His Little Secret

1. Stolen Articles, Pointers and a crushed soul

“All Press Association Awards is proud to represent this prestigious award of ‘Best Story Breaker’ to this brave, strong and intelligent woman, who didn’t hold herself back from speaking the truth. Was not even afraid to the slightest to tell the world about the ugly truth and reveal the ugly faces of these perpetrators who are carrying out heinous activities and manipulating and corrupting our social structure…”

Christine Amanpour, a name so bright and yet so frightening to so many people. A bold woman – one the most famous journalist, of not just her time but a person so timeless that her name was always relevant in the field of paper and journalism.

Her skin gleaming under all the lights that reflected upon her, as she stood on the stage, behind the glass podium, holding a golden small rectangular plaque award in her hands, that glittered, as the silver lights roamed all over it.

Christine, fixed her hair, with a smug smile, showing that she was definitely proud of being able to live in the moment.

“… we need and require, more such courageous and brave women in our press and news agencies, who work hard, every day and reveal the faces of such fascist.”

As she looked ahead at the room full of audience that were all looking up at the woman in question.

“This woman, without any doubt has created hopes in the heart of everyone, who read her story that people who work and thrive hard for justice, still exist in our world.”

People once again began cheering out loud.

“Ladies and gentleman…” Christine smiled out brightly and pointed out towards the crowd, as the spotlight rotated completely and finally landed and brightened the face of a young lovely woman, wearing a red flowy gown, that had a single sleeve up her right arm.

Her stretched out face, sparkled with pride, as she stood up from her table and flashed her straight aligned teeth, that reflected happiness, complimenting the gleam of her eyes, showing how happy she was at the moment.

Her straight nose, that slightly bulged out at the top, reached up to her big and round, slightly oval at the very corner, hazel eyes.

The jimmy choos that she wore, made her look quite tall but all in all, she was a very average height of five feet six inches, that didn’t leave her very tall nor very short; something of a dilemma to the society, that could never place her in any category.

Her ginger hair, flowed down, till her curvy waist, rolled up at the very tips, waving along each step that she took, walking towards the stage.

Seeing her approach, Christine’s smile grew wider, as she bent down in to the microphone, placed on the podium, immersed by the immaculate confidence expressed by the woman who was walking up on the stage to receive her award, without even having her name called out and already excessively knowing that she was the great woman about whom those words were being said.

“Ladies and Gentleman, please put your hands up together for…”

The woman in the red gown, felt more and more excited, approaching the woman that she had idolized all those years but just as she got nearer Christine, she felt her smile fading and instead of just calling out her name, the smile from Christine’s face dropped and a sinisterly, sneering expression took over.

“Wake up!” Christine said, looking dead in to the girl’s eyes, the smile from her eyes, long lost somewhere in the process of calling her out.

“Huh?” the girl stated, confused over what was happening with her.

“Wake up!” Christine said once again, “Can’t you hear me? Emilia, wake up!”

She finally called her name out but at what cost?

“Wha… what is going on?”

Emilia inquired, turning her eyes away from Christine and looking back at the crowded room that was cheering on to her, seated in circles around the round tables, just a few seconds ago.

But all she could see was dust puffing and making its way all around those round tables that disappeared all at once.

“Can’t you hear me?”

Christine left the award in her hands behind but Emilia was quick and desperate enough to grab it but it was already too late as Christine walked up towards Emilia, grabbing her shoulders firmly and shaking her quite vigorously, in order to finally knock her out of the dream that she was in and it became more evident as she realized that it was indeed a dream and the person, who was trying to wake her up was her coworker Stephanie.

Stephanie was shaking Emilia, sitting on her office chair, with her head bent on to one side, her eyeglasses distortedly placed on her face.

“Emilia!” she finally pushed her out of the chair, making Emilia fall down on to the ground, hitting her face first and finally getting knocked out of her sleep.

“Ah!”

She screamed out loud and sat up straight, fixing her big round glasses on her face and looking around her, only to realize that everyone in her office, inside the specific cabin of her department, that had ‘Writer’s Den’, in order to look chic and cool, had their eyes plastered right over Emilia’s face.

She gulped hard, looking down at her hands, as the dream that she had just witnessed, in her sleep felt too real and what she had assumed to be an award in her hands in her dream, was actually her empty stationary cup that she held in her hands.

She looked at her clothes, at once, also getting her senses back that she was not in her Zuhair Murad fall collection gown but in fact, wore a local American eagle outfitters shirt, paired with the very worn out jeans that she got with that shirt over a buy one get one free deal.

Getting back on her feet, she craned her neck and massaged the muscles on her back, that definitely hurt due to the extraneous fall that she had just suffered from.

Finally cracking up her entire joints, she looked around the office space and found everybody’s neck craned upwards, looking in to her direction.

Her pale cheeks, immediately turned red and she picked up her hoodie, placed on the side of her small desk, putting it on and closing it’s zip, as she threw the hood back on top of her head.

She had an idea of what she had done and just as she grabbed her chair to sit back on, her coworker, the short and chubby blond, threw the latest issue of the magazine titled, ‘Monger’, right in front of Emilia’s desk.

“Done day dreaming?”

She c****d an eyebrow at Emilia, who looked up at her, through her eyelashes.

“I didn’t sleep during my working hours. I took a nap during my lunch time.” Emilia pointed out as Stephanie, perched down in front of her and pulled out her name tag, that had the words, ‘Emilia Green’ – intern writer, written right underneath Emilia’s smiling picture on it.

“And your lunch time is our working time! Remember that?” she c****d at Emilia, who cleared her throat.

“This is the latest issue! It goes live by next week, proof read it for us.” She told Emilia, pointing out towards the magazine that she had just slandered on top of Emilia’s small corner desk, placed in the very corner of the large office space, right in between the small gap left for the office cabins, made for the heads and upper management of the department.

“Make sure that everything is correct and no mistakes! The other two interns…” Stephanie, who seemed to be the superior handling Emilia, pointed towards the other two interns, who had similar desks to Emilia and held those very same magazine issues in their hands.

Emilia could tell by the cover, where they had a paparazzied picture of a celebrity couple holding hands, walking out of a restaurant, taken from a very discreet corner, making sure that the two poor souls were oblivious of the fact that someone was clicking their pictures.

“They took the first two halves of the book, you take the third one.” Stephanie informed her, walking towards her desk.

“But where does the third half start from?” Emilia inquired, but Stephanie could care less, as she heaved in annoyance and simply chose not to answer Emilia.

Emilia could have been less aggravated as well.

Opening up the third half of the magazine, she began going through it, only assuming that it could be the third and the last half of the thick booklet.

She felt annoyed and nauseous, going through the entire text, images and columns, written about the celebrities and their personal and private matters.

If anything, Emilia could feel a wave of revolt going through her body that made her want to scathe the entire booklet off and burn down the entire office, who wrote such vicious words about people who had every single right to live their life the way they wanted to, instead of being judged so mercilessly.

She roamed an eye around the entire room, filled with writers, who were typing so pretentiously on their laptops and preparing new gossip, to write and destroy the mental peace of another poor star, who was just out for a dinner or having a bad day, that made them scream at a persistent fan.

To Emilia, her very job felt like a plague to society and the very headquarters that she was a minion at, felt like the cursing hell, which she believed that, even if shown to Adam and Eve, would actually prohibit them from eating that damned apple.

Going through the pages, she decided to skim; not wanting to focus much of her attention on the disease-ridden words, written about someone’s soul and acts.

Her eyes finally landed on the large column that was written all over a page, with a picture of a drunken male celebrity, a man in his early fifties, who seemingly held the image of a family man, loyal and devoted to his wife and children, in front of the entire world. But in reality, he was walking out of the house of a senator, late at night, with his arms wrapped around a blonde Russian model.

There was a collage of those pictures; another picture in that collage had that man holding a rolled up joint in his hands, that he moved between his lips and away from them.

A small smile settled on to Emilia’s lips as the one article that she was had genuinely worked hard for as part of her story assembling assignment given to her by Stephanie and she had submitted it just within the second week of her internship, which was not just quite fast but also quicker and more ground breaking than the story that the other two interns had submitted.

Stephanie always kept her ears and eyes opened for a good story and living in Los Angeles and working with many and when the word many is said, it is meant to be considered in its literal terms, many internal resources, paparazzi and night crawlers who if paid regularly or promised a spot in the magazine would literally kill to give information to Emilia.

Making use of those paparazzi reporters, Emilia had been able to pen down the story that she was so proud to finally share.

She had studied investigation journalism and majored in the field, clearing top of her class and receiving a gold medal, even making it to the dean’s list and being the speaker at her graduation ceremony but little had she known, that even after two years of graduation, working and dragging her ass off as a waitress at restaurants and clubs, barista, cook and many more jobs, she was finally able to land herself an internship in one of the biggest gossip magazines, called, Monger.

It was like a breakable deal for Emilia, who wasn’t much willing to accept it but still accepted the internship because it was in the writer’s department of the magazine.

Everyone there, even though not in Emilia’s eyes, but was still experienced enough with their skills and pen ship and being an investigation writer herself, Emilia was willing to respect that about those who were a plague to the society according to her and decided to work under them in order to learn something and pave her way towards something bigger and better.

She smiled, skimming through the whole article that was written by her, exposing the deeds of the cheap skate that the actor, in question was.

But as soon as her eyes landed on the bottom of the article, expecting to read her name, her eyes bulged out and the smile disappeared from her face, as she realized that instead of her name, the words inscribed downwards, read as; Marina Gold.

“What?”

Emilia shot right out of her seat and stood up straight, attaining the entire office’s attention.

“What happened?” asked Stephanie, which made Emilia, stomp her feet towards her in anger.

“What is this?”

She turned the magazine towards her and showed her the article that she had submitted.

“Oh! They decided to publish your article. I knew it had good potential.” Stephanie decided to further on, ignore Emilia’s question, that she had clearly expected.

“It is my article but not published under my name. why does it have Marina’s name on it?”

“You know Marina, she is the head writer and editor of our department. She handles all the details of the article and she took co-credit…”

“The entire credit!” Emilia pointed out in agony.

“At least yours got published.”

One of the two interns passed by Emilia and grunted in agony, but Emilia wasn’t much fazed by her and she simply shook her head.

Besides, both of the two interns were some college students, doing internship in order to fill on their credit hours and to get their degrees. So, she could care less what they were up to and didn’t consider them much of a competition anyways.

“Why is Marina, taking credit for my story?” Emilia rose the question, making sure that she was heard out and loud.

“You don’t have to scream about it.” Stephanie complained and Emilia shook her head.

“I guess I have to, if I am not being heard properly.”

Seeing her grit, attitude and sternness, everyone around the room, looked up at her, wondering if her anger could land her in to trouble.

Stephanie looked around at everyone in the room and c****d an eyebrow, looking back at Emilia.

She got up from her seat and grabbed Emilia’s arm, walking her back to her table.

“Listen! This is what Marina always does. Whenever there is someone new in the office and they write up a story, she steals it. So, do not worry. If you keep on showing good work, she will perhaps choose you over the rest of the two interns and, once you are there, you will know the system much better and then finally have a story published under your name.”

Emilia heard each and every word that Stephanie told her, in order to calm her down, but at the same time, her mind was solely focused on just one single thing.

“If someone comes in yelling at who wrote this piece, if it goes down, she is going to blame me, isn’t she? I am going to be her shield in case things go down, because this is risky, right?”

She inquired from Stephanie who nodded, “Yes! But it doesn’t matter…”

“It actually does. Because at the very same time, when this piece will be praised, she will gladly take the entire credit, won’t she do that then?”

“Oh my God! Why are you such a picture of a rebellion?”

“I can’t believe this… you guys are all journalists and how could you sell your souls like this?”

“Well… welcome to the real world, it works like this here.” Stephanie, threw in a tired smirk at Emilia and turned on her heels to love but paused as she saw a tall blond, wearing a tight knee length dress, her waist seemingly surgically kept tiny, with her cheeks and lips filled and puffed with fillers, as she looked right at Stephanie, who when stepped aside, revealed Emilia, who looked in to the woman’s eyes and suddenly realized that it was Marina standing in front of her and she might have heard her when she was probably talking crap about her.

“In my room. Now!”

Marina told Emilia and walked right in to the very cabin, next to which Emilia’s desk was.

Stephanie turned to look at her and gave her a thumbs up, denoting that now she was on her own.

Emilia grunted in agony, walking inside the cabin behind Marina, who immediately walked up towards her seat and slumped down, gawking at Emilia head to toe, giving a good look at her worn out New Balance sneakers, a power move that was obviously done in order to make Emilia feel down sided but she was far from feeling low rather than biting back.

“I could hear your loud voice booming in the entire office, you should know that we don’t allow that here.” Marina told Emilia with a stern voice.

“But it is okay to steal my articles?” Emilia laughed back, coming back sharp but with a hint of sarcasm.

Listening to Emilia’s daring words, Marina did feel a bit shocked but she also didn’t feel slayed back. Instead of getting angry she began laughing and Emilia wasn’t surprised but vexed at how shameless the woman was.

“You see, we can not run such a huge story under an intern’s name.”

“But the words…”

“You will be given the due credit don’t worry…” Marina waved her hands at Emilia, stopping her from speaking any further. “Avoid yelling and screaming inside the office. This can lead to serious consequences. Get me my coffee and oh, you know what in fact…” Marina paused checking her calendar in the computer in front of her. “… there is a meeting with top executives of the magazine tomorrow, you should be taking points from our department.”

“What? Me?” Emilia asked, stunned at the opportunity that was given to her.

“Yeah! Why not? I will also introduce you to everyone and perhaps give you ‘credit’.” Marina, smiled at Emilia and it finally dawned at her, that Marina was throwing the bone at her, after eating up the entire flesh.

The story was going to be published under Marina’s name no matter what and she was actually compensating with Emilia over the hoarding of her story.

“Of course!”

Emilia gulped down her anger, realizing that she was all alone on her own and there was no way that she could do something against Marina in that case.

Either was to stay quiet and let the article get published under marina’s name or she was to fight lose her job and get the article published under Marina’s name.

She decided to opt for the first one – at least. It was going to help her conserve some energy, which she knew she was going to need loads of at the end of the day if she were to continue working for the Monger.

She heaved in exhaustion and turned to leave when Marina called her out one last time.

“Don’t forget my coffee now and tell Stephanie that you will be getting pointers at the meeting tomorrow. She will let you know what you have to do.”

Emilia simply walked out of the office and stopped by her station where the other two female writers, the two interns and even Stephanie, were waiting for Emilia.

“Well, did you get fired?” Stephanie questioned, wondering what had happened inside that office, and Emilia shrugged.

“You guys already know what happened. She simply gave me a lollipop to chew on and asked me to take pointers for tomorrow’s meeting as a compensation for stealing my article.”

Stephanie sighed in relief.

“You are actually on the way of becoming a writer here, then.” She cheered and her two fellow writers clapped with her, leaving the rest of the two interns bored and exhausted, who simply walked back towards their work station.

“What?” Emilia asked, confused at Stephanie’s suggestion.

“Oh! Nothing… it is just that, the interns that get their stories stolen by Marina, get a permanent job here.”

“Oh God!” just like a horror movie flashing right before her eyes, Emilia felt horrified at the thought of working in that place, for the rest of her life.

Her dreams were bigger and she wanted to unmask people who ran bigger rackets on an international level and corrupted the social and justice system of the system. Took and gave bribes, manipulated and waved the law however they wanted it to.

But being stuck at the magazine sounded like her worst nightmare.

“And once you become a writer here, you can then, have your articles published under your own name...” one of the senior writers told Emilia.

“I can?” she c****d at them and she nodded back.

“Of course. You see Marina, will send the article under her name to the printer. You just make sure to sleep with him.”

“Ew! No! why would I do that?”

“To make sure that the printer changes your name in the article?”

“Which one of the two printers’ in charge?” she asked, wanting to know, if it truly was an option. “The one with the bulging belly or the one who is still underage?”

“Both!” she announced, leaving Emilia, horrified and disgusted at the same time.

“Where is my coffee?”

They heard Marina’s voice boom from the inside of the office, making Emilia shake their head in an annoyed tone, as she picked up her bag and made her way outside the office, hoping and praying that one day; her job would be more than just getting coffee and getting her articles stolen by her boss.

Her Life was currency dwindling between three things; Stolen Articles, Pointers and a crushed soul.

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Hello Everyone, I hope you guys enjoy this new book of mine.

It is fun, full of suspense, thriller and action and also something new and different for me to try.

Thank you for always reading and supporting my work <3