The Grand Mistress

Back to present day

"You sure knew nothing of the Han's," The scene played in Hawk's mind a couple of times that his dreams somewhere became a nightmare! He woke up panting and full of sweat as he rolled on his bed and sat at the corner, holding his head like he had a big headache. A month had passed since he started dreaming about Cat, his fuzzy Cat and it felt like there was something wrong with her. Was Feather still upset until then? 

God it had been a month since the incident in the fashion house took place and this was the last argument they had than he can recall. After that things went on smoothly and Feather had continually participated actively in other wedding preparations like the incident in the fashion house didn't happen. Just a week ago, they had the wedding pictures taken and some of it was leaked to the media. Right then, the couple were a hot topic again as people started sending them best wishes and congratulations about their upcoming nuptials.

So what's with these dreams? As far as he could tell, Feather and him had been okay. Was she secretly harboring any ill feelings with him and hence the reason for these nightmares?

Hawk took off his nightshirt and decided to leave the bed. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost three am in the morning. God! He barely had an hour of sleep. These nightmares sure kept him awake. He remembered it was just an hour ago he decided to sleep as he finished some office work and yet with his current state then, he didn't think he could sleep further. 

For how long has this been going on? It has been a month already. Distrubed and already upset by his lack of good sleep, he desperately went to a therapist and the latter told him, there must be something that his body was looking for and something inside him that had been suppressed and he knew what exactly it was. Speaking of something he was looking for, it wasn't really something, it was someone—it was Cat—his mystery woman as the girl seemed to have evaporated and that her existence had long ceased. She stopped appearing for a month  now and as much as he wanted to be okay with it and wanted to have his full devotion to Feather, his body and heart weren't cooperating. Perhaps this was the reason for his nightmares?

Hawk paced the dark space of his home until he reached the kitchen. He went immediately to the fridge, grabbed a bottle, uncapped and drank almost all its content. A minute later, he found himself staring through dark with all his frustrations out. Where could Cat be these days? Was she getting married too? He wondered by then if she was thinking of him as bad as he does—so bad that he was almost becoming crazy and restless over everything.

He wouldn't lie. He was just a human after all. In just a week of Cat not showing up, he had launched several people to find her—who she was, whose family she came from and where she lived. He had exhausted all possible resources he had and was even willing to spend more but his search proved fruitless. He had never since become frustrated about his men and connections as they had proven competent for several years while working for him, but not this one. It turned out Cat somehow wasn't an ordinary person. She had no trace, her moves were all clean and most of all, she was extremely hard to track. He almost believed someone was helping her out, could it be his enemies? Was she somehow planted by them?

What Hawk didn't know was that Simione's real identity was somehow complicated from the beginning. She was someone that had intendedly been hidden from everyone, even before she came out of this world. Her origins were hidden and had been intentionally left untraceable to protect someone else's good standing and reputation. When she grew up and became hard to suppress, people exerted more effort on hiding her and that made her  feel like she was a mistake that should have not happened, hence, she loathed the identity she was born into.

So, when she left the good graces of the family she belonged to, she took another identity with the help of Lucy and it was Lucy who had been protecting her against Hawk. Although Hawk was more powerful than Lucy, because of Simione's complicated past, she was able to hide well Simione's identity together with all the privileges she had with all her backing. Besides, she had trained Simione for months on how to avoid all the security cameras and to avoid everyone's attention like a pro thief.

Of course, the tres marias was very aware of the danger of the Feather Project and so they prepared for it well. Now that Simione abandoned it, they were able to escape Hawk's grip. Also, since Hawk was a little torn between Feather and Simione he had somehow his doubts and apprehensions that made him unable to personally looked into Simione's identity because although his men were not reliable these days, he can still do something about it.His money surely can find out all secrets kept hidden.  However he was afraid of what he would find, so he didn't push over the search well. 

Cat then, whom he knew had given up on him was somehow his comfort on all his complicated days specially the when things seemed not right. Her memory was an ease in his heart and so he was afraid that if he went deep into her identity, he might find some sickening truths. What if she was sent by his enemies? What if she came to steal something and what if she was a spy? Would he be able to accept the fact that the girl had no real deal with him and was just after his ruin? For him, Cat and him had a special connection and now that she was gone, he wanted to keep that good memory of her in his heart like it was a beautiful dream. Perhaps he can live with that.

An hour had passed and the sun was finally rising. Hawk could already see the flicker of orange bright, seemingly rising over the vast dark canvass. It was also then that he realized a night had passed again on him without sleep and although he wanted to go back to bed and attempt to calm his mind, he knew it would all be useless. His remedy then was to go to M Conglomerate and bore himself out with meetings and paperworks. By that, his mind could somehow forget all the frustrations and needs he can do nothing about.

Hawk then decided to go to the shower and start preparing for work. He paced his condominium again that was located in one of the luxurious and high buildings in the center of the City—Reign Skyline. This was his alternate home when he was too busy and too occupied to go home to the chateau. 

As he was about to step into his huge bathroom, he somehow caught an invitation card around the corner. It was something that Lucas had sent him previously and although he didn't usually give some social activities much of a focus, this, he picked with much interest. It was an invitation for a hotel opening and one of their highlights was a closed vip concert of Lucilla Dimitri. The singer had always been used for promotions and since she was very in demand in the upper class, some big companies and ventures sponsored concerts for her and sent out invitations to high esteemed powerful personalities in the city—that includes him of course. 

Truth was he was not up for any social activities then but attending a concert would not be that bad. Afterall, he was having a hard time sleeping these days. Perhaps the country's nightingale can sing a lullaby that can lure him to snooze even for a bit. Interested, he picked up the invitation and caressed the black card that had been accessorized by a gold ribbon. It was beautiful and definitely speaks so much of the singer. 

"Perhaps I should go and invite Feather," He thought and planned to ring Lucas and instruct him to inform his fiancee. Right then with all his mishaps, he thought his nightmares were  his karma for making Feather upset. After the fashion house incident though and the nightmares started appearing, he had tried so much to treat her well and spoiled her hoping to appease her and eliminate all his nightmares. 

However, it seemed like none was working and that perhaps Feather was  hiding some resentments for him. He can't blame her though, he had sure messed up and ruined not only her trust but also his confidence in his love for her because right then, even when Cat stopped showing up, he had never once found Feather in the same light he had seen her before. The most frustrating thing about it was, every time his fiancée showed  up, all he could think about was his mistress who probably had forgotten about him right then.