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Bring Him Home Chapter 6

It was two days later that the call came through, a call that would change my life and the lives of everyone round me., Who could have thought that a minute in someone's life could cause such a ripple?

"Hi this is Bella"  I knew who was on the other end of the phone, it was one of my favourite reporters in the industry press Tanya.

"Bella hi, erm I don't know if you know, but I couldn't leave it in case you didn't, have you seen the video that is making the rounds on you tube? It is going viral and while you are not named on it, it is most definitely you"

"I'm sorry Tanya, I have no idea what you are talking about, what video?"

She told me she would forward the link to me and then explained that a couple of my competitors had already seen it and were pushing it out and about in the industry to try and shake confidence in me.

"Just send it Tanya and let me look at it, it can't be that bad, I haven't done anything wrong"

"I hope so Bella because this is not good for you" she said.

I called Rosalie, Alice and Esme into the office and waited for the ping on my email to notify me it had arrived. As soon as it did I logged onto the office system and opened the attachment on the big screen.

It took me precisely two seconds to realise what somebody had filmed, the day of the rain, and my aborted attempt to get to Cullen Inc.  Someone was obviously standing under shelter somewhere and had realised that I was going to walk into the homeless man. The footage started as I was about three steps away from the collision with the homeless man facing my building looking up at the windows, completely oblivious I was marching towards him with my umbrella firmly in my face. He didn't even react when my umbrella hit him, he seemed to be totally unaware of his surroundings. I covered my face as the rest of the clip showed my comical fall, the attempts to get up and finally my explosion of temper as I screamed and shouted at the poor man. Whoever was filming was now laughing uncontrollably at my misfortune, they thought it was hilarious I was soaked through, the more I screamed at the poor guy, the louder the  person filming laughed. The one plus side was that his laughter cut out most of my bad language. The shot followed as I finally stamped off back into the building and then returned to the homeless man stood in the rain, he continued to watch me walk away, then he turned towards the guy filming and walked towards him. For a few seconds you got a good look at his face, before he put his head down and walked past.

I sat back hoping that was the end but then the film started again, this time it had been cleaned up considerably, the quality had been tweaked and all the background noise had been erased, now it was like watching a movie production, the bad part was my dialogue was not only highlighted but actually subtitled for all to see. As it drew to a close for the second time a caption came along the bottom of the screen in big bold letters

DO YOU REALLY WANT YOUR PR COMPANY TREATING THE HOMELESS LIKE THIS?

I was mortified, the one and only time I have ever lost my temper in public and not only is it filmed, it is used against me in a negative campaign. If this was going viral I was in big trouble and all my hard work was just about to go down the toilet.

We just sat and started at the empty screen for about a minute before Rosalie spoke, "what the fuck, was that the other day, when you came back wet through?"

"Yes I told you what happened, that I had shouted at him" I reminded her.

"Yes I remember" she said. "Right we need to get the others in here and show them, I don't believe for a minute anyone here has seen it and not told you, then we need to try and get it taken down. If we can't then we need to start testing the waters with our clients"

For the next twenty minutes I sat through the excruciatingly embarrassing video as my staff watched it and watched it trying to determine if they could tell who had filmed it and if someone else had picked it up to do the enhancements.

"I'm going to call Jazzie" Alice said, "this is his area of expertise so let's see what he can find out"

I looked at Alice, "I thought Jasper was in security?"

"Well let's just say that's what he tells people, it's easier" she added as she left the office.

I had moved to the window, so I could overlook the concourse outside. I couldn't bear to watch the clip again, I felt as though there should have been a big black X on the floor where the collision happened. I‘d worked so hard for all this and I had people relying on me so they could make their mortgage payments and the like. I was close to tears as I felt everything slipping away.

Before I could wallow too long I watched as a man wandered across the paving below me, he stopped in exactly the same place the collision took place and I could see he was looking at his phone. It had started already, people watching and trying to see if they tell where it was. What struck me was that he was very well dressed but he was just too far below me to make out any of his features, I knew I knew him but I couldn't tell who it was.

"Ok enough, there is nothing to be gleaned from watching this anymore, we know it was taken from somewhere outside the café on the plaza, someone random fucking nerd was obviously sheltering from the rainstorm and it was probably just a lucky break. What we don't know is which of our competitors has decided to use it to try and unsettle our clients" Rosalie said as he closed down the connection.

"Boss you and the girls are the PR experts, what do you think we should do?" She asked.

"I don't know at this moment Rosalie.  To be honest I can't think straight, please ladies give it some thought, we'll sit down late on this afternoon and discuss everything."

With that I decided to get out of the office and go for a run. I kept my running gear at the office in case I needed to use the gym downstairs, I found that when I ran it cleared my mind and sometimes gave me a fresh prospective on everything. So thirty minutes later I was just getting into my stride at the local park when I saw him, the homeless man. He was sitting on a park bench staring in to the distance as though he had all the time in the world. I ran past him the first time, I was too mad with myself to approach him but by my second lap I was ready so I slowed my pace as the bench came into view. He was still in exactly the same position and for a moment I wondered if he was sleeping, if he was I didn't want to wake him so I slowed right down and came to a stop in front of him.

His breathing was even and deep.  I couldn't help but stare at the dirty worn coat that moved with his chest, he seemed so relaxed and at peace that I decided to just leave him alone. I moved closer to him as I had the urge to tough him but I stopped myself at the last moment. As I made to move away I must have startled him because he opened his eyes and looked straight at me. They were the purest shade of green I have ever seen, crystal clear white surrounded a crisp green iris and a dark black pupil. It was the same strange stare from our previous meeting. I waited for him to acknowledge me but once again he just stared without speaking.

I took the initiative and spoke first " Hi I'm Bella and I need to apologise to you".

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