Chapter 26 Cole Buenaventura Ryder
I was mortified! Jesus Christ, save me lord from my bad decisions!
I had woken up, taken one long look at my dress that I still had on from the party, my smeared makeup that I had apparently slept in, and realized it wasn’t a dream.
I could have easily chalked everything up to a drunken dream, but I knew it wasn’t.
Not only had half of my colleagues and fellow students been present at the club when Cole had saved me from making more than just a simple drunk decision, they, too, remembered it vividly.
I had made some sort of name for myself as a published author, and some of my colleagues had read my books.
Before now, I had loved the little popularity and curt greetings of “Hey author,” “Hello writer Cee,” “How are you doing, Cee?”
But right now, I wasn’t sure the greetings were because of my writing and not for the incident last night. It was bad enough they had to be removed from the club premises. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
Cole had sent them all out of the club, and apparently stayed behind with the two friends who had tried to drug me. My mortification grew with each thought.
“Jesus Christ, Celene Luther! You messed up. You messed up big this time,” I chided myself.
My colleagues were not thrilled to have their night cut short, and I had no one to blame but myself, really.
I knew not to take drinks from strangers. I knew how to tell them apart and avoid perverts at the club, and yet something about seeing Cole there, following me and acting like he owned me, had made me want to prove him wrong. I had only ended up making a fool of myself.
I would have to admit, he had saved my life.
“Stupid, stupid girl!” I muttered again as I walked alone around school, having rounded up one of my lectures.
Thankfully, my friend had not been too drunk or too tired to sleep in. She had done a quick shower and rushed home to prepare for her own lectures.
Rounding a corner as I walked, I noticed a black Bentley with tinted windshields and windows. I didn’t need to ask who occupied the car or why it was there anymore. Some students already noticed it... it was sleek and commanded attention, just like its driver. They stumbled, gawked, some outright pointed at it.
I was staring. I knew he knew I was staring. I wanted to take my eyes away to at least preserve what was left of my pride, but I couldn’t seem to make my eyes do my bidding.
“Cee!”
I jerked and finally peeled my eyes from the image they had been stuck to. I turned to Maria as she bounced toward me. She was back to her bubbly self, even though the night before she had walked in on the vet she had a crush on making out with his girlfriend at his clinic. She had sulked and cried, and decided she was going clubbing with me.
Cee knew it wasn’t her fault, but she blamed me partly for the incident. If I had been in bed, in my home, none of it would have happened.
Maria turned back toward the black car, but it had driven off while I was distracted.
“He’s not stalking me so obviously, right?” I murmured under my breath.
“What?” Maria said, pausing her chatter to search my face.
“Oh, nothing… I’m just thinking. Could you stay the night at mine tonight?”
“Oooh, sleepover huh? How do you read minds so well, chika? I was just about to beg you, especially after the whole club thing with those douchebags. I thought you’d fear the night now, like PTSD or something,” Maria said really quickly, barely enunciating her words, almost like she was rapping them, and then ended with a small giggle.
I just shook my head in wonder. How did such a petite girl contain so much energy? She was like a Pokémon doll on steroids.
But that was the least of my worries. I would be damned if I spent the night alone at my place. I sighed aloud just as Maria continued, picking up and narrating another new gossip right where she paused in her earlier conversation.
We left school together, ate dinner together, slept on the same bed together, well, I slept but Maria kept talking and giggling into her phone... but it kept me sane.
Waking up and hear her voice, feeling her presence around helped tame my crazy thoughts and pulled me back to sleep.
The next morning, breaking news was truly shocking! Cole Buenaventura Ryder had taken over the Buenaventura Group. It was an international conglomerate of over 350 businesses that I knew very well.
They were literally everywhere. I looked at the bottle of water in my hand, and sure enough, it had Buen Waters written boldly on it. Maria had lost her mind, running into my house waving a magazine with Cole Ryder’s face on the front page.
He looked absolutely dashing, but if I knew him well enough, I’d say he almost looked uncomfortable in the photo
While Maria searched on the internet, finding more information, I just felt strangely numb. This revelation explained a lot of things, the way he spoke and acted, his guts, his nonchalance, but it also brought many more questions to my mind, the biggest one being... What the fuck did he want from me?