a few months, Shuan but someone has to clean up your mess, so I really would like you to leave now.” Her words were calm and steady but she wondered if he could hear the bravado as well.
Shaun thought briefly about trying to argue his point but looking into the clear eyes, he could see, faintly lurking in the background, in the brown depths, her desire to wrap her hands around his throat and choke him slowly to death. He left quietly.
Stacey stood up quickly and then sat back down. She looked at her hands only mildly surprised that they weren’t shaking. She expected to feel sick to her stomach at what had happened, at what might be yet another nail in her coffin but he didn’t. She leaned back in her chair and pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. There was a faint throb behind her eyes, heralding an impending headache. The door to her office burst open, as she knew it soon would and the bustling whirlwind that was her office manager practically fell in.
“Do you want to tell me why Mr. Castro is packing up his office? He asked for a copy of his contract and I thought he was going to cry. What did you do, Stacey?”
Stacey looked up at MQ Mallari and wondered if she was going to have a fight on her hands. Even though MQ thought that Shaun was little more than an overgrown school boy and had little patience for his vanity and posturing, she knew as well as Stacey did that they needed someone to run the business side of things. Letting him go right now might be a death knell for them.
“I had to let him go, MQ. It wasn’t working out.” Stacey instinctively came out with the lie. She didn’t want to let MQ know how bad things were.
“Nonsense. Tell me what really happened?” MQ folded her arms across her thin, narrow chest and actually tapped a foot. With her wiry black and white hair and her glasses perched on the ended of her nose, the small, thin woman always reminded Stacey of an intellectual owl and an involuntary smile came to her face for all of half a second. She toyed with trying to brush off the question again.
“You need to get back to classes in half and hour, Stacey and I don’t have all day. WE both know that Mr Fancypants was well below the bar for what we needed but he was useful in his own way and he was all we could afford. After all that’s happened here, it not working out really isn’t an option for us. What did he do?” MQ unfolded her arms and pointed a bony finger at Stacey as her employer and friend opened her mouth to speak.
“And don’t even think about lying to me, young lady.”
Stacey sighed and ran both her hands through her hair, ruffling the long dark brown strands. The incongruously named woman had been with her ever since she took up her tenure at USC, first as her secretary and stayed with her as her PA when she left the world of academia and forayed into the cut throat depths of private industry. MQ knew her, inside and out. She had invested as much of her time and effort into this company as Stacey had, she stuck with her through thick and thin and even deferred her retirement just to support Stacey. The tall one tried to force a smile to her face realising, at MQ’s frown, that her attempt at looking half way composed must have fallen pretty far short of the Debbie. Stacey loved and trusted MQ, the woman deserved the truth.
“Shaun just told me about his meeting with Pio Castillo.”
At MQ’s raised eyebrow, Stacey elaborated. “Pio Castillo Jr is the current CEO of a major pharmaceutical conglomerate. Shaun thought he could persuade him to come on board as an investor.” Stacey spoke quietly, watching MQ’s face.
The woman squinted for a second, taking the words in as a frown slowly formed adding to the wrinkles on her forehead.
“I didn’t book any meetings for Shaun with .. with anyone, let alone a CEO. Why didn’t you tell me about this? And shouldn’t you have been at this meeting?” MQ sounded a little aggrieved, she fully expected to be kept informed about everything that went on.
“That would be because I didn’t know about it, MQ, he didn’t tell me about it until just now.” Stacey watched as the woman’s shoulders dropped as the realisation sank in.
“Why.. why would he go behind your back? Why would he do something.. that stupid?”
Stacey shrugged.
“I don’t know.. to impress me or curry favour with Castillo? Who the hell knows?”
“Well it’s done now. Mr. Castro will be out of your hair soon and I’ll start searching for a replacement. We’ll manage, Stacey, we’ll beat this. We did before and we will again.” MQ nodded firmly, all business. She could see that Stacey, for all her calm, was close to breaking point. She didn’t need yet another spanner in the works after all that had happened nearly 4 years ago. It had taken so much time and effort to get back to an even keel and the very last thing they needed was another rotten apple.
“He gave them a sample of the compound, MQ. They have a sample.” Stacey added quietly.
“What?” MQ’s voice was very faint.
She drew in a short harsh breath and held it for a second before walking towards the desk and very carefully sitting down in the chair recently vacated by Shaun. After a moment or two she spoke again, her voice almost back to full strength.
“I’ll get in touch with a reputable law firm, get them to draft a letter to this Pio Castillo and his company to state our IP and patent rights, threaten action et cetera. I’m not sure we can actually afford to sue Mr. Castro right now but I’ll discuss it with whomever I commission. We can start proceedings now and hold off until cash flow improves.” MQ went straight into battle mode. She knew the drill.
Stacey watched as MQ used a finger to push her glasses up her nose and could see that the older woman was trembling. A rush of guilt and sorrow and protectiveness surged within her at the woman’s distress.
“MQ, you’re absolutely right; we’ve weathered worse storms than this and come out on the other side. It’ll be fine. A month or two and we’ll be right back on track.” She said the words brightly, sitting up straight in her chair and injecting optimism into her voice and smile to her face, her chinita eyes appearing. MQ offered a dour grimace of a smile in return.
Neither woman believed in Stacey’s words.