Dedicated to gsripriya. Thanks for the votes and comments.

ADRIAN

William was skimming through the various newspapers, strewn across the center table, in the drawing room. I folded my arms across my chest and asked, "So?"

"I'm still looking. I haven't found anything yet.", He said tossing away another newspaper on the sofa.

I googled for yesterday's party on my mobile and within seconds, I found several articles, tweets and posts about it. I sat down to go through each one of them but found nothing about the wine incident. It was like it never happened. Hmmm...that's interesting. I closed the site and looked back at William. I asked, "Anything?"

He dropped the last newspaper on the table and ran his hand through his toussled grey hair and flopped back on the sofa with a sigh of relief, "No. Not a word."

"Where's Vanessa?".

"I checked. She hasn't come back since last night...I hope she just doesn't do anything stupid.", William sighed.

I nodded and went back to my office room. I opened my laptop to look through mails, most of which were congratulating us for the partnership but then one e-mail caught my attention.

It was from Vanessa to me with the subject: "Apology For Misbehaviour"

"Mr. Adrian Greys,

Firstly, thank you so much for attending the party. This partnership would not have been possible without your support.

Please allow me to apologize for my behavior at the party on Friday, 9th December 2016. It was extremely inappropriate and lacked the respect that you most rightfully deserved. It was a disruption and distracted others from the event as well. However, in the future, I have every intention of curbing my thoughtless actions and learn to adjust my behavior befitting the environment and situation.

Again, I am sorry for my actions and I hope that we can put this matter behind us. I look forward to working with you and learning from your experience in bussiness, in the process. Thank you again for being so understanding.

Regards,
Vanessa Hudson
Branch Head
London"

I closed the flap of my laptop. She must have sent this to every single one of the two eighty nine guests, except Rebecca and probably Nate. I sighed and leaned back in my chair, absent-mindedly rolling an egg shaped paper weight between my hands.

A little while later I decided to go upstairs and see what my sisters were up to. I knocked at Charlotte's door. It was funny but ever since we were kids, she has hated me entering her room without permission. She used to call it a "No Boys Zone" and I don't know why but this habit had stuck with me to date.

"Come in!", she merrily said. I opened the door only to find her and Cassandra, flopped on the bed while Kevin was sitting on the carpet, drawing something.

"Hey!", Cassandra said from behind her mobile.

I folded the sleeves of my shirt up to elbows, trying to make each fold as symmetric as the last one and then sat down on the bed next to Charlotte.

"So what's up?", I asked.

"Nothing. Just trying to have a conversation with this mobile addict.", Charlotte chuckled.

I quickly snatched her mobile phone, an Iphone 6 and asked, "Who are you texting?"

"What the hell? No, give it back!"

I passed it to Charlotte as I dodged the pillow thrown at me by Cassandra. I picked up another pillow and threw it at her which unsurprisingly she couldn't escape. I smirked but then Charlotte drew our attention to her. She asked, "Who's Chase?"

"You have a secret boyfriend?", I cried dramatically.

"What! No! He is not a secret boyfriend. He is just a friend.", Cassandra tried to explain.

"Really?", I raised my eyebrows.

"Good lord. Yes. Chase is just a really good friend, ok? He even has a girlfriend."

"You sure?", I asked still eyeing her in doubt.

"Yes. I am damn sure. You want to talk to him? Go ahead", she said in sheer frustration,"Come on, you really think I can hide something from the all-knowing you ?

"Hmm...now that I agree with."

"Of course, the moment you found out I was dating someone, you would run a freaking background check on him, hold an interview with him as if being my boyfriend was a job and then..."

"Probably pull in a punch or two threatening to beat him up if he doesn't treat Casey well.", Charlotte shrugged.

I opened my mouth to protest but I knew they were right so I closed it again.

"Fine. I won't do any of that except...a background check."

"Ugh...please.", Cassandra rolled her eyes.

"Nope. That is extremely necessary. I wouldn't have you dating someone who is a member of some secret gang leader or is a drug addict, ok?"

Cassandra looked at Charlotte for help but Charlotte just turned her attention to Kevin, ignoring us. I triumphantly smiled as Cassandra took her mobile phone back from Charlotte and buried her head in a pillow in surrender.

"Now! Into more cheerful topics. Let's talk...ummm...Christmas gifts?",Charlotte suggested, looking back at us. It was as if this little exchange between me and Cassandra made her uncomfortable for some reason.

"Christmas gifts? I want a new Transformer set.", Kevin said as he climbed on top of me. We began talking about each other's Christmas gifts and a date to go fetch a tree.

Much later they shifted off to topics like dresses and songs by...some Bieber person and I felt my eyelids become heavy. I hadn't got much sleep last night with all the drama going on. I pulled a pillow from behind Charlotte who didn't seem to notice as she was so engrossed in a conversation with Casey. I placed it under my head and soon went into a dreamless sleep.

■■■

I was still in Charlotte's room when I woke up. However, I was alone and had a blanket over me. It was so good to have an elder sister, even though I was only three years younger. I looked up at the wall clock to see that it was about 9 o'clock. I had slept for longer than I wanted to.

I stood up and walked out of the room, debating what to do next. December was the worst month for bussinesses that didn't deal in Christmas merchandises. Everyone was in a holiday mood and work seemed to be the least productive till a week after new year.

My family loved Christmas and even though I wasn't very indulgent in the decorations, the Christmas Eve party that we threw was definately my favourite. Everyone we knew in New York were invited. We just started doing this two years ago and I don't think we will be stopping anytime soon. It might just be one of our family's christmas tradition if not the best of them all.

I finally decided to walk down and see what everyone was upto. Being a workaholic, I hated not having anything to do. I found mom and dad sitting in the drawing room. I definitely didn't want to start a conversation with dad, especially since our last argument was inconclusive and we were stalling it just because we had guests at home.

I turned towards the office, ensuring that he didn't see me. I opened the door, only to fine William sitting along with...Vanessa? As I entered, both of them looked up at me. Vanessa's face still looked puffy from last night's crying and William looked visibly angry. I walked in, picked up my laptop and left for my room. There was literally a drama at every corner of this house.

When I came back to my room, I lost my earlier intentions to work, there was literally nothing to do. I switched on the TV and flipped though the channels until I found a good movie to watch.

Two movies later, I finally switched off the TV and got back to my laptop. As I started typing a mail, I heard a knock on the door. I had locked my door so I went to answer it. Outside stood Vanessa and she looked visibly distressed. In her hands was her laptop and a pen.

She looked up at me and asked, "Can we talk?"

"Is it your dad?", I asked. I was definately the last person who could or who would want to help her with her daddy issues so I wondered why she had come to talk to me in the middle of the night.

"I could handle that myself. It is something...", she paused and then completed with a sigh, "...you should know."

"Fine. Come in.", I said reluctantly letting her inside my room.