Chapter 18 A COIN
Despite the vulnerability in his looks at me, I reminded myself of what devil he was and his emotions before me were just a mask to make me overlook his evil deeds.
I pushed the thoughts of getting swayed by him into a bottomless pit.
He noticed the shift in me the moment I reverted my gaze from him, turning towards the window.
“Is everything okay, Nessa?” He asked softly.
I couldn't bring myself to answer. I wanted nothing to do with this man, but he wasn't making things go easy for me as I also likewise didn’t want him to have his way with me.
How do I make him understand he's doing more damage than feigning to care about me?
What do I say to him to make him believe we can never be together?
Not in this life and not in the next?
“Vanessa?” He called at me again, and I could feel the uneasiness in the wave of his voice.
I blinked back my tears hurriedly as I didn't want to be a reminder of weakness to him. I wasn't going to let him think of me as a weak woman who will always cry at every slight inconvenience.
But being rational, this wasn't a slight inconvenience at all.
“I'm fine.” I said back to him after a while because I guessed he would probably want to touch me to make me look at him once more.
It was then I realized Rafael wasn't the only one paying attention to me. His right hand man who was seated beside the driver at the front seat has secretly been looking back at me through the rare view mirror and occasionally, he'd turn his head to look—
Then it hit me again out of nowhere that I could have sworn the pervert creed at him.
He had been staring at my thigh which had been exposed due to the slit on my dress. I had totally taken my mind off this and wasn't aware of this exposure.
I was clearly disgusted as I pieced the puzzle together while I quickly reverted my gaze from him, pulling my dress to overlap the slit before I confronted him.
Rafael, noticing I was uncomfortable with my dress, also realized what had happened without me telling.
Quickly, he removed his coat and covered me up without saying a word. He felt sorry— this I could tell by his expression.
“Marco.” He called.
Marco, seemingly aware he had been caught, responded sharply, his response sharper than the timing of a fired bullet.
“Were you just drooling over my woman's thigh?” Rafael asked, his voice cold as his expression.
The driver, caught up in the heat of the news, looked into the rear view mirror to watch my face, but his eyes met with that of Rafael's which seized him up and he quickly looked away, putting his entire focus on stirring the wheels.
“You know what happens when you try to convert what does not belong to you, don't you?” Rafael continued, undoing one of the buttons on his shirt.
“Yes, I do, sir.” Marco replied, sitting up in his seat as his master spoke.
“Everything that belongs to me I have out you in charge of—” he paused then turned at me, fixing the coat properly to cover me up fully. “except this woman, Marco.”
I could see his eyes searching for my hand and they sought my consent for him to hold me.
But why?
To console me?
To tell me he was sorry one of his men lusted after me?
I pulled away from him, folding my hands so he could barely reach them and he took that as ‘no’ from me which also caused him to pull back.
“Next time this happens, I promise to gouge your eyes out and I'll be sending a black rose to your family with you in a casket.” Rafael spelt out and he meant every word of it.
His men understood this but I was totally swept off my feet.
This man was ready to kill another for my sake?
Is this madness or what manner of obsession is this?
—
The mood in the car had dampened and I was growing more and more uncomfortable the longer the silence we traveled in stretched.
Rafael would not say a word, neither had he looked at me again since I pulled away from him.
Was he revolting?
Revolting because I had refused his touch?
Then I decided to break the long silence.
“Where are we going?” I asked, unable to contain myself any longer.
I had thought he still wouldn't breathe a word to me, but he did, almost immediately like he had been expecting me to speak to him first.
Petty!
“Shopping.” He simply replied, his tone softened already.
“What?”
His convoy and the car he had been riding in all pulled into the parking lot of a complex while his men rushed out in formal rows that stretched toward the entrance to usher us in.
Rafael got down from the car and again, he took my hand in his to help me out of the vehicle.
He handed his coat which he had collected from me after I had stepped out to a woman who was also on his team of men but she had rode in a different vehicle.
“You're riding with us later on.” Rafael said to her which she registered at once with a bow without breathing a word to him as he walked past her.
He really wasn't going to wait on her for a response, all she had to do was obey his order regardless of who she may be.
I watched him walk into the building, his hands tucked into his pockets and I was left to appreciate the pristine construct of his back as he walked on.
He was a coin.
On one side, there was goodness and the other was a man who was rotting away with evil.
He then turned as soon as he realized I wasn't walking with him anymore.
“Come, Vanessa.”