Are you alright, Tigress?

Bet you missed me, didn't you Tigress?

Leave her alone! Tigress!

Tigress!

. . . 

I love you, Tigress.

His smile. His smell. His voice. His body heat. His closeness. His warmth. 

His everything.

Him.

The canape fell from my fingers and down splat onto the table. I watched, dazed, as the mint-speckled cream started to stain the table cloth.

Regaining my senses, I whipped my head around, eyes darting, searching, looking.

Because this time, I knew it wasn't Damian who had called me by that name. 

Your darling boyfriend is dead.

Was he?

I could feel my pulse accelerating, my heart drumming away beneath my chest, straining against my skin, longing to jump right out of my throat. My fingers, I was sure, were trembling. 

If there's even the slightest bit of hope, the slightest glimmer of chance, the slightest possibility that he - that he - 

My eyes roamed every face, taking in every feature that I could see. I was turning round and round on the spot, my breaths coming out abnormally fast and short, my stomach flipping somersaults. 

"Miss?"

The butler that had escorted us inside the house was standing before me, a polite and somewhat haunting smile on his face. In his hands he held a phone.

"For you, Miss."

Hesitating, I took the phone. He did a low bow and walked away. A second after he left, it rang. 

And I froze. 

Everybody is Kung Fu Fighting
Your mind becomes fast as lightning
Although the future is a little bit frightening
It's the book of your life that you're writing

People around me were tossing weird and annoyed looks my way. I yelped, scrambling to hit the accept button. It was an unknown number.

There was no doubt. It had to be him now. Only he knew, about my - erm, childhood favourite.

. . . Okay. Fine. I might have been extremely, rabidly . . . obsessed with Kung Fu Panda when I was younger. 

Just might of course.

I placed the phone to my ear. And swallowed. "Hello?"

There was the longest pause of silence.

Then - 

"Hello Tigress."

My knees gave way right there and then. My left hand had to reach out and grabbed the edge of the table for support. For a moment I couldn't think, couldn't speak, couldn't breathe - all that mattered was that right now, right here, I was hearing his voice.

Thomas' voice.

After four years of silence.

There was a breathy chuckle from the other end. "You look so pale. Seen a ghost?"

My eyes darted back up and around the ballroom. "You can see me?" That means he's here!

"Yes. Yes I can." 

Another pause, and when he spoke there was a slight hitch in his voice. Almost as if it was on the verge of cracking. 

"You still look amazing, Tigress."

It was scary how fast the tears welled up and out of my eyes. I pressed my teeth together, hard, clenching my jaw. Moving a few feet away from the table I kept my emotions out of my voice. 

"Your honeyed words don't work on me anymore. Bastard."

"Hmm. Glad to see you're still feisty." His voice had taken on a cooler, more professional edge. 

He's changed. 

"How are you?" he asked. 

"Better than when you were around," I retorted. 

Bad. I miss you.

"Is it just me, or do you sound angry?"

"I think I have every right to be."

Where are you? I want to see you.

I walked around the place, my eyes looking non-stop, trying to spot a handsome guy with chiseled Greek statue-like features, that was using the phone.  

Oh don't give me that look.

"There's no point looking for me, Tigress. You won't ever be able to find me."

Determination laced my words. "We'll see about that." 

It was like a dance. I was dancing with him, an intricate pattern that skimmed the edges of the ballroom and deep into the centre, before pulling out and tracing the sides. There were so many people around, and the men all looked the same in their tuxedos and leather-patented shoes. Was he a guest here? Or a servant? Must be a guest. He had the power to ask the butler to hand me the phone. Or maybe he was the master of the house itself . . .

That stopped me right in my tracks. Did Jasper bring me here for a reason? Did Jasper know Thomas was alive? Had they been working in hand for all these four years that he disappeared? 

"Tigress! Behind you!" came his voice over the phone.

I half-turned, and saw the bearing figure of a waiter popping out abruptly from the mass of people. He was a bit on the bulky side, tall, and carrying a full silver tray of champagne flutes. When he saw me his eyes widened in alarm, and he tried to avoid the collision. I shrank away, but there were bodies pressed against my back and I couldn't move. Any moment now he would trip over me and everything on the tray would go flying.

Until a hand shot out of nowhere, strong and firm and sure, grabbing me by the elbow and pulling me into the crowd, out of a potential accident. With the danger having passed, the waiter moved on, expressionless, giving only a small nod of acknowledgement my way. 

The hand disappeared as quick as it came. A few seconds later there came a lazy sigh in my ear. "Wasn't it fortunate that I was there?"

I squirmed my way out of the packed group. "So that was you. I thought I recognized that foul smell." I made a big show of sniffing my arm, at the place where he had held me, and wrinkled my nose in disgust. 

When all I wanted to do was touch that spot again and again.

First contact. In four years. 

He gave a laugh. It sent thrills down my spine. I missed that sound. 

"You have no idea how cute you look when you do that," he murmured. 

Damn this boy.

"And you have no idea how disgusting your pick-up lines sound."

"Really? I don't recall you saying that four years ago." His voice sang with smugness.

I felt the small hints of blush starting to creep up my face. Dagnabit. I don't blush easily, but when I do . . .

"Your face looks like it's on fire, Tigress. Are my pick-up lines working now?" His voice took on a husky colour. "Should I say more?"

Inwardly

Outwardly

"Where are you?" I demanded. "Show yourself."

"Not happening, Tigress."

I let out a scornful laugh. "Of course. I forgot. You're a coward."

My lower lip trembled. "A traitor."

His reply was smooth, almost cheery. "Guilty as charged."

All those years. All those years. All those years thinking he was dead - 

"Why did you leave?" I whispered. I was past caring that he could hear the emotions in my voice, past caring that my words screamed just how much I missed him. "Why did you leave Blackcroft? Why did you leave - me?"

Silence. 

"We made a promise, Thomas." Thomas. Even calling his name, speaking it, using it to refer to a second person and not a third, made me want to break down in tears. My fingers reached up, a reflexive action, to caress the pendant at the base of my throat. "Did you forget - "

"I lost it," he interrupted me.

Curt.

Short.

Blunt. 

He spoke again. "The necklace. I lost it."

Something caught in my throat. The pendant found itself curled up in a tight fist.

"No," he corrected himself. "I didn't lose it. I threw it. I threw it away."

Squeezing. A boa constrictor around my heart. My chest. Squeezing. Can't breathe. Squeezing. 

A memory. Two voices. Speaking. 

Heart to heart?

Heart to heart.

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. 

Put the cool and professional Hayley mask back on. 

"I guessed as much." The coldness in my voice could freeze a fire. "After all, it was all a front wasn't it? An act. It meant nothing to you."

Silence on the other end. I couldn't help it, couldn't help the tiny flame of hope that still flickered, that was desperately begging for him to deny it, to correct me, to tell me that I had got it all wrong.

I love you, Tigress. 

"Yeap." He even popped the "p". "Absolutely nothing. Why? Do you still have the necklace?"

Was that a trick question? If he could see me wouldn't he have spotted the necklace?

I tilted my chin high, ignoring the burning tingle in my nose. "Yes. Yes I still do." A pause. "But it isn't what you think. I keep it, to remind me of the bastard that had once gotten away. And if I should meet that jerk again - " 

Steel warped my words. "I'll make sure he wishes he had never came back."

There was no change in his voice after hearing my words. It was still the same steady tone. "Very nice. Well! I wish I can stay and chat, but I have things to attend to. Be seeing you around, Tigress."

Call disconnected. 

But at that very second, my searching eyes managed to spot the figure of a man, dark-haired, dressed in a black tuxedo. Heading out of the ballroom through a pair of French glass sliding doors. 

He was also in the midst of hanging up from a call. 

It was just a glimpse, but the only lead I had at the moment, so I pushed forward and through the crowd, ignoring the outrageous protests of dainty females and males alike. I exited the ballroom, to find myself standing on some sort of a patio. The floor was made from polished timber, decorated with deck chairs and tables, under several shady umbrellas. The swimming pool was a nice oval shape, its sides lined with several ornamental rocks. 

Where did he go?

My heels made sharp, clear sounds as I crossed the wood surface. They were the only sounds to be heard out here, as all activity in the ballroom was muted to my ears. The pool water was a brilliant crystal blue under the patio lights. It was deep too, surprisingly so. The master of the house must be a big fan of swimming. It looked to be five feet at least, and there was that natural phenomena of refraction, where the water looked shallower than it actually was. It was made for real swimming, and not leisure.

There came some sort of a movement in the corner of my eye, and I looked toward it at once. There was a large tree in the corner, surrounded by straggly bushes. I headed over to it.

I hesitated for awhile before calling out. "Thomas?"

Silence. 

If he was there, I wasn't about to let him get away. I walked right up to the bushes and gingerly slipped myself through them. Jasper will never let me hear the end of this if I tore the dress. I looked around, but spotted no one. So carefully I extricated myself back out from the greenery. It was a harrowing moment when my necklace got stuck on one of the branches, but I managed to free myself at last. 

After a few more minutes of lingering around, it was clear no one was here. I had given up and was making my way back across the patio when I heard giggles and the sound of more heels coming my way. Two skinny figures came into view. They stopped, rather abruptly, when they saw me.

"Well well well. If it isn't Mrs Hood," one of them sneered. "Where's your boyfriend now?"

Ah. If it isn't Tweedledee and Tweedledum. I looked behind them, but it seemed that Miss Queen Bee wasn't gracing us with her presence today.

The two girls walked nearer. I couldn't help noticing that they'd tried to emulate Brandy's fashion style in any way possible - all the while trying to outdo one another as much as they could. A had a silver bracelet, so B wore two. And while B had a simple gold chain around her neck, A decided to throw on a grossly layered chain necklace. So this was the value of friendship in the Popular empire. 

They seemed a lot bolder now that Brandy wasn't present. I wondered if Miss Queen Bee made them comply to her rules, like how to act around me so I get the most attention. Standing with their arms crossed, they each had identical smirks on their faces, gloating at the fact that they had me cornered, in a place with no public witnesses.

I wasn't in the best of moods at the moment. The sudden appearance of Thomas after four goddamn years, the realization that he was alive and not dead, followed by the realization that he was alive but never came to find me, had thrown my emotions all haywire. I needed time to think. I had to sort things out. I had to figure out what this meant for me - for - for everything. 

So I merely forced on an irritable smile, ignored them and moved on, brushing accidentally-on-purpose against their shoulders as I walked away. I had taken only a few steps when one of the girls called me from behind.

"I think you dropped something, Mrs Hood."

Another nickname. As if I hadn't had enough already. Sighing, I turned.

My necklace dangled from her grip.

Damn it. It must have came loose when it got stuck against the branches. I supposed it could be considered as old - I had had it for six years - and the clasp was not as good as it first used to be. I should probably get it fixed. 

"Thank you," I said curtly, reaching out and stepping forward for it.

She distanced the necklace from me. She gestured lightly, and the necklace swayed in the cool night air. 

"You want this?" A sly smile crept up her face. I disliked it immediately. 

"Then go get it."

And she dropped it into the pool. 

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This chapter is dedicated to mik31ki! Thanks so much for that follow and willingness to review :) So six guys have been introduced! Who's the final dude . . . ?

And to all those who are reading, I bid a deepest bow of apology for making you wait.

Until next time! Vote, share and comment! Remember, I give dedications to those who do :)