Chapter 23

Heather's eyes snapped wide open as she registered her surroundings, her eyes adjusting to the bright lighting. She glanced around, noticing that she was sitting inside a room of some old house; the wallpaper in the room seemed to be chipping off. She turned to move, but realized that her hands and legs were strapped to the chair she was sitting on.

A heaviness overtook Heather's chest as the events of what had happened prior flashed through her mind. The white cat. The empty street. The hand over her mouth, before she had blacked out. Where the hell am I?

"Hola, Heather," a low, deep voice suddenly spoke out, interrupting her thoughts. "It's nice to see you again."

Heather blinked and froze when she instantly recognized the voice of the man who was walking towards her. "José? What the fuck?"

"Don't look too surprised to see me," José smirked. "We're technically family, aren't we?"

"I am not your family, Heather seethed. She tried aggressively tugging at the straps around her wrists but it was no use. "Let me go, you sleazeball and lowlife!"

"If I were you I wouldn't bother," José said, a smug look on his face and an evident cockiness in his tone. "I wouldn't bother screaming either; no one else can probably hear you."

"Why do you sound like one of those pathetic TV villains?" Heather sneered.

José let out a loud grunt. "You are testing my patience, Ms Kasuga."

"Good," Heather firmly said as she tried moving her hands again. "Now let me go! What did I ever do to you?"

"Nothing," José casually shrugged. "You're just collateral damage."

Heather clenched her jaw as she felt her blood boil. "The only thing that's damaged here is your brain," she retorted.

José tugged at the collar of his shirt in frustration and began pacing up and down the room, taking a few deep breaths. I refuse to let this woman get to me.

"I understand that Illuminate is preparing for its upcoming jewellery collection, 'The Emerald Paradise'," José said the next moment. "I want all your product designs and proposals."

A wave of disgust instantly overtook Heather's body. Who does he think he is? If he thinks I'm going to be giving him our product designs just like that, he's delusional.

"Yeah sure thing, why don't you walk over here so I can tell you right now?" she casually replied, whilst faking a smile at him.

José raised a brow but walked closer towards where Heather was sitting on the chair, and crouched down so that they were directly facing each other.

"Go rot in hell!" Heather suddenly screeched as loud as she could in his face.

"Jesus, woman!" José shrieked as he covered his ears and immediately stood back up, taking a few steps away from her. "You're actually crazy. God, I seriously don't know what Al sees in you. With an unattractive personality like yours, I almost feel sorry for him."

"I feel sorry for J&B Co's employees because their next CEO is clearly too incompetent and dumb to come up with his own ideas that he has to resort to stealing someone else's," Heather mocked.

José clenched his jaw. The truth was, since Alejandro left their father's company, J&B Co's performance had been declining, whilst Illuminate's sales were skyrocketing. And José, basking in the satisfaction of Alejandro gone and the knowledge that he had secured the CEO role had been slacking off at work recently. That is, until Javier had told him that if he wasn't able to find a way to turn things around, the CEO position would be going to someone else. Upon an incidental encounter with Nathan at a bar, José and Nathan realized that they both happened to share a resentment towards Alejandro and Heather. And so teaming up together seemed like the logical option.

But he wasn't about to tell Heather all of that.

"You can keep coming up with sarcastic remarks all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that you're the one who's stuck in this chair right now, not me," José calmly said.

"Whatever you want, you're not going to get it, so you can just give it up right now," Heather spat.

"Ah, now I wouldn't be so sure about that," José replied, a smirk plastering across his face as he suddenly walked towards the door and opened it. "Come on in," he then called out.

Heather rolled her eyes as she heard footsteps coming slowly from the corridor. Great. As if one psycho already isn't enough. Who is it now? Nathan? Gwen? My mom? Satan?

As the footsteps got louder, Heather could make out the sound of a pair of high heels tapping loudly against the wooden floorboards.

The next moment, she craned her neck and watched as a young, blonde woman wearing a yellow minidress walked inside. Heather scrunched her nose and glared at her. "Who the hell are you?"

"You don't remember me?" the woman snickered as she walked towards Heather.

Heather raised a brow as she studied the woman's face clearly; there was something about her that seemed familiar, like she had seen her somewhere before, but she couldn't quite remember where exactly.

"Looks like you need a bit of a reminder," the blonde sarcastically remarked, her icy blue eyes staring right into Heather's grey ones. She paused for a moment. "Hello, Ryan's girlfriend. Or should I say Alejandro?"

Heather froze. "Patricia Smith?" Her mind trailed back to the day she and Alejandro were on a date at a Japanese restaurant and Patricia had walked by their table. She had called Alejandro 'Ryan' and then started flirting with him. Heather instantly shuddered at the memory.

"I'm glad you still remember," Patricia said as she offered a sweet smile, but Heather knew all too well that behind that smile was poisonous venom.

"I find it ironic that here you are, belittling me for trying to steal insider information when your boyfriend has clearly done the exact same thing, and not once, but multiple times," José said, turning to Heather with a smug look on his face. "All those innocent women he manipulated, fooled, used and then tossed aside like they were garbage...taking on fake personas, flirting and making out with them to dig out their company secrets...don't you think they deserve a bit of compensation?"

"What he did wasn't exactly noble but don't act all high and mighty when you clearly need to take a look at your disgusting self in the mirror," Heather firmly said.

"You don't get to make that call," José replied as he smirked again. He was clearly enjoying this. "So what's it going to be? Are you going to give me your product designs or are we going to destroy Al's reputation together?"

Heather gritted her teeth. "You don't even have any evidence!"

"Did someone say evidence?" Patricia coolly responded as she suddenly took out a small black recording device from her purse. A smug look formed on José's face as he took a step back.

As Patricia fast-forwarded to a section of the recording and pressed play, a lump instantly formed in Heather's throat. She immediately recognized Alejandro's voice: "I used to pretend to be someone else and approach women from rival companies. I would often use a different fake name each time...Ryan, Justin, Jacob, Xavier, you name it. I'd flirt with them and do whatever it would take to try to dig out insider information from them to take back to my father. Most of them eventually managed to put two and two together afterwards but Patricia just then clearly hasn't."

"Plot twist, Patricia actually knew all along," Patricia remarked as she flipped her blonde hair and ended the recording. "Did you and Alejandro really think that blondes are all dumb? After what he did to me, I kept my guard up and kept a recording device with me at all times. That time I saw him at the restaurant with you, I pretended to play dumb and flirt with him. And when you were clearly too busy shooting daggers at your boyfriend and getting jealous, I secretly slipped the recording device under your table."

"Oh, snap," José smirked.

"Just playing the player," Patricia casually shrugged.

Heather swallowed. She admitted that she had been blindsided and had definitely not seen this coming. And if it weren't for the fact that Alejandro was her partner and lover, she would actually be quite impressed by what Patricia had managed to pull off.

"Here's a piece of advice, maybe the next time Alejandro wants to spill his dirty secrets, tell him to do it in a private place and not at a public restaurant," Patricia sarcastically added.

Heather gritted her teeth. "Y-you-"

"What do you think will happen if I go on record and leak this out onto the internet and press?" Patricia interjected. "Picture the headline - Illuminate involved in its second scandal this year; Illuminate's Managing Director revealed to be a womanizer and fraud. Who knows, this recording might be enough to open up a police investigation too. Not to mention the impact it will have on your boyfriend's reputation."

Heather took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She thought back to the time when she had been at the centre of Illuminate's 'former high school bully' scandal; the hate comments she had received and the feeling of wanting to hide away from the world. At that time, Nathan had taken the blame for her. But in the present situation, no one would be able to take the hit for Alejandro. Deep down, she knew Patricia was probably right. And she would do anything to protect Alejandro and his reputation, even if it meant giving up the designs that she had worked so very hard on over the last couple of weeks.

"Fine," Heather snapped as she reopened her eyes. "I'll give you the product designs."

"Fantastic," José smirked. "See now that wasn't so hard was it? Pleasure doing business with you."

Patricia slipped the recording device back in her purse and turned to leave. As she took a few steps ahead, she suddenly stopped in her tracks and turned back around to face Heather, a softer look on her face this time. "Woman to woman, I hope he's only with you because he truly cares about you. I did hear the part where he told you that things changed after he met you. I hope for your sake, that's true. Because I'm definitely not the only woman he's played. And he needs to know that what he did is not okay."

Heather studied Patricia's expression carefully; she seemed to look genuine. Knowing Alejandro's player personality (pre-Heather days) she admitted she could sympathize with where Patricia was coming from. But at the same time, she was utterly and fully confident in her relationship with Alejandro and would not allow anyone to interfere with that.

"Not that I need to reassure you or anything, but what Alejandro and I have is real," Heather firmly replied as she glared at Patricia, her gaze confident and unwavering.

A conflicted look quickly flashed across Patricia's face. The next moment, she suddenly started swiftly walking back towards Heather and crouched down, pulling her into a hug. "You're so naive if you believe that," she said in a sarcastic tone.

Feeling an instant wave of anger at Patricia's words, Heather was about to snap something back when she suddenly felt a tiny object slip inside her jacket. She froze.

"Use it to your advantage," Patricia quickly whispered to her.

Heather's eyes narrowed as she watched Patricia quickly stand back up and straighten her hair. She's helping me?

"What was that for?" José asked Patricia.

"Just giving her some womanly advice," Patricia casually shrugged. "Poor girl looks like she's never been in love before."

José didn't say anything and simply raised a brow at her.

"By the way, José, you have a copy of the recording already, right?" Patricia quickly added in a sultry voice as she took a step towards him and gently squeezed his arm.

"I do, thank you," José smirked.

Heather rolled her eyes at the sight of him.

Smiling, Patricia tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and gave Heather one last look, before leaving the room.

"Aw, look at that, your feelings for Al are actually real," José remarked to Heather in a sarcastic tone once Patricia had left. "What a beautiful love story."

Heather glared daggers at him. "You're just jealous because you know you're going to end up alone for the rest of your life."

José let out a piercing laugh. "How charming. You know, I'd rather be alone than spend the rest of my life with someone like you. Good luck to Al on that one."

Heather took another deep breath and forced herself to ignore José's last comment. "I agreed to your request and you're getting what you want; now let me go and crawl back to whatever dumpster you came out from," she seethed.

"You don't get to leave so fast," José smirked. "There's someone else who I'm sure you would love to catch-up with."

The color drained from Heather's face as José spoke. At that moment, she immediately knew who he was referring to.

"Good afternoon, Heather," a different voice suddenly called out as the door opened once again as if on cue. Another man promptly walked inside, instantly confirming her suspicions.

Nathan.

Heather instantly rolled her eyes at the sight of him. "Well, well, well, if it isn't Joe Goldberg's long lost twin," she sneered. "Didn't realize that you and the ugliest Burromuerto sibling were friends."

José's face instantly turned red as he quickly took a few steps towards Heather and raised a fist. "That's enough. I've had enough of you and your-"

"Ignore her," Nathan flatly interrupted as he grabbed José's arm. "I'll deal with her."

Muttering a string of curse words in Spanish, José took a few steps backwards. "I will gladly leave and give you two some time alone to chat." He then walked closer to Nathan and mouthed something to him, who nodded, before exiting the room.

"I'm sure you have many questions," Nathan said to Heather once José was out of sight, his voice layered with a condescending tone. He took a few steps closer towards her, a smug look on his face. "Where shall we start?"

"You can start by untying the straps around my wrists and legs and shoving them down your stupid throat instead," Heather spat.

Nathan let out a laugh, one that resembled the wicked laughter of a Disney villain. "Nice try, but that's not happening."

"Why do you also sound like one of those pathetic TV villains?" Heather sarcastically said. "Did you and José both practise your evil laugh together in the mirror or something? What losers."

Nathan took a deep breath and briefly closed his eyes, disregarding her comment and thinking about his next move. "I think we should start with this," he then smirked as he suddenly pulled out a cell phone from his pocket. Heather's cell phone.

Heather's eyes widened. "Give that back to me," she hissed.

Nathan took a few steps towards Heather and waved the phone in her face, unlocking it using face ID. Heather tried to squirm out of the way but her attempts were unfortunately unsuccessful.

Nathan grinned in satisfaction as he opened her phone. "Let the fun begin."

***

Meanwhile, Alejandro had just arrived outside Heather and Courtney's apartment, and was frantically knocking on the door.

"Alejandro?" Courtney's eyes widened when she opened the door. "Everything okay?"

"Where's Heather?" Alejandro asked, panting and out of breath. "Is she inside?"

Courtney raised a brow. "Wasn't she with you?"

"Fuck," Alejandro repeatedly cursed under his breath as he frustratedly ran his hands through his hair. "Fuck. This isn't good."

At that moment Duncan, who was also inside, walked over to the door. "What happened, man?"

"Have either of you seen or been in contact with Heather?" Alejandro asked, ignoring Duncan's question. "She hasn't been responding to any of my texts or calls for the past few hours and I have a very bad feeling about this."

"Dude, chill, she's probably just taking a nap or something," Duncan casually said.

Courtney frowned as she felt a wave of unease take over her. "Have you filed a missing person's report?" she asked.

Alejandro shook his head. "No, not yet."

"Tell us what happened first," Courtney urged, concern fuelling for her best friend. "And take a deep breath, you look like you're literally about to explode."

Alejandro followed Courtney's suggestion and took a deep breath. "Okay, so, after we left Nathan's house we went out for lunch together. I had a hair appointment and Heather said she wanted to get the groceries done so we split up. I haven't heard from her after that. God, I shouldn't have left her alone after we broke into Nathan's house. This is all my fault."

Courtney was silent for a moment as she took in what Alejandro had said. "Come inside," Courtney eventually said. "We'll figure it out together."

Alejandro nodded as he walked inside, his heart pounding rapidly against his chest. If something bad happens to her, I will never forgive myself.

At that moment, his cell suddenly started ringing. Alejandro froze when he saw the name on his screen.

It was Heather.

--

A/N - guys I'm sorry for another cliffhanger!! 😭

How are we feeling/what are we thinking??

Predictions as to what's going to happen next and what Alejandro is going to do??

Stay tuned for the penultimate chapter of Sparks Fly next week (yes there are only 2 chapters left 🙁) , which will hopefully explain everything that hasn't yet been explained yet and wrap-up this current mess

Thanks for reading :) Grateful for you all <3