Chapter 45

They arrived at Moonstone late in the afternoon, making Celine’s anxiety return in full force as soon as she saw the familiar streets of the sleepy little town. Fortunately, their location was on the other side of the town from the Pack House and as Celine hardly left the Pack House, most of the town didn’t know her that well. It also helped that she had changed a lot since leaving Moonstone.

She was determined to keep her distance from anything that would remind her of her past and ruin what she had now.

Their cars parked in the parking lot of a hotel that she didn’t remember seeing before, Asher getting out first before helping her out as well. The car windows were tinted so it already wasn’t easy to look out through them but Celine went through the extra step of staying far away from the windows, so she didn’t expect the very first person she saw as soon as she got down from the car.

Her slender fingers tightened in Asher’s hold, her breath seizing as she saw none other than Noah personally welcoming Asher. She held gazes with him with bated breath, expecting to be called out right then and there but there wasn’t even a single spark of recognition in those painfully familiar black eyes.

“We’re honored to have you personally attend the grand opening, Alpha Asher.” Noah was saying, he was dressed in a stiff suit, his dark brown hair coiffed in that greasy way that Celine never liked.

“I just like to personally oversee what I put my money in,” Asher replied flatly, a possessive hold around her.

Celine held onto him tighter than she realized, a fake smile on her face to acknowledge Noah’s greeting.

“There will be a welcome party tonight if you’re up for that,” Noah said as he walked on Asher’s other side, focusing completely on him. “There will be other sponsors there as well but the main event will happen tomorrow just as the schedule stated…”

Celine just tuned their conversation out and focused on not tripping as they walked, she couldn’t believe that Noah would look her in the eyes and not be able to remember her. She hadn’t been expecting much from him to begin with but this was a new low for him. *Had he really hated her that much? That less than a month after she left, he completely erased her from his memory?*

She couldn’t complain though because this was the best-case scenario, if things continued on this way, she might just escape from this business trip completely unscathed.

They were led to the main bedroom, uniformed and anxious waiters quick to move their things under the watchful gaze of Asher’s men. Celine always forgot how intimidating they were because she had gotten completely used to their presence.

All she had to do was get through the welcome party and then the main event and they could leave, *right?*

“Do you have any arrangements after the main event?” She asked Asher without mincing words.

“No,” He replied just as bluntly, “I can see that you don’t like it here…”

There was a tense spell of silence after Asher’s words, and that might have been the right time to tell him about what made things that way. The period passed however without her saying a word about it, “You don’t have to cancel appointments because of me, I don’t mind staying longer.”

She actually did, but letting Asher know that would defeat the entire purpose of all that she had been hiding about Moonstone.

Asher walked over at her words, his fingers on her face gentle for all his hard jewelry. “I wouldn’t hesitate to leave right now if you wanted it.”

Celine could only stare at him awestruck for a few seconds of eternity, her heartbeat loud in her ears. She looked down and let out a small self-conscious laugh, “But I was the one to insist that I wanted to come along…”

Asher let her go and stepped away to pick up a call that had interrupted their conversation, leaving Celine to catch her breath in his absence. She was surprisingly grateful that he was a man of few words, she couldn’t handle him being so direct about things, it was a little too much for someone like her who was always unwanted.

For him to repeatedly leave important appointments just for her sake without a second thought was such a wild concept for her to accept, could she really mean that much to him?

There was no reason to unpack as they wouldn’t be staying long, Asher hadn’t said it but she had a feeling that they would be leaving right after the main event. She decided to get ready for the welcome party while Asher discussed business over the phone.

What were the odds that the one time she needed Asher being a Mafia to spare her, it didn’t work? She expected his business trip to involve something more sinister, not him being a sponsor to what seemed like a chain of hotels. It was more likely that he had chosen this specific trip because of how harmless it was, and she couldn’t even be upset with him, not when he was so thoughtful and paid close attention to her.

She walked after Asher who was still on the phone to help undo the buttons of his dress shirt, they would both need to take a shower before the welcome party to wash off the grime of the road.

She had a difficult time holding his intense stare, his hazel gold eyes burning like wildfire as he ate her up with his fiery gaze. She didn’t back down though because she wanted this… no she needed it, she needed a distraction from all the bad memories that being in Moonstone brought back. Even if it meant spending the entire evening with Noah while she wore fresh love bites on her skin, it was beyond worth it. Besides, she owed him nothing, he couldn’t even recognize her.