Dedicating this chapter to my first friend on Wattpad, Jerace2, you're awesome girl and I love you so much. Do check out her stories. She is a sweetheart. :) <3

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CHAPTER - 1

LOVE IS... A COMPULSION.

Day - 1

'Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.' - Oscar Wilde

'Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.' - Aristotle

'Where there is love, there is life.' - Mahatma Gandhi

'I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.' - Martin Luther King, Jr

My eyes wandered to a few of the many love quotes that were so wonderfully decorating my office walls; the quotes that I, myself, had written onchart papers and pasted on the board; the quotes that used to make me feel so happy and giddy, almost four months back; the quotes that were the very source of all the negativity inside me now; the quotes that I so badly wanted to tear off from here.

With lightly clenched jaw, I took steps towards the board and, just as I raised my hands to take out the pins of the first chart, a very familiar voice reached my ears. "You're not doing that..." My hands formed into a fist and I turned to look at my best friend, Stephanie Wills, who was eyeing me with a frown on her face. Once she knew she had my attention, she added, "...again."

I eyed her perfect olive skin and brown eyes for a moment, and shot a sarcastic smile towards her. "Give me one good reason as to why I shouldn't do it?"

Somehow, she found my question funny as she grinned while entering my office cabin and said, "Because that would badly affect your image."

I quirked my eyebrows at her and folded my arms across my chest. "And you think I care about that?"

She rolled her brown eyes at me and sat down on the chair opposite me. "You and I, very well know that you do care about this job." Just as I opened my mouth to interrupt and, thereby, correct her, she stopped me by showing me her hand and continued speaking, "Okay, okay. You care about the contract that is so badly binding you with this job." I nodded in agreement, unfortunately, and sat down on my comfortable seat. "What I'm trying to say is that removing these quotes from here would be a bad impact on your mind and heart, Liana."

"You think that removing these would leave a bad impact on me?" I asked, slightly chuckling in disbelief. "The truth is that having these here..." I motioned my arms around, showing my office, and continued, "... is having a very bad impact on me."

She sighed heavily and rested her hand over my hand on the table. "Liana, I know how you feel about this break up, but girl, you really need to be strong. It has been four long months."

"Oh, please." I sighed exasperatedly. "I'm so over that bastard." What in the world was the need to mention him now? How the hell was my hatred towards love anyhow related to him?

"Keep telling yourself that," she mumbled and I shot her a glare. "Whatever, let's go to this new club tonight," she said excitedly as she tried he best to change the topic. "I wanna get drunk," she sang at the top of her voice, forgetting the premises we were in.

A slight smile appeared on my face as I noticed her attempts and I said, "You know, I don't drink, Steph."

She grinned when she knew that she had managed to make me smile like every morning and said, "You got highly drunk and stupid four months back." She wiggled her eyebrows at the end and I, playfully, slapped away her hand.

"I just got highly drunk and not at all stupid," I corrected her as I remembered the night that was so unclear in my own memories.

"But, you don't remember that," she argued, looking at me with her huge, hopeful eyes.

I rolled my eyes at her while a smile tugged at my lips, and grabbed the rubber band that was placed on my table to tie my brown bangs in a bun.

"My goodness! How gross can you be, Lia?" My head snapped towards Steph as she left her seat and started moving towards me.

"What?" I asked in complete confusion.

Ignoring my question, she came and stood by my seat. Suddenly, she grabbed my hands and started looking at them from every angle possible, while what I did was stare at her with complete confusion. Once she was done with her investigation, she looked at me in horror and asked, "Since when have you have not removed your body hair?"

Blood rushed to my cheeks as I removed her hold from my hands and tried to hide them behind my back. As quickly as I could, I stood up from my seat and grabbed my coat that was placed on the back rest of my seat. I wore it, effectively covering my naked three fourth arms from human eyes under my formal coat. I hugged the coat once it was on my body, sat back in my seat and narrowed my eyes at her. "I don't know what you're talking about." I tried to play the fool, even though, I perfectly knew what she was talking about.

My best friend of five years, Stephanie, was very particular about each and every thing that was even minutely related to beauty. It didn't help that she wrote the article about all the Beauty Tips and stuff here, in 'We Are the Divas'.

An extra hair in my eyebrow and she goes all Ninja on me. She is dangerous.

She looked at me with disbelief and said, "Just tell me, since when have you not waxed?"

"A week," I mumbled, but she clearly didn't believe me. "Two?" Still, she didn't believe me and I caved in. "Okay. Seven weeks. That's it."

Her eyes widened even more dramatically, if that was even possible and she screeched, "How could you?" 

"I didn't have the time." I tried to reason in a meek voice.

"You didn't have the time?" she asked with disbelief clear in her voice and her face. "What were you so busy doing?" She challenged me and my lack of response made her continue, "Let me guess. You must be busy hating love."

I was at a lack of response and just squirmed deeper in my seat while giving her my puppy eyes look. It always worked on her.

This time too, it did.

She threw her hands in the air and took deep breaths in order to calm herself down. She looked back at me and said, "You do now that men do take notice of hair on women's body, right?" She was getting in the form of her Beautician mode and I was least interested in facing her in my situation.

"Well, yes, but thankfully, I don't have to meet any men today." I blew out a breath of relief at the end, to make her believe that I was very well in verse with her teachings, when in fact, I was far from it.

She caught my sarcasm and narrowed her eyes at me. "You never know when you'd collide with a hot guy and that hair on your arms is just making you look like a bear." She pointed towards my sleeve covered arms.

I huffed and shot her a sarcastic smile. "Thank you very much for the much needed confidence boost, Steph."

Just as she opened her mouth to retort, my intercom rang and I mentally thanked whoever was calling me and saving me from Ninja Steph. Quite happily, I picked up the phone and answered, "Yes, Tori?"

"Ms. Parker wants to meet you quite urgently, Ma'am," my secretary said from the other end in her perfect professional tone.

"Urgently?" I asked, and looked at Steph with wide eyes. Knowing my tactics, Steph rolled her eyes at me while a slight smile tugged at her lips. "I'll be there in a minute," I told Tori and kept the receiver down.

I looked up at Steph and gave her a sorry look. "I so badly wanted to continue this conversation, Steph, but Ms. Parker wants to see me urgently." I stressed on 'urgently' and said with all the guilt I could muster up.

"Get your sorry a*s out of here, Ms. Moore and stop being a drama queen." She rolled her eyes at me and we both ended up laughing slightly. She knew me too well.

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Straightening any possible creases on my coat, I lightly knocked the door which led to the office of 'We Are the Divas' CEO Ms. Priscilla Parker.

"Come in." Her voice reached my ears and I opened the mahogany door to enter the very highly furnished office of my boss.

"Good morning, Ms. Parker," I greeted her with a smile.

She looked up from whatever papers she was looking into and her light grey eyes landed on me. "Liana!" She smiled and motioned for me to come inside. I compiled and sat on the seat opposite her's.

"You wanted to see me?" I asked. Priscilla was a wonderful woman and a very good boss. Since the eleven months that I had been with this company, she had been nothing but absolutely supportive of me in every way, well except one. Even though, she was humble human being, I knew that professional and personal lives were meant to be kept very separate.

"Oh yes!" She removed her glasses from her eyes and shot me a smile. "Is there any change in your decision of quitting?"

A sigh escaped my lips and I answered her, "There is a possibility if you'll give some other column to me."

I, so badly, wanted an escape from 'The Love Column'. I remember how over the top I was when I was asked to write this column eleven months back as the original writer had a major accident. I had poured my heart out in writing that one article and I had submitted it in a day when I was given a week's time to complete it. I had to write about something related to love. It was so damn easy. I could write a hundred pages about it without getting tired.

My first article was a huge hit and literally, loved by all the readers. It was so loved that I was made to sign a contract then and there itself of writing this 'The Love Column'; the contract that I had very happily read hundreds of times in one night; the contract that I had signed in a heartbeat; the contract signing which I was dreading my every breathing moment.

"But you do it perfectly, Liana," she complimented me.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "You know that I don't take it as a compliment anymore, Priscilla." Slowly, she nodded her head in understanding. Nobody was a stranger to whatever had happened four months back. "All I want to do is write my last article for this column and move on."

"That's the reason I called you here." She smiled at me comfortingly and continued, "First, I'm in talks with a few people for your next project and trust me, you're going to love it."

My eyes widened in excitement and I couldn't stop myself from asking, "What is it?"

This made her laugh and she said, "Patience, girl, patience."

"I've never been praised for being patient," I retorted with the same excitement from before and she again laughed.

"Second..." She came back to the topic and continued, "I called you here to discuss the topic of your next and last article."

"Okay." I nodded my head sincerely.

She smiled again and said, "It's titled, 'Being the Devil's Cupid'."

"Um... what?"

"I mean, you have to mention ways of how to make even a devil fall in love with someone," she explained while I looked at her in confusion. "The main purpose of this article is to make people believe that nobody can be spared from love once the arrow hits his heart, not even a devil."

"That's plain stupid," I told her exactly what I felt about it, but pressed my lips together upon realising that I had said the same in front of my boss, who was behind this stupid plan.

But still, how could I not say something like this? Love was nothing... absolutely nothing.

"It's not, Liana," she said in a stern voice and looked at me with narrowed eyes.

How in the world was I going to write ways of making a devil fall in love when I, myself, was so out of love?

Noticing my confusion, she said, "I know, it's going to be difficult for you and that's why I've come up with a practical experiment for you to conduct."

This just confused me a lot more than before, and I asked, "What practical experiment?'

She grinned at me and clarified all my doubts. "You've to make my son fall in love with someone in twenty days."

I voiced out my state of bewilderment and complete shock in a very loud voice in one simple word, "What?"

She bit her lower lip and looked at me warily. "I know it sounds stupid, Liana."

"Sounds? No! It is stupid," I told her with wide eyes and disbelief in my voice. Was this woman in the right frame of her mind? I really don't think so.

"No matter how stupid it is, you've to do it." There was a finality in her tone and I found myself stuck in a very bad situation.

"But, Dylan does believe in love," I reasoned mentioning his son Dylan Parker, the most desirable bachelor in town and a huge flirt.

She smiled a tight lipped at me and said, "I'm not talking about Dylan, Liana. I'm not worried about him."

My mind wandered to any other secret sons that Priscilla might have, and only one name came to my mind. My eyes widened dramatically at the very thought and I started shaking my head in a series of 'no'.

Sheepishly, she nodded her head and mumbled, "I'm talking about Ashton."

"No!" I again voiced out my shock in a loud voice and stood up from my seat.

Ashton Parker was a name used as a synonym for 'good for nothing'. All my knowledge about him was limited to the corridor gossip talks in our office, and trust me, none of it was good.

"Why would you do this to me?" I asked her in complete shock.

Couldn't she let me write my last article of this column in complete peace and let me go out of here? Why did she have to do this to me?

She sighed heavily and looked at me with her grey eyes in a very meaningful way, but I was fuming and no meaning could make any type of sense in my head at this moment. "I want your help, Liana and nobody can do this better than you."

I scoffed in reply and said, "You must really hate me, Priscilla."

A smile appeared on her lips and she said, "He is just very misunderstood, Liana and I know that you can help him by finding love." Her eyes got slightly watery as she talked about her son and I could sense that something was really wrong here.

Even though, her emotional talk had succeeded in making me agree with her slightly, I tried to argue further, "But how am I supposed to make him believe in love when I, myself, don't believe in it anymore."

Wasn't I being completely logical here?

But, Priscilla didn't think so as she smiled slightly and said, "You used to believe in it once." She said this as if it was enough to make me agree to do this stupid practical experiment.

No, it wasn't. Not at all.

"And..." She slightly smirked at me as she said in her professional tone, "You're bound by the contract till the next one month."

This was enough to make me agree to whatever sh*t she wanted me to do.

I had no other option but to be devil's cupid for the next twenty days.

It was a compulsion.

I, Liana Moore, was going to be the living devil's, Ashton Parker's, cupid.

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A/N

So, did you guys like it?? How was it for a first chapter? Did you guys like Liana, Steph and Priscilla? Please do tell me your opinions in the comments below.

Trust me, this story is going to be not a cliche at all, just like And We Meet Again. :)

Stay tuned for the next chapters which are going to be sooo much fun. :)

VOTE, COMMENT, FAN. :)

Thanks! <3