Chapter 4

Matthew pulled slightly on the steering wheel of his Audi Q7 and turned into the parking lot of the restaurant. He switched off the engine and in lieu of exiting the vehicle, he leaned into the leather seat and sighed.

He was back here again to deal with a gold digger. Coupled with the fact that he was hungry, exhausted, and busy with work, Matthew was in a sour mood. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He was really tired. And he could not leave as early as he did yesterday. His mother was a smart woman. Even with the precaution he had taken, the woman still suspected something. Maybe he would tell the woman to wait before she made the call.

With that thought bolstering him, Matthew unlocked his car and walked into the restaurant building. Given the frequency at which he had been attending these meetings, he was not surprised that the staff reserved the exact same room for him.

It was a little pathetic. The things he did for his mother.

Frowning when the female server walked past him to direct him into the room, Matthew followed her to the room. She bowed and was about to leave when he stopped her.

"Hold on. I want you to reserve another room for me. For use in about thirty minutes. Will that be possible?"

Bowing, the server assured him it will be. Good, now he could eat properly after the fiasco. Matthew twisted the door handle and entered the room. He watched as the woman stood up and placed her hands behind her back. Her maroon sweater looked neat, to be optimistic, and the blue jeans she wore underneath were faded and he didn't think it was the intended style.

Oh, Matthew nodded internally, she was going for the demure and innocent route. Same thing, same effect. He hated all of them. The woman bowed dutifully as he approached the table and took the seat opposite her.

With the chandelier hanging directly above the table, he could see her features properly. And while he hated the very sight of her, he was a little grateful she hadn't plastered her face and drowned herself in perfume.

And for some reason, the woman seemed to be in shock. No, not for some reason. The next line out of her mouth would be "I had no idea you were so handsome, Mr. Devin."

He looked at the woman with disinterest, waiting for her to spit her lines so he would spit her out as well and rinse his mouth.

What he did not expect was, "I'm very sorry sir, but I think that…you are in the…w-wrong room."

Matthew arched a brow in surprise. "What did you just say?"

The woman's face reddened and she averted her eyes in fear. "I'm sorry. I did not mean to… Please forgive me."

Matthew tilted his head and replayed her statement in his head. Wrong room? He was definitely not in the wrong room. This was the same room he had spent the last two dating horror stories. This was definitely the right room.

He was about to correct the woman and send her out before he realized it was a ploy. Act like he had the wrong room so it would seem like she did not know who he was and she was not interested in being his wife.

Matthew smirked. "I think it is you who is mistaken. This is the right room. Maybe you should leave if you've got the wrong room."

Her lips parted and she whispered an "Oh." Matthew could not deny the fact that he enjoyed the panic on her face. She must have realized the gig was up. He was waiting patiently for the show to end when the woman stood up, apologized, bowed, and hurried out of the room.

Matthew sat dumbfounded and stared at the empty seat in front of him. She left. The woman left. Left him and his billion-dollar fortune. And walked away.

Ever since he had made his first million, women never walked away from him. They stuck to him, clung tightly, offering their bodies and anything else he could ever ask for. Yes, they stuck to him. They never walked away.

Even before he gained popularity and was featured on magazines, social media, billboards, and the rest. When they saw him on the street, the quality of his clothes, his cars, even his appearance had drawn them to him.

He hated it. Despised them. But it was expected. He expected it.

What he did not expect was a woman walking away from him. An obviously poor and lowly woman. It was a first.

Matthew turned in his seat to see if he could catch a glimpse of the woman, to see if there was something he missed. He was met with the sight of the polished wooden door. He had been astonished for so long that the woman actually left the room and he did not hear the sound of the door closing.

Another first.

He settled back in his seat and a second later heard the sound of the door opening.

It was the woman. It had to be, Matthew thought to himself as he turned.

This time around, the sight he met was that of a panicked woman rushing into the room. But it was not the poor, impoverished woman.

This was a lavishly and scantily dressed woman. Matthew watched, more than slightly annoyed, as the woman half-ran, heels clinking, and sat in the chair opposite his.

Sighing and smiling a sheepish smile, she said, "I'm very sorry I'm late. The traffic was intense."

Yes, the traffic was intense. Matthew was caught in it only ten minutes ago. As someone who had left his office and job early to make it to a place he did not want to be, however, he was not sympathetic.

Without bothering to answer or make any conversation, Matthew pulled out his cheque book and his pen and much like the other night, flipped it open and placed his hand over it, poised to write.

"How much?"

"How…How much?" the woman asked, trying to arrange her features into a confused expression.

Too bad. She almost succeeded but he had seen the greed glaze her eyes over. He was used to it. And he was tired of it. Without waiting for her to reply, he wrote a check for fifty thousand dollars, tore it out, and placed it on the table between them.

"This is for you. I want you to wait thirty minutes, call your mother or mine and tell her that the date was unsuccessful. Make sure you wait for thirty minutes or I'll cancel the check."

With that, he rose from the table and turned to walk away.

"Thank you so much," he heard from behind him. He tilted his head to look at the woman and saw her clutching the cheque like a lifeline. "Thank you very much. I will do exactly as you wish."

No need to acknowledge her. With long strides, he reached the door and flung it open. Fortunately for him, as soon as he hit the hallway, he saw the server that had attended to him previously. The woman smiled and led him to the new room, informing him that she would come back in a few minutes to take his order.

As Matthew sat in the room, which more or less looked exactly like the one he just came out from, he found his mind drifting to the woman in the red sweater shirt. She was a good actress. A very good one. She was probably in one of the other private dining rooms using her faux meekness to deceive another man much like himself.

He shook his head. Women. Picking up the menu, Matthew glanced through the choices available, mentally noting down his preferences. The server came a minute later for his order and his food arrived five minutes after that.

Matthew ate quickly and silently, the only sound in the room the clinking of his utensils as they came in contact with the china. As expected of a Michelin-star restaurant, the food was superb. As he ate, he felt the stress and irritation he had experienced during the day reduce and his mood lift.

Just as the last bit of his entrée was cleared, the server came in with the dessert and the cheque. Matthew once again dug in and devoured the deconstructed sundae. He signed the cheque and dropped a couple of hundred bills as a tip and stood from the table.

He looked down at his watch as he walked out of the room. 7:35 pm. Not bad. He could still head back to the office and get a few hours of work in before calling it a day.

Matthew swung open the door and took one step into the hallway before a shrill scream made him stop, one hand still on the door's handle. Freezing, he felt his body enter high alert. What made that sound?

He gazed up and down the hallway. Nothing. No doors were open. No one was in the hallway. Deciding it was a customer in one of the dining rooms who probably received some bad news, he closed the door behind him and resumed walking.

He was almost at the end of the hallway when he heard another sound. Sounds. What sounded like a body hitting the floor several times echoed in the hallway, with the accompanying vibrations to match. He turned towards the sound and identified it as coming from one of the rooms on the left side of the hallway.

Better to report to the staff, he said to himself.

Before he could move, however, a door crashed open and Matthew saw the red sweater woman fall out of the room and onto the carpeted floor.

Red sweater woman? More like tattered sweater woman. The sweater he had seen the woman had been ripped from her body, leaving the remnants of the sweater a torn mess dangling off her. A black bra underneath revealed itself as the woman slowly raised her head.

And looked directly into his eyes.

Matthew's stomach heaved and he felt sweat bead on his upper lip. He unconsciously took a step back, his hands jittering.

The reason for Matthew's violent reaction was not that the food had not settled. No, it was the look in her eyes. The red sweater woman's eyes. He knew that look. He knew it very well.

It was the look he had seen in the mirror the first time he had been raped. The darkening in his eyes as the warm blood trickled down his thighs. A watery look of terror, desperation, helplessness, and disgust.

Matthew stood stock still as the woman peeled herself off the floor and ran towards him. She dived to grab hold of his leg but Matthew's reflex aversion to women made his body step back and kick her away viciously.

He panted, sweating profusely even though the temperature in the restaurant was well-regulated.

"Please…please," came a broken whisper. "Please, sir. Help me. Please help me."

Matthew swallowed and took another step back. Then another. He had to leave. He had to leave. He could feel his fragile sanity cracking like the surface of a frozen lake. He had to leave. The thought overwhelmed him and he took several steps back, away from the crying and pleading woman.

"Please help me. I have…nowhere to go. Please…please, I'll do anything. P-please, sir." The woman reached up as if to touch him again, but the sound of footsteps made her hand freeze in mid-air.

They both turned to see a middle-aged man walking towards them, having exited the same room the woman ran out from. Matthew immediately recognized the man.

Samuel Karly. CEO of Cafunwell Interiors. An important man in the interior decorating world.

"Mr. Devin. It is a surprise to see you here. How are you?"

Matthew did not reply, instead, gazing at the woman half-lying on the floor. Karly followed his gaze and smiled a you-should-understand smile.

"This woman is about to be my wife. I was just…sampling her." He finished his statement with a dirty grin.

The woman whimpered and shook her head vigorously, tears flying out of the corners of her eyes.

"The woman seems a little unwilling, Mr. Karly," Matthew said. He had no idea what possessed him but he felt he needed to come to her aid.

"Mind your own business, Mr. Devin," Karly replied, his eyes and voice getting more than a little chilly. "This woman is my business. Not yours. You can leave now."

Matthew could. He could leave now and never turn back. In fact, he wanted to. But… something was keeping him here.

He looked at the crying woman again. And saw more than a crying woman. He saw himself.

Broken, shattered, and uncrowned.