Consume my broken heart

Chapter 15

I'm sitting in the Meet And Greet with my back against the door. I'm not sure what I'm doing here in the first place. Was I really going to set through with it? Especially with Aiden as my companion.

Dim lights surround the entire room. People were chatting, some louder than others. A few are already wasted. I sigh and roll with my eyes when I see a man staring at me. I'm just inside this building and a man already tries to flirt with me. How can you flirt with someone when you don't even know the person? Maybe I'm a psychopath that lures men to her home to eventually end their lives after steaming sex.

Luckily, my imagination is the only thing that keeps me satisfied from time to time. What else would I do by myself while waiting for the man that supposed to be here any minute? I look down at my watch to find a text from Nathalie.

"Hotty seems to be fond of you." I shake my head in disbelief. She's already trying to hook us up, and she doesn't even know him. He appears to be some kind of hero or saint for them. Even grandma can't stop gushing about him.

Behind me, I hear a girl laughing hysterically, obviously fake because I've never heard someone laughing that hard. Quickly, I turn my head to see who she was, and I stared at the person beside her, his firm hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently."What the fu...!" I hiss through gritted teeth. Is he for real? Why is he standing there with that woman when we have way more important stuff to discuss?!

I'm not going to watch him flirt the entire evening. Or he's going to help me or he's not. I stand up from my seat and pace to him. Through the crowd, I meet his eyes. He watches me closing in with a serious expression on his face. When the woman beside him plants her hand on his biceps, he averts his eyes, a smile appearing on his lips.

Is he serious? He saw me and yet he keeps ignoring me. My blood starts to boil and I march toward him, stopping an inch away from him.

Through gritted teeth I say, "can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure," he answers formally before whispering something in the girl's ear, who kept on staring at me with a disgusted expression.

I make my way back to the table, feeling myself going insane. He was the one offering his help. I didn't force him to help me. If he rather wants to hang out with that girl, I will not stop him.

I turn myself on my heel when I arrive at our table. "If you want to hang out with that girl, just go, but don't keep me waiting for nothing. If you don't want to help me, that's fine, but be honest and don't waste my time." I vent without thinking.

Aiden stares at me with an amused expression, settling himself on the chair in front of where I was sitting earlier. "Sit." He orders me after a while with a grin.

With crooked eyebrows, I gaze at him, a little dumbfounded. "Sit down, Grace." He demands a little more persistence than earlier. Reluctantly, I lower myself on the chair.

"I sit," I murmur, irritated.

"Good. Smile Grace. We don't want people to think you're here against your will." He says dryly with a smug face. I cross my arms in frustration. This was such a mistake asking him for help. He's just laughing with me, obviously...

"So, that girl I was flirting with she's Anthony, his ex." He explains to me calmly.

"Really?" I ask him in astonishment, already feeling guilty about the way I was thinking about him a few seconds ago. It's a nasty habit of mine, always concluding before knowing.

"Yes. She was already wasted. I made her think we had met before in a club and she bought it so easily. I asked if she was still with Anthony and she laughed in my face. So, I guess she's over him, but I couldn't find out more because you interfered." Aiden explains to me with his mouth pressed in a thin line of disapproval.

"I'm sorry I interfered, alright. How should I have known she could be useful? If you had told me before, I would have known." I say with my arms folded.

"Now that's clarified we can discuss everything," Aiden spoke with a serious expression, laying his broad arms on the table, showing a small part of a tattoo that disappears under his black shirt. I presume his favorite color is black because I always see him wearing black sweaters or black shirts.

I nod shortly and look around me to see if the woman who he had been flirting with was standing far away from us. "So what are your thoughts about my plan?" I ask him patiently, but for the second time, I feel someone is watching me again and without hesitation, I brush over my arms as a chill of a cold breeze hits my skin. However, it was the eyes of a man.

With much effort, I brush the feeling off and concentrate on the person in front of me. "I'm sure you mean well with your plan, but it's not effective enough. Let me sleep a night over it and I'll plan something better." He explained, his gaze never leaving mine.

I nod and trust his judgment. "Okay. I can live with that. But I have little time because in two months my parents are leaving on a holiday and I need to arrange dad's business when they are away." I inform him, hoping he will take note of his plan it's something we can achieve in two months from now.

"I can work with two months." He assures me with a genuine smile. "But I need one more thing from you if I want this to work. I have read your plan and I know you want revenge. So what did they exactly do to make you this angry to even work out a crazy revenge plan?" Aiden asks without hesitation, his calm tone giving me a shiver down my spine.

The image of him at the alley with the gunshot came into view again. He murders people in cold blood. What am I doing? Am I this naïve all over again? Haven't I learned my lesson in the past?

I swallow and jump from my seat without uttering a single word of explanation and rush as fast as I can out of the pub. When I almost had my hands around the doorknob, someone's hand caught my wrist in a not friendly way. I tried to yank my fist out of his grasp to find not Aiden, but that guy that was staring at me earlier, standing in front of me with his eyes dark.

"You are difficult to seduce." The man says with a wasted tongue. "Let me introduce myself first before you leave so hastily." He said with his breath against my face.

"Let go of me." I whisper-yell angrily, feeling myself so messed up about coming here and thinking I could do this. Coming here was a terrible mistake. What was I thinking I could really do this without having a mental breakdown. It feels like someone is sucking all my oxygen. The man his laugh echoed through my head like a sick, horrifying song. I try hard for the second time to get my arm free.

Why does this always happen to me? Am I some kind of magnet for those types of boys? "Let go now!" I hiss and the man stumbles backward. But not by choice. Aiden pulled him backward with less effort. As the man in front of me wasn't a large guy.

"I think the lady wants to be left alone." He says so calmly, I would want to slap him in the face for being so calm. But of course, he doesn't know my past. He thinks I'm just a scared, helpless girl.

With astonishment I see the man giving Aiden a quick nod, and then he left just like nothing has happened. What did just happen? It's like they knew him.

"If you don't want to talk about your past with those guys, that's fine, but I hope you can trust me. Like now, I got your back. This is just a business arrangement and nothing more. So can you please don't run away when it's getting too emotional for you? You could have said you didn't want to discuss such matters." Aiden explained to me in annoyance.

"It's up to you, Grace. How badly do you want to set through with this plan of yours?"