CHAPTER 9: HAY-NOUS DEEDS

“Boy, that woman sure is spunky. Who would have thought?” Nick chuckled as soon as the girls left the station after Jessica had posted bail for Flora.

Louis just grinned and shook his head. “Wait till Bowie hears about this...”

“I don’t believe this!” Flora yelled as she stormed out. “The nerve of that guy!”

Jessica was right at her heels, chasing after her fuming friend. “Hey, calm down.”

Flora stopped in her tracks. “Calm down?! Easy for you to say. You weren’t the one who was arrested!” she screamed.

Jessica broke out in laughter. Flora stood there and stared at her friend in wide eye disbelief. “You’re laughing?!” she exclaimed. “You think it’s funny your friend’s a criminal?!”

“C’mon,” Jessica giggled. “You’ve got to admit it’s pretty funny. I mean...it’s not often that you hear of the woman being the perpetrator. It’s always the other way around.”

“You’re some friend, Jessica Lee.” Flora remarked sarcastically.

“Okay, okay. I know it wasn’t very nice of him to do this to you nevertheless. Maybe we should go talk to him...” Jessica trailed off.

“I am not going to talk to him. Hrmph...there are other things I would like to do to him but talk is definitely not one of them. “ Flora said viciously.

“Hey,” Jessica looked at her friend worriedly. “Don’t do anything stupid, all right?”

Flora snorted like a bull about to charge at the matador. “Why? I’m already a criminal. How much more worse can it get?! When I’m through, he’ll NEVER work in this town again!” she declared with a certain malice in her voice and a glint in her eyes.

“What the hell were you thinking of?” Hayden screamed at the guy sitting opposite him.

“Look...” the guy answered.

“No. You look,” Hayden cut him off. “What am I going to do? I’m not going to have a job now.”

“So? There are plenty other modeling and talent agencies around. Sign up with another one,” the guy shrugged, not understanding why he was making such a big deal out of this.

Hayden sighed. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. She happens to own one of the leading modeling and talent agencies in town. Do you know what sort of influence she has over the industry? You’ve just ruin my career, thank you.”

“Hey, you were the one who told me what she did to you. As far as I’m concerned and as far as the law is concerned, what she did constitutes sexual harassment,” his friend tried to reason with him.

Hayden shook his head. “I’m going to drop the charges.”

“What?!” his friend exclaimed incredulously. “You can’t do that!”

“I can and I’m going to,” Hayden said. “It’s damage control time and I don’t care what you say, Steven.”

Steven sighed and rested his hand on Hayden’s. “Okay, I won’t force it. We’ll drop the charges. You do what you think is right.”

“Miss Lau, Miss Lau, what do you think of the charges that were brought against you? Why were they suddenly dropped? Did you really sexually harrass your employee?” the horde of reporters yelled, chasing after Flora and Jessica as they emerged from the police station.

Jessica shielding Flora from the unwanted attention, mumbled a ‘no comment’, and quickly pushed their way through the mob and into a waiting car.

“Go,” Jess told the driver.

Ed slammed on the accelerator and pulled away, leaving a group of frustrated journalists behind in a dust of smoke. “Where to, Jess?” he asked.

“Office,” Flora replied instead.

Jess looked at her friend. “You sure? There’s probably going to be more reporters there.”

Flora nodded. “I can’t hide the whole time. And anyway, I’m no longer a criminal,” she grinned.

“Huh...yea, I can’t believe he dropped the charges. You sure you didn’t go talk to him?” Jessica questioned.

“I told you. Talk was the furthest thing from my mind.”

Jessica cocked her eyebrow at Flora.

Flora sighed. “No...I didn’t do anything, okay?”

“Okieee...whatever you say...” Jess chuckled.

Sure enough, there was another pack of reporters waiting outside the building where Jess and Flora worked.

“I think we should take the service lift,” Ed remarked.

“Good idea,” Jess said and Ed beamed at her compliment.

They got up to their office without any trouble. It was a good thing building security kept the reporters out of the building or they would have been outside the girls’ office too.

Annie saw them enter and looked at Flora expectantly.

“Everything’s all right now, Annie,” Flora told her.

“Erm...” Annie hesitated as she glanced towards the waiting room.

“Oh? Someone’s here?” Flora asked as she walked into the room. Jessica too followed out of curiousity.

Flora froze at the sight of him. She stared at him coldly before walking back out without battering as much as an eyelid. Jessica glared at him with hostility.

“What the hell are you doing here?”