Chapter 43: Chapter forty three

Arielle

My eyes widened as I watched Jack's cousin enter Chuck's and made her way to the counter. She hadn't noticed me yet as she was too busy typing on her phone.

I immediately ducked under the counter, crouching so low that no one would notice me unless they looked closely.

“Why are we hiding?” Drayton whispered as he crouched beside me.

I sucked in a sharp breath and tried to ignore my annoyance. If he drew Laura's attention to me, I was going to murder him.

“No, you idiot. I'm hiding from Laura. Get up and attend to her. If she sees me, I swear to God, I'm literally going to poison you in your sleep.” I said through gritted teeth.

“Hm!” He nodded and glanced up. I followed his gaze and caught a glimpse of Laura.

She seem to be engrossed in whatever she was doing on her phone. She had taken a seat at the booth closest to the window instead. I could bet my entire designer show collection that she was talking to a boy, judging by the wide smile and the faint blush staining her cheeks.

“Hey!” I grabbed Drayton's arm and dragged him so he was on eye level with me.

“Do. You. Fucking. Understand?” I asked, punctuating my words. I tightened my grip on his arm but the asshole didn't even flinch. He simply grinned widely.

“The poisoning in my sleep part, not so much. But I think I got everything else. Why are you hiding from Laura? I thought the both of you cleared themisconception you had about her and Sinclair.”

My lips parted in surprise. I didn't remember mentioning that to him or anyone.

“How did you know about that?” I asked.

“I have my ways.” The smirk he gave me told me enough about his “ways”. I had a feeling I wouldn't want to know about it so I kept my questions to myself.

“You still haven't answered my question.” He said, his voice softened.

I opened my mouth to reply but nothing came out. Why didn't I want Laura to see me? Better question, why didn't I want anyone from my life to see me here?

It's not like it's shameful to have an after school job. Some students in my school work after school hours. Hell, even Drayton, who was the son of a billionaire, works after school too.

I knew deep down that I wasn't ashamed of it. I was excited to finally do something for myself without my father's involvement. So why? Could it be that–

“Arielle,” Drayton called softly.

I quickly buried those thoughts into deepest part of my mind. I wasn't going to think about him when things were finally going well for me.

“Well, she's Jack's cousin.” I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

I mentally cursed myself for that. It was the lamest excuse ever. But Drayton didn't seem to think that as his eyes darkened.

“And?” The word was stiff and void of the softness he'd called my name with just few seconds ago.

But for some reasons, I felt the need to keep talking. I realized I was still holding his arm. I quickly retracted my hand and wrapped it around my knees, hugging them tightly to my chest.

Drayton stared at him like I'd just slapped him, but he didn't utter a single word.

“It's just that, we go to the same school. If she sees us, she might–”

“Tell Jack we were together?” he finished.

My lips parted in surprise. That wasn't even close to what I was about to say. I didn't care about what Jack thought. We were broken up and I'd rather grow a beard than date him back. And everyone knows I wouldn't look good with a beard.

But as I opened my mouth to tell Drayton that, I found I couldn't. I felt a huge lump in my throat that prevented me from speaking. The expression on Drayton's face was enough to make that lump larger.

“Right,” he exhaled. If he looked scary before, he looked outright murderous now.

He pulled away from me before I could say anything. I peeked out from behind the counter and watched him walk over to Laura, his body movements stiff.

I started to panic as I imagined him telling Laura I was working here out of spite. It wouldn't be out of character. We'd done worst things to each other before.

But when he began talking to her, it didn't seem like they were talking about me. I couldn't hear what they were saying, nor could I make out Laura's hand movements.

But I could see her flushed cheeks clearly. And when she placed a hand on Drayton's arm, I felt a tight knot in my stomach. She continued touching him and he didn't pull away. He smiled at her widely, not the dry smiles or humorless laugh he gave me.

Laura left after chatting with Drayton for what felt like eternity. And Drayton didn't speak to me for the rest of the day.

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.

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“Honey, are you sure everything is okay between you and Drayton? You barely spoke to each other throughout dinner.” My mum said as we prepared to sleep.

She wasn't the only one who noticed the tensed silence between Drayton and I. Penelope had asked us what was wrong but neither of us could come up with convincing answers. Even I didn't know why he was so mad at me.

Drayton had tried to skip dinner but had to stay due to his aunt's and my mum's insistence. His face had been set in a scowl the entire time.

“Yeah, everything is fine. We just disagreed on something in class and he had been extremely pissy about it.” I forced out a laugh.

The look my mum gave me was evidence she didn't buy my bullshit lies. But thankfully, she didn't question me on it.

“I have some news for you.” She smiled, but I could see the hollowness she was trying to mask.

“I can't tell if it's good news or bad news.” I said.

Her eyes twitched but she still kept her smile on. I knew she was trying to mask her pain with that smile, make me believe everything was fine. But it was time she stop trying to protect me from the pain. I had just beat cancer. I can handle some emotional pain.

“Mum?” I called and arched an eyebrow.

She let out a sigh.

“Alright, I have good and bad news.”

“Bad one first, always.”

She scooted closer to me. I took in the tightness of her posture and immediately knew who she wanted to talk about.

“Your father have refused to sign the separation papers. We can't be legally divorced unless we're separated for a year.” She said.

“Typical.” I muttered.

Charles McAlister never makes anything easy. Not even when people tried to escape him. His way of destroying me was cutting off my funds, but he chose to deny my mum the one thing she wants the most. Freedom.

I pushed all thoughts of him to the back of my mind and cleared my throat.

“And the good news?” I asked.

“The renovations of the house will be done this week. We should be able to move by weekend. We're finally making a home for ourselves at last.” Her eyes lit up with excitement.

I tried to muster a reaction to the news but was unable to. I was happy about having a place I could finally call a home. Might not be a huge mansion with several workers but it was ours. A place that wasn't tainted with memories of Charles.

But even as I tried to convince myself of reasons I should be excited about this, I still couldn't get rid of the knot in my stomach.

The scariest part was that my moodiness was because of a certain dark haired who I was supposed to loathe.