New Moon (ILLICIT #1)

When I heard the story of Cinderella, all I could think of was its stupidity. How could a poor girl like her marry a prince when the prince had a long list of beautiful and rich princesses? Disney stories were nothing but full of bullshit. They should make a realistic story because there was no such thing as a commoner marrying a prince charming—or maybe a billionaire.

We had our own circle, and there was no way we would be attracted to those types of people. I wanted to laugh my ass off at people who believed in that.

As much as I hated that bullshit, the man I loved ended up having a girlfriend who was a commoner. He was proudly introducing his girlfriend at the Winter Ball Charity event. His parents completely hated the fact that he decided to date that girl, and they wanted me to be his girlfriend instead.

I was rich, beautiful, and smart. I was the type of woman that every rich parent wanted to be their son's wife.

When I found a small chance to talk to that girl, I quickly walked towards her with my glass of champagne. She was awkwardly standing there, and everyone could clearly see that she didn't fit in with the crowd. She was like an ugly duckling.

"You come here for us to give you charity?" I asked arrogantly as I stood next to her.

She turned to me and shook her head. "I'm here with Finn," she said in a small tone.

"I'm surprised that you're so confident about it. You don't belong on our radar," I said as I sipped my champagne.

"I know that, clearly, but I'm here for Finn, so I don't care if you try to judge me," she said bravely, and I nodded. I'd give her credit to her on that.

"I wonder…how long will you last with Finn? At the end of the day, he will end up with me," I said and pointed at myself.

"I will not end up with you." I turned to Finn, who was already looking at me coldly. I chuckled and raised my champagne glass. He wrapped his arm around his girlfriend and walked away from me.

"You'll see," I mumbled to myself. I turned my body around and bumped into a man so hard that I fell down to the ground. I cursed under my breath and turned to the man, clearly ready to get mad, but I was speechless as soon as I saw those beautiful blue eyes.

He stood in front of me and gave me his hand to help me get up. Instead of taking his hand, I decided to get up on my own. I looked at him coldly, and he stood up straight.

"Sorry," he said, and I looked around to see people laughing and mocking the both of us—or maybe just me for falling down. I turned to him again, wanting to hear him apologize for the second time.

"I'm guessing you're Lana Castroff," he said, and I raised my eyebrows.

"Who are you?" I asked, and I heard people gasping after hearing me saying that. I looked at the people around me and glared at them one by one.

"That's rare. I guess you lived in a rural area, huh?"

"Excuse me?" I looked at him in disbelief.

"I'm Julie and Finn's friend, Phoenix," he introduced himself.

"Oh…you're friends with commoners too…how fun!" I said, rolling my eyes at him. He let out a small laugh, and then he grabbed a glass of champagne from the waiter.

"She's a really nice girl, so you shouldn’t judge people just because they don't have a lot of money," he said and sipped his champagne without taking his eyes off me.

"I don't like her." I smiled sweetly at him, but I was pretty sure that my eyes showed him how I freaking hated his statement. I was about to walk away when he stopped me by saying, "They're getting married. They love each other." I turned to him.

"Phoenix, right?" I asked as I grabbed his champagne glass and drank all of it in one shot. "They both won't get married as long as I'm alive," I said as I gave the empty glass back to him.

"You really want to ruin other people's happiness? If you really love him, you should let him be happy," he said, and I chuckled.

"He won't be happy with a commoner. That's not how it works," I said, looking straight to Phoenix's blue eyes. His facial expression turned dark, and I decided to get out from the scene.

"Hey! Where are you going?" My best friend, Noelle, stopped me. I sighed and turned to see Phoenix and Finn talking to Julie. It was making me madder than I already was.

"Who's that guy?"

"Where?" Noelle tried to look at the direction that I was looking.

"The guy with blue eyes besides Finn," I said as I looked at him, and he found my eyes. He smirked at me, and I turned to Noelle.

"He's Phoenix Sterling. You don't know him?" Noelle asked me in a confused tone. I raised my eyebrows.

"Why should I know him?" I asked, and Noelle gasped. "Just tell me who he is!" I hissed coldly, and Noelle pulled out her phone. She typed something on it and then she gave her phone to me.

"He's a billionaire from Italy. He owns a lot of graveyards, a shipping company, an airline, and a lot more," Noelle said as I read his profile on the internet. He happened to come from a not-so-wealthy family, so I guess that was why he hung out with that woman.

"I never thought you wouldn't know him," Noelle whispered.

"Why should I know? He's not that important," I said, and Noelle gave me a flute of champagne to calm myself down.

"He's the part of Illicit, and maybe that's why you should be aware from now on." Illicit?

"He's a part of Illicit? How do you know? I thought no one knew who's in the Illicit." I looked at my best friend with my eyes almost popping out from their sockets.

"I mean…I don't know if it's true or not, but some people speculate that he is."

"Ms. Castroff, there's a little bit of a problem," my secretary said as I was busy checking files. I turned to her and got up from my seat immediately.

"What is it?" I asked as we walked out from my office room.

"There's a man by the name of Phoenix Sterling. He did have an—" I stopped when I heard his name loud and clear from my secretary.

"Where is he?" I asked my secretary.

"He's in the blue meeting room," she said, and I gestured for her to stay here. I made my way towards the blue meeting room, which happened to be at the end of the hallway.

I opened the door, and when he saw me, his lips turned into a smile. He didn't even bother to get up from his seat to greet me. "I was expecting to see your father, but I guess talking to his daughter is even better," he said arrogantly.

"What's wrong?" I asked as I sat in the chair across him.

"I'm suing your company," he said in a serious tone, and I looked at him disbelief.

"Suing my company? What? We didn't do—" Before I could complete my sentence, he put a file in front of me and asked me to read it. I opened the file, and I couldn’t believe what my eyes saw. I looked up to Phoenix, and he smirked at me.

"I was quite nice for not exposing it to the public…just yet, but I'm guessing your father didn't tell you about this, huh?" he asked, and I looked down to the files again. "Or maybe…your father is currently running away right now as we speak," he added, and I got up from my seat, slamming the file onto the desk angrily.

"Are you doing this because of what happened 3 months ago?" I asked, looking at him and raging in anger.

"Ms. Castroff, I'm not that immature. I'm here because of that." He pointed at the file, and I closed my eyes, trying to breath properly. "I will have my lawyers come here tomorrow, and we can talk about settlement," he said as he got up from his seat. I was speechless because of a lot of things, and my mind was trying to process everything slowly.

"Don't worry. I won't make you…a commoner," he said before he walked out from the room. I sat down, and my eyes just blankly stared at the ceiling. I immediately took out my phone from my pocket.

I dialed my father's number, and he didn't pick up. I kept calling and calling, but he didn't pick up. I immediately walked back to my office and asked my secretary to call my father's secretary. I needed to have a word with her.

"Ms. Castroff." I gestured for her to sit down on the sofa as I walked towards her. I slammed the file that Phoenix gave me earlier onto the table in front of her.

"His company is suing us because his staff got an infection from our products! What exactly happened?" I asked, and she kept looking down to the ground, not knowing what to say. "Where's my father? Is he running away?" I asked angrily.

"I don't know, Ms. Castroff. He told me that he won't be coming to work for about 4 days, or maybe more." Shit!

"Did he make any changes for that product? Because there's no way that Phoenix Sterling's employees would get such an infection!" I was pissed, and I wanted an explanation from my father as soon as possible.

"Your father did purchase some products that are cheaper than the original products. I remember he mentioned to me about something scented, but that's all, Ms. Castroff," she said in a sad tone.

"You two, take me to the factory now!" I hissed. I grabbed my phone in the table and the files from Phoenix. My secretary drove me to the factory, and my father's secretary tried to read through the lawsuit that Phoenix gave me.

"I want you to give me Phoenix Sterling's phone number," I told Vira, my father's secretary. She immediately opened her work phone and sent his phone number to me. I saved it in my phone as we arrived at my soap factory.

I got out and walked inside to ask the employees there for the changes that my father had made recently. They brought me to the gallons and gallons of new scented oil for our beauty products.

"I want details on this product, and what's the new thing that my father changed?" I asked, and they led me to the coloring product that we used.

"Ms. Castroff, we checked the production of products that Mr. Sterling received," my secretary said as she gave me her iPad. Apparently, the products that Phoenix received were made around 2 weeks ago. He received the products about a week ago. So my father had already changed everything.

"I want you to pull back all the products that we produced with the new ingredients. I want the test team to do another test on it," I said as I gave the iPad back to my secretary.

"Yes, Ms. Castroff."

"I want every product already here by tomorrow and check all the people that purchase our product recently if they have any infection like the one Phoenix Sterling's employees got," I said with a hint of an angry tone.

My employees quickly did as they were told, and I dialed Phoenix's number. I walked out from the factory, hoping that he would answer my call.

"Hello."

"Mr. Sterling, this is Lana Castroff," I introduced myself.

"You want me to cancel the lawsuit?" he asked in a cold tone. I rolled my eyes and completely hated this man.

"No, but I would like to send some of my employees to check on your employees' condition. We want to know the cause of it," I said nicely—or maybe trying to be nice.

"Very well. You can come to the West Hospital tomorrow at 1 o'clock."

"Okay. Thank you." I ended the call and sighed.