The Grand Mistress

All the colors in Feather's face evaporated in an instant.

"This….this isn't true….." Feather's panic breaks loose in ways that her sanity couldn't take. Immediately she grabbed Hawk's two arms and kneeled begging. "Hawk…this woman is a very vicious woman! You can't let her stay…Hawks she's going to ruin us both….she once ruined our family…she's a devil…."

Despite Feather's desperate loud pleas, Hawk's mind couldn't ignore what he had heard. With rather questioning hard eyes, he looked at Simione trying to understand all the revelations that successively hit his core. "Cousin? You two are cousins?"

"You seemed shocked President Hawk…" Simione this time sat with a calming grace on the table and even crossed legged in front of  her two surprised audience. "Didn't your fiance ever tell you about me?" She then dragged her eyes to Feather who was anxiously shaking her head, begging Simione to stop her mouth. "Ah..let me guess…perhaps she didn't want people to know there were two Han heiresses…."

"You are not a Han's heiress!!!…" Feather screamed at their faces, trying to stop Simione from revealing further. "You are not even a Han! How could you ever claim to be Han's heiress?...How shameless can you be, Simione? Don't tell me until now you are so jealous of me that you are trying to ruin my life! How far can your evilness go?"

"Just as far as evil you can be…" Simione smiled at her, very much liking the misery in her eyes and the fear. 

Fear? Is she really that fearful she turned out alive? Simione couldn't be sure but such reaction from the Han's heiress  didn't feel Feather—like. 

"Hawk…." Feather stood and held Hawk's face in both her hands. She was very desperate this time. She knew the more Simione would speak, the more her position would crumble. "Listen to me….this woman is nothing but a scam. She had been after me for many years accusing and scheming me of everything. Can't you see what she's doing? She clearly don't like you…she just came to ruin us so she can make my life miserable,"

Hawk just looked at Feather,  his expression unreadable but misery was gleaming in his gray eyes. Clearly what Feather said was true, it seemed that the woman she took and loved was after him not for love but for revenge. However, his feelings for Simione didn't grow overnight, it was a gradual cause. His love for her grew from every encounter they shared and in all those encounters, he didn't feel any lies or pretentiousness ahead. He knew there was something she wasn't telling him but he was certain that what she had shown him were all real. But, with Feather and Simione, who would he believe?

Would he believe the woman whom she spent twenty years chasing and loving or the woman who she only knew months ago and had been lying to him all this time? 

"Feather calm down," Hawk took the ballerina's hand and tried to pin her because her cries and begging only made his head hurt. With a deep sigh that he blew to control his raging anger, he turned to Simione again and demanded her explanation. "Sisi what's all this?"

"All of this is what you see Hawk Mosanto," Simione met him head on. In this situation, the girl did not expect him to side with her specially that it was she who lied on everything. She was expecting his fury, his violence, his resentment and all the dark things Hawk Monsanto was capable of doing. Henceforth, there was no point in lying to him anymore. "Your fiance isn't as innocent as you think she is and so I am here to collect some of her debts,"

"And you use me to get back at her?" Hawk's eyes and expression darkened even more. 

"Clearly," Simione didn't falter. He knew the love Hawk had for Feather wasn't an ordinary love and with her history with Lyndon, she had come to accept the fact that when it comes to men, she was nothing as close as lovable to Feather. Men always choose the ballerina. Feather always came out as the victim no matter how evil she was. So at this point, Simione didn't have any expectations of Hawk but rather the same thing he was treating her, expecting even the worst.

Hawk was enraged but his anger wasn't because of Simione or her pretentiousness, it was of the fact that he had never prepared for this. Also, he expected that her intention of coming to his life was because of his wealth and power but not for revenge, most especially not for the woman whom he wanted to care for all his life. Simione had captured his heart but he cannot let her bully Feather and make her miserable. He had already wronged Feather for not being faithful to her, he cannot let him suffer further. He was afterall his first love.

"How could you do this?" Everything that was revealed that night blurred all of Hawk's reasons momentarily and what struck his instinct was the anger that came  in. Not able to hold it off, he went grabbing Simione's neck and pinned her with its intensity, making the girl gasped for breath.

But Damn! Simione didn't succumb to it, she did not even withdraw her eyes but rather met him with the same anger and intensity he had.

They shoot daggers at each other and Hawk could only wish she would just give up her arrogance because clearly, he can't hurt her further than what he did right then. In fact, his hands were already shaking because he put all the force in his hand rather on Simione's pinned body and neck.

How could he have never expected this thing? Was he really that complacent? Or perhaps he had been too in love with Simione, too addicted to her that he missed all these facts? What's with this woman?

"You can kill me now Hawk Monsanto," Simione said in a way that was rather challenging him. Her eyes glowed so much satisfaction and amusement that made Hawk more miserable. How could she feel victorious at the point of death. Is her  revenge for Feather really more important than her life?

Perhaps he should kill her.

She had been nothing but a nuisance to him. She had been constantly in his mind haunting him every second that he couldn't focus on anything good.

For the past months that they had started their affair, Simione changed everything and made him break his own rule. She even made him a damned man, a man who foolishly threw off the love of his life in exchange for a woman who clearly gave him nothing but trouble.

Perhaps ending her life would make things go back to normal.

Would make him normal again. 

Would make him the man that he once was—the Hawk Monsanto who was in control. Cleary with her, he  had lost control of everything and made him a slave to all of her whims.

"What? Afraid to kill me?" Simione chukled like an evil woman even at the verge of death. "Oh God! Don't tell me you have seriously fallen in love with me, Hawk Monsanto? That's very unfortunate of you…"

Hawk didn't like her words and this made his anger rise beyond control making him grit his teeth, unmerciful. He was afterall a Monsanto and right then Simione was about to taste the consequences of hitting on one. She was to taste his fury!

Hawk was ready to kill her!

He pressed a hard grip on her neck, Simione struggled for her life!

But….

as Hawk's hand was about to dry out all the air in her lungs….

The man surprisingly and  unconsciously shed some tears…

Jolting both in surprise….

Why is Hawk crying?

The heat of running droplets in his eyes caught him off guard, he wasn't prepared to shed one in his way of killing an evil woman!

Even Simione was surprised seeing it, for a moment she was stunned. But an unexpected memory ricocheted and flashed in front of her eyes.

It was the memory Spin.

The memory of him twenty years ago, crying as he chased the car she was riding. It was the day she was to leave Somerset Village. The day where the boy cried at her departure and vowed that one day, he'll come for her and marry her so they won't get separated again.  The memory of him calling out her name again and again until he was lost of breath. 

The scene that flushed caused Simione to shed some tears in front of Hawk and her tears ran down in the man's hand that were on  her neck.

"Spin…." Simione gasped slowly. It was an unconscious call, something both she and Hawk did not expect and did not understand. 

Hearing the call made Hawk weak and his hands on Simione's neck felt the warmth of her tears. It was like a hot lava that creased on his skin.

His heart remembered her tears.

His unconsciousness recognized her.

His heart for the first time understood why then he felt in love with a woman who came out of nowhere.

It wasn't betrayal. It was loyalty, an unconscious loyalty.

Hawk's tears which he ignored went heavy. He had never cried in front of anyone but his heart was crying and mourning for their unfortunate reunion. He felt numb but alive. So alive.

As his heart beat fast, his mind came clear, running all the memories of his first encounter of Simione. The way her eyes felt familiar, the way she loved walking barefoot, her love for soup number four, her kind considerate selfless heart for beggars.

The way she danced gracefully in the fountain.

The way she made him feel like a man.

The way his world fell when he looked at her.

The way she made him fall in love.

It was her.

She was the love he had been searching for.