Chapter 46 Investigation
Naomi
"What are you doing?" I asked, trying to peel my hand from his hold as he kept dragging me to a place opposite the diner which was quite dark.
"You need to go back inside. You just injured someone. We need to sort it out. They might fire me," I kept insisting. However, he acted like he was not listening to what I was saying.
We finally came to a stop. He pinned me against a tree and made me look up at him. It was quite dark and I couldn't see his face clearly, but I could tell that he was there, right in front of me, smelling like night-blooming jasmine.
"Fine, since you don't want to let me go, what exactly do you want me to do for you?"
I needed to go back. They must be looking for me. Alice saw what happened last time; she saw it this time too, and I had no idea what she was telling them inside. What if the guy with the broken hand called the police? Things could get complicated, given that I still had an unresolved case surrounding me. I had no idea if the police had closed the case involving Linus and Alfred or if they were still on it. I highly doubted the latter, given that I hadn't heard anything about the case after the day I first learned about it.
"You don't have to worry. Nobody will fire you from your job," he said, taking my hands into his. I should have seized them back, but I allowed him to hold them in his big, warm hands.
And how was he so confident that no one was going to fire me? He didn't know my boss. He could take whatever decision he wanted and no one was going to stop him.
"I want to let you know that I will be leaving Teran soon." My heart stopped for a moment. We were not done with our practicing yet, and he had promised that he had some other moves to show me when we met again.
And now he was leaving. Where to, and why?
"Why are you leaving?"
"I have some important matters to take care of in the nearest city and won't be back until further notice."
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to digest what he was saying. I understood that people get busy and things eventually show up when you least expect them, but he didn't have to do this. I didn't know if it was the fact that he had something more to show me or if it was entirely a different scenario, because right now, I didn't want him to leave.
"Did you hear what I said?" I had to blink and look at him through the darkness.
"Yes, I did. You can't just leave like that. What about our schedules?"
I heard him exhale in the darkness.
"I wish I had more time for that. Time is not on my side. But I promise to make it up to you."
I said okay and turned to leave when he pulled me incredibly close to him, my head almost hitting his chest as he was taller than I was.
"I want a kiss, Naomi."
What? My heartbeat seized for a moment.
"You can't be asking that, Mr. Rex. It's wrong."
What even came over him? He was my teacher and was not supposed to be asking me that kind of thing. It was forbidden.
"Come on, Naomi. It's just a kiss." He tried to pull me close to him, even when I tried to push back.
"It might be just a kiss to you, but to me, it's not."
I didn't give him more time to say that again. With force, I pulled my hand away from his hold and hurried back into the diner. He couldn't be asking me that, for crying out loud.
The two guys that tried to harass me earlier were nowhere to be found when I got back to the diner. They must have left.
"What happened?" Dean asked the moment he spotted me.
"One of the guys tried to assault me when I went to take their orders."
"Then you broke his wrist." Accusation laced his voice even before I could finish what I wanted to say. I didn't know if he thought breaking their wrist was the wrong thing to do or if I shouldn't have done anything at all. And besides, I didn't do that.
"I only acted in self-defense." I was not going to tell him that someone did it on my behalf, because it was going to raise questions that I didn't have answers to.
"No, she didn't do that. Some guy helped her do it," Mandy said as she joined us. Dean turned to look at her. "Yeah, the guy has been showing up here for her."
I pressed my lips into a thin line, refusing to make the situation even worse than it already was. Why would she even say that? She was making it seem like my boyfriend had been coming here and all of that.
"Is he your boyfriend?" Dean looked me dead in the eyes, like he was daring me not to say anything other than yes. And seriously, I didn't know how to feel about that. He was my teacher and... well, nothing more. He asked me for a kiss before he left. Why would he ask me that? We were not on that level of friendship or whatever it was.
"I asked you a question, Naomi."
"No. He is not my boyfriend."
"Keep lying to yourself," Mandy scoffed and walked away.
"I need to see you in my office."
He turned and walked away. My heart hammered in my chest. What if he fired me for causing chaos in his restaurant? Why did Mr. Rex even come here?
The question rang in my head as I followed Dean to his office, preparing myself for whatever he had for me.
Rex...
I kept hitting myself in the head as I made my way down to Aetheria. What came over me? Why did I ask her that? What if she made up her mind never to come close to me because of the stupid mistake I just made?
How then would I be able to convince her if she walked away? Why didn't I tell her about what she was to me, even if she didn't understand it? I couldn't just let her go like that. I needed to do something—to tell her exactly who she was to me and also find a way to make her understand it. I was going to do all that when I returned to Teran.
My phone lit up on the car's dashboard. Tim had come over to pick me up, since there were hardly any cars in Teran after midnight.
"Check the phone. It might be Xanther calling to know how far you are."
I wouldn't be surprised if she knew I was coming back. My father must have told her father, who was the Beta.
"It is a text message," I told Tim as I swiped the phone to check who it was. Some part of me wished that it was Naomi texting to tell me that she would give me the kiss when I came back to Teran. But that wouldn't be the case, given that she didn't have my number. I didn't have hers either.
"I found something," the text message read, and under it was a picture. I zoomed in to take a closer look at the person he was talking about.
After I found out someone was spying on me, the best I could do was hire someone to look into it for me. I wanted to know who could have sent someone to spy on me and why they did it.
The guy in the photo was seen leaning over a black car, probably an SUV, and talking to someone inside. Their face wasn't clear, given that they had some kind of black beret on with dark shades to cover their eyes. I was about to ask for more photos when he sent them, like he knew I would ask. Maybe they were still loading.
There!
The lady was entering a white mansion with a glass balcony. Wow. But why would someone like that send a spy after me? Unless they were after something. Not only did she seem to be loaded with a lot of cash, she also had guards around her.
The face! I needed a face.
He sent me live footage from a CCTV camera, and just like she knew someone was watching her, she turned around, her face directed toward my screen. I paused the video and stared, because I couldn't believe the face on my phone.
That was Naomi’s grandmother.
"Wait. This isn't right. There should be a mistake somewhere," I whispered to myself, staring at the picture.
I dialed the number. "Are you sure you got this correct? Because..."
"Yes, I got everything correct. The lady seems to be living some kind of double life. She..."
I hung up.
"Is everything okay?" Tim asked as we crossed the boundary between Teran and Aetheria.
"Yeah. Just a little bit of a misunderstanding."
However, I didn't think it was a misunderstanding. Did Naomi know about this?