Toxicity

Three

Mackenzie's P.O.V.

20 October, 2018

The sky looked a bit gloomy tonight, as if it's gonna rain. Well, it's great that Matt took the day flight to San Francisco. Now he wouldn't have to face problems for his plane getting delayed. He is gone for a few days, but I surely would miss him a lot.

I let out a husky breathe and give a gentle push on the doorbell, today it's feeling like my destination would be finalised. If I literally don't get the deal from the Westphalls, I obviously would spend my whole night getting drunk.

A man, near to his sixties opens the door. He was dressing like a butler, which made me realize who he is.

"I'm actually here for the dinner..." I silently say, even though I was confused if I should speak or not.

"Yes ma'am, come in. Mr. Westphall is in with his other guests." The man gave me space to step into the house which was enough big and luxurious to call it a mansion. Well, now I'm hundred percent sure this guy is stinking rich.

"Well, actually Ken invited me. Kenneth Westphall. So, would you mind telling him that I'm here?" I tell to the man while he was closing the door. I know my main goal of coming here is to meet Kaleb Westphall, but I need to meet Ken first to reassure if he really would help me out or not.

"Sure ma'am. I'll be right back." He disappeared into the inner side of the house while I decided just to wait here. Even though I had the strongest urge to take a look around, I didn't.

I pulled my phone out of my purse and check the time. Good, I am not that much late now. Now if everything just goes fine, I can walk out of this door with a million dollar smile on my face.

"My, my, my, you look fascinating." I take off my eyes from the screen and see Ken coming towards me, tucked into a tux. He takes my hand gently and presses a kiss on its back delicately. "Thanks for taking my offer darling."

"Well, as you said I'm gonna benefited, so why wouldn't I join the dinner?" I pull my hand back. "And look, I don't know if it'd be a bit rude or not but I have a boyfriend. So drop the flirtation." I smile at him.

"Awh, you broke my little heart." He mocked to look a bit hurt. "But I at least can appreciate your beauty, can't I?"

I mentally sigh. Wasn't he the same guy who was yelling at me at the top of his lungs for bumping in his car? "Whatever. So, where is Mr. Westphall?"

"Chatting, with some of his fellow guests." He started walking into the house and I follow him. "But remember darling, if you wanna have a peaceful talk with him, wait until the guests are gone."

"I will." I quietly give him a reply while I swipe my eyes around the house. I'm pretty sure some famous interior designer designed it, cause it was drop dead gorgeous. Plus, the arrangements were also beautiful.

"But I can meet you up with him." Ken suddenly stops and I was just an inch away from bumping into him. He points his hand behind him and I see a few ladies and gents seated on the couch, some drinking in the mini bar and some standing and talking to each other. "Well, if you want."

"Yeah, I'm fine." I twitch my lips to a soft smile and he leads himself to the couch and takes a seat.

"Kal, I want you to meet someone." He pats a man's back and I realize he's the one from yesterday, in the navy blue coat. Then, he must be the one I'm looking for.

I take a few steps closer as Mr. Westphall looks at me. He takes a sip from his wine and starts talking, "You wouldn't ever mend your ways, would you? It has been only five days since you came back, and you already made a girlfriend?"

I was confused at what he said, girlfriend? Does he really- oh God. "No, I'm-" I was about to correct him but in the middle I stop as my eyes linger to the other guy seated in front of him. His eyes were locked with his phone. But It didn't take me a second to recognize him. "Shawn?"

He shifts his eye glances to me and I was able to see that shade of confusion on his face. "Mackenzie? You? What are you doing here?"

"Wait, you two know each other?" Ken points out.

"Yeah, um- she's my cousin." Shawn silently replies. But didn't choose to speak to me. I also made up my mind not to utter a word to him. Since that day of me arguing with him about Dad's business, I've determined it and I wouldn't step a feet back from it.

"Wow, the world is so small. Your girlfriend is cousins with my partner? Great." Mr. Westphall laughs a bit.

"She's not my girlfriend, okay?" Ken clears out things. "And she's here for-"

"Sir, the dinner is ready." The butler I met earlier breaks in, which causes Ken to stop talking.

The dinner was good, but it was feeling damn uneasy to face Shawn while we were sitting on the same table. We sometimes met gaze but he looked away, which made me more frustrated over him.

After I won Austin's case and Shawn and Lauren moved to France permanently, we both started to get distanced. He would handle my Dad's business but we didn't have that much of a connection. After I finished my college and showed interest in handling the business, he started telling me that it wasn't my piece of cake and I can't do it.

And slowly we both were totally disconnected, as if we don't even know each other. He also has good friendship with Johnny now. Sometimes I suspect, whether he would help Johnny to get Austin's custody from me too.

"Meet Mackenzie, you know, the owner of Zieglers Inc?" Ken introduces me to Mr. Westphall.

"It's nice to meet you. I'm so sorry that I misjudged you as my brother's girlfriend." Mr. Westphall pulls out his hand to me for a shake.

"Nice to meet you too." I push out a smile and shake my hand with his.

"You probably know that she had an appointment with you yesterday about you investing in her company. Well, she was late by some minutes cause I bumped my car into hers. So today-"

I wide my eyes at Ken. Why is he lying? Mr. Westphall cuts him off, "Really? Why didn't the police sue your licence yet? Did you count how many times you did that?"

Ken shrugs his shoulders and I let out a breath. "So, Mr. Westphall, um- can we speak about the deal? If you don't have any problem.."

"Oh yeah, I'm totally fine with it." He twitces his lips to a smile.

●●●

"What happened? Why do you seem so distracted?" Ken's voice pulled me out of my deep thoughts. I didn't reply him and take a sip from the white wine. He offered me to have a drink with him and I gladly took that. I left Austin with Nora so there's no problem if I'm late. And one or two drink won't make me drunk for which I wouldn't be able to drive.

"No, I'm fine." I reply after a moment. Mr. Westphall said he'd arrange a board meeting so I hope I'd be able to get the deal. Well, that's a good news for me but...

"I don't think so, anything wrong?" He inquires again.

"Do you know what Shawn was doing here?" I cross question him.

"Shawn?" He archs his brows. "As far as I know he was maybe... in college with Kaleb. And now they have some connection in business. Yet I don't know if their friendship is a bad blood type one, or a die-hard one." He shrugs.

"What do you actually know about?" I narrow my eyes and take my glass up to my mouth to have another sip.

"I know how to charm girls though." He said which made me choke on my drink. And like the one unlucky girl I always have been, my dress was completely ruined.

"Oh s**t," I stand up and open up my purse to find if I left any tissues in it anytime. "Can I please use the washroom?" I ask Ken without looking at him.

"The washroom is all yours." I shift my eyesight to him and find out he has a smile plastered on his face. Is he trying to make fun of me now?

"And where is that?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry, wait. I'll show you." He quickly keeps the glass down and leaves his seat, gesturing me to follow him. I sigh and start taking steps.

Soon, he leads me upstairs and then to the first door of the floor. As I get into the room, I was pretty sure that it was...obviously a boy's room.

"I'm so sorry for it. I just completely forgot that I made a big mess today while finding a document." Ken bites his lower lip and starts picking up his clothes from the ground.

Does anyone make this much of a huge mess while just finding a document?

"Um, it's fine. You don't have to clean it up now..." I take a step closer to the door, which I suppose is the washroom. "I'll just-"

"s**t!" His cursing interrupts me from talking and I find out that he had dropped a box while cleaning up things. Which made papers shatter all over the ground. Great. He just created more mess.

"I'll help you." I kneel down to help him gather all the papers. I didn't know why but it felt uneasy to just stand there and watch him cleaning or...I should say, creating mess.

When I take a piece of paper in my hand, I realize they're polaroids, not any kind of documents. "You take photos?"

"Not anymore. Since my camera broke into six pieces, I didn't bother to buy another one." Ken replies, without looking at me while he was still busy picking up his clothes.

Curiously, I take a look at them while arranging. There were many people in different pictures, obviously I couldn't recognize any of them without Ken in some of them. As I take another one from the floor, I felt a shiver ran down my spine.

It was a picture of Ken kissing a girl's cheek while she was bursting out in a laugh. It didn't take a second to recognize who she was and when I was going to ask him about it, he snatches the polaroid from my hand.

"Mackenzie, I think you were supposed to use the washroom?" He put it inn the box and I hurriedly stand up.

"Yeah, I'm coming." I stutter to say and rush inside. As I lock the door behind me, my mind starts to flood with different thoughts.

I didn't see it wrong, no I hundred percent didn't see it wrong! It was Jessica with Ken, but why? How the hell were they related? Did they date someday, or were they friends? Or-

Calm dowm Kenzie, calm down. You're just freaking out because Jessica is missing and couldn't be founded. It's not anything like Ken is related with her getting missing. She obviously knew a thousands of people and Ken can be one of them. What's the problem?

But what if something's wrong? Why the hell am I having such a bad feeling that-

Alright then! You can go and ask him yourself that how he knows Jessica! I'm sure the answer would be something good. Just stop thinking about this s**t and think straight!

I clean myself up and get out of the washroom. Ken was standing there, hands in his pockets while the mess was all gone. Where the heck did he even put all those stuff? Under the bed?

"It's storming outside Mackenzie. Probably you should stay the night." He suggests and I look outside the window. Shut, did it have to be happen now?!

"I-I would love to but...I need to go.." I try to bypass him but he stands in my way.

"It's fine. You can stay in the guest room. I'm sure Kaleb wouldn't have any problem with that." He insists.

"No, my son is waiting for me. I think I should just leave." I fast walk out of the room and skip the stairs down.

"It'd be great if you stayed though." I could hear his voice following as I break the last stair.

"Actually, my son is alone at home...so I need to go back." Wait, why did I lie? "Bye, see you later." I speed walk towards the main door and in mid-way, I find Mr. Westphall sitting on the couch, concentrating on his laptop. When he sees me, he passes me a smile.

I didn't know what to do and shot him a smile back too. "Thanks for tonight."

"The pleasure is all mine." He answers and I don't late a second to walk out of the house and rush to my car. As I get into it, I let out a relieved breathe. Why couldn't I just ask him normally how he knew her?

Mostly, why the heck isn't that goddamn bad feeling in me reducing a bit?

●●●

Johnny's P.O.V.

20 October, 2018

"Day by day, it's getting hard to get Austin's custody. You need to prove it to the court that you have something better than Ms. Ziegler." My lawyer says to me and I let out a sigh.

"But what would I do? He will turn four this year. And he surely is a big fan of Mackenzie, well he loves me too. So I don't think he would have any problem with living with me." I show him my point.

"You can control Austin. All you need to do is just get the custody, somehow." He rests his elbows on his thighs. "You wanted to marry Ms. Hawthorne, well that could help you a bit cause you could show it to the court that you and Ms. Hawthorne can be much better parents than Ms. Ziegler. But now consequences has changed as she got missing."

I think for a moment. "But Austin doesn't like Jessica at all. So I highly doubt if he'd accept her as his mother. I think, he wouldn't accept anyone as his mother rather than Mackenzie, considering the fact that he loves her a lot."

He furrows his eyebrows. "I thought you wanted to marry her because of having Austin's custody. But if you clearly knew you wouldn't have it after doing so then why did you engage with her?"

"Uh, I was a bit confused actually. Whether I should propose her or shouldn't. I mean, she loved me a lot. And I kinda had feelings for her too. Also when I saw that marrying her can get my son closer to me, I thought, why not do it? But as she's missing, now I think we have enough time to think of what I can do next." I reply him.

"So are you saying that it's good that Ms. Hawthrone's missing?" He frowns.

"Maybe." I shrug my shoulders. I don't know what he is thinking at this moment. Maybe he thinks I'm just a selfish guy who wants his son's custody. Probably I am. It isn't like I never loved Jessica. But, my son is obviosuly more important than anyone right now.

"Mr. Orlando, as far as I've seen in this case, your last hope of getting Austin's custody was to marry a sensible lady who would be able to handle your son. But as you said that your son wouldn't accept anyone else as his mother rather than his biological one, it's a bit tough. I mean, he is four now, he can tell it to the court whom he would choose."

"So you mean, I can't have my son to myself?" I arch my brows. No, I can never let that happen. It has been four f*****g years since I'm trying to get it and now I can't just loose. I can try for another four or more years if it's needed. But I just can't f*****g loose!

"Yes you can." He continues after a beat. "Only if you marry Ms. Ziegler."

I let out a quite laugh, a sarcastic one. "And isn't she a two years old kid who'd listen to me if I give her a lollipop?"

"Yeah she isn't, so obviously need to do it somehow else."

I get a bit confused. "How?"

"Manipulate her into marriage." He continues as I kept silent. My mind was filled with all of these thoughts that I couldn't understand what should I do and what not. But all I know is that, I want my son and it's finalised. And for that, I'll do whatever it takes.

"I'll think about it."