The Dark Secret of the CEO by Sofia de Orellana

Chapter 18

Cecily seriously overestimates me if she thinks I can simply get back up just like that. It takes me an extra few minutes to recover the sensations in my legs, and a couple more to actually be able to get up. At least, I’ve made a few furry friends, as the cats that are done eating are all surrounding me asking for pets. The black one in my hand is purring, and rubbing himself against my palm to ask for more. I love cats, and I can’t help but to give in. Plus, the gentle softness of their fur definitely helps me calm down some more. They seem used to hum- I mean, vampires. Does Beatrix always feed them? …Can I keep this one? I wonder what’s the house policy on pets… I should ask Cata later. For now, I have to give up the fluff therapy and get back inside. I’m sweating, my butt and hands are wet from the grass, and my face is an awful mess… Luckily, Swithin still doesn’t care. He’s still deep into his laptop, and I wonder if the red shades are meant to protect his eyes from the blue light or something. …Do vampires have vision issues? I’d bet not.

I make a stop by the kitchen to wash my hands, and Richard is gone, while Cata is busy on… the tablet? She visibly borrowed Swithin’s, and is making an order of some sort. Groceries, perhaps? Where does all that food go, anyway?

I don’t ask, and simply walk back into the corridor and up the stairs, to where I estimate Cecily’s room to be. I can’t help but look around, nervous to cross paths with Beatrix again, but she’s gone… She’s silent as a shadow. I do hear Bart playing video games somewhere upstairs, though, and John and Juliet are talking to each other, but they are whispering very softly, and I don’t dare to eavesdrop. The rest of the house is silent. I guess most of the others are still downtown, and will come back before dawn. I climb another row of stairs, Cecily’s room is on the third… no, second floor by English standards. Damn, even that I have to be careful. It’s the kind of stupid mistake that could betray me.

I softly knock.

“Come in, Baby Vamp!”

I walk in. Her room is quite big compared to the others I’ve seen, I wonder how come… She’s got every bit of it used, though. One wall is completely covered by an open wardrobe, with dozens of designer clothes from brands I recognize. Her furniture is also the most modern I’ve seen, all white, without a speck of dust on it. She also has a big, modern desk with three different cameras on it, a laptop, and a whole bunch of that stuff influencers use nowadays to get better lighting or shoot their vlogs. I don’t know much about it, but I can easily guess that stuff is worth hundreds. More surprising though is, that facing her big, pink canopy bed, is the biggest window, which I expect to be incredibly bright during the day… Although there are big curtains and blinds waiting to cover them anytime.

“Nice room,” I mutter, a bit impressed.

“Thanks! It’s nothing compared to my actual place, but I had it redecorated three years ago. … I just hate the old antique furniture, and I needed something that actually looked like it’s from this century for my videos.”

Cecily is seated at the desk, visibly busy editing a video.

“So you shoot some things here too for your social Media?”

“Of course! In fact, I shoot most of my stuff here, in this room. My viewers love my setup, and they have no way to know where I am anyway.”

“What is your content about?” I ask, walking up to her wardrobe, intrigued.

“Pretty much anything. I like to react to so-called movies and talk about the inaccuracies. I mean, I do know better than anyone in the movie industry about what the eighteenth century was really like… But my viewers also enjoy my make-up testing videos, centuries-proven skin tips, hairstyles that were popular at any era, and so on.”

“Isn’t it risky to use… your knowledge?”

“I actually love the risk,” she winks at me. “I keep up a thin line where my viewers wonder if I’m just a historian or some ghost of the past. You can act like anything you want with the Internet nowadays… Oh, I made you come up to give you this.”

She stands up, and goes to the door on her left. I realize it’s not a bathroom, but a big cupboard, filled with dozens of boxes. I wonder what the heck she keeps in there… perhaps the makeup for her videos, or more clothes? She grabs one of the boxes and looks through it, pulling out a phone and a cable. She hands it to me.

“There you go, present from me. It’s an old model I don’t use anymore, but I figured you could use it, since you don’t have a phone.”

case I promise myself to change as soon as possible, but otherwise, I’m pretty excited to

already transferred all my data, so feel free to delete everything and reboot it all you want! The

year?” I take a

“Death Year,” she winks.

have known… So she’s older

have a notebook I could use,

eyebrow, but doesn’t comment on my weird request, and goes back to her wardrobe, and after a few seconds, pulls out one of those pretty tiny notebooks with a flowery cover, and hands it

have a pen though, so you might have to ask Cata,” she says. “Feel free to use

“Thanks.”

apps do

my liking, and then proceeds to try and convince me to download three dozen different apps, most of them I’ve absolutely never heard of before. I’m pretty sure I’ll end up deleting half of those, except perhaps for the news and music ones. I do have fun arguing with her though, she’s incredibly willful and about as stubborn as I am, but she’s not all that bad. I actually find we’re a bit more alike than I thought, except that she’s enjoying her

a couple more apps, I decide, out of curiosity, to go and check what used to be my social media account. I have to use Cecily’s account as I don’t have one just yet, but I quickly find it… And

depressing,” she comments over

anything,” I

bastard probably did it. Another clue that you were not doing well for your followers, suddenly withdrawing from all social media. If they had deleted the account, the fans would have protested, but since only the content’s gone, they can’t really know you’re not the

new name, and follow a few accounts. If I’m going to be Hera Heartgraves, I might as well start working on it now… I follow a few accounts of makeup or clothing brands I liked before my death, only too happy to catch up on

good taste,” mutters Cecily,

I follow you

“Please don’t.”

next hour, I have fun laying in Cecily’s canopy bed and scrolling past the last five years I have missed of new trends, celebrity stuff and stupid challenges going on in the internet world. I carefully avoid anything that could even remotely be related to June Starr and, luckily, I was not that popular either that I would randomly appear in

is set to private, so I can’t see the content, but I see her profile picture.

“What’s wrong?”

out of my

“…A friend?”

behind my

she has a cute

was an only child, so I’m sure that baby girl looking like her is her daughter. I’m such an idiot… I calm down a bit, but I’m still staring at that picture, and the “follow” button is rendering me crazy. …Should I? I probably shouldn’t. I should keep the people I knew as June Starr out of it, but… I can’t help but wonder. Is she living well? Did she do fine in her new job in Paris? …Does she still hate me? Damn it. First Rick, now Liz. That’s a lot

the phone,” I say. “I’ll go

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