Drowning

Chapter Sixteen

Eventually he did make me get into the car. I swear he gets off on seeing me annoyed. I don't doubt the only reason he's so persistent on driving me is because he knew I wouldn't want a ride. I argued with him, and he never backed down. I was too tired and saw how pointless it was to keep arguing so I eventually got in his car.

We had just dropped off the bag in the hotel room and made our way to the bar that was in front of the terrace where my best friend was going to get engaged. As soon as we sat down I turned towards it expectedly, I knew Mark hired a photographer that would be hiding somewhere waiting for them and taking the pictures, but I wanted to see it with my own eyes.

"Want a drink?" the man sitting beside me asked, but I'm too focused on something else to make sense to his sentence.

"Huh?" I say turning to him.

"Drink?" he says, giving me a hard glance.

"Yeah um... just water.'' I say looking back at the terrace. I glance at my watch and it's almost ten. Their dinner should have ended some time ago.

I feel something bump my arm, and I'm met with a water bottle. "Are you waiting for someone to fly down and greet us?" Aiden asks.

"Are you always an asshole? Here I thought that after today, you had made progress."

"Yeah well, don't expect that anytime soon. Now are you going to tell me why we're here and why are you burning a hole through the terrace door." I turn to look at him, and a subtle smirk immediately takes over him as I give him a hard glance.

"Just wait a few minutes and you'll see."

"Fine." He says drowning the remainder of his drink, and asking for water.

"Give him a coffee instead." I tell the bartender. He's driving which he insisted on doing so he better be completely sober. "It was just one drink." Aiden says after the bartender leaves to get his order.

"Do I look like I care?" Another accident in my life is the last thing I need.

That seemed to shut him up.

We stayed in silence for a few seconds before I remembered. "Are you going to tell me why?" I meant to ask earlier until Mark interrupted my question with the doorbell.

"Why, what?"

"Why, did you drive us everywhere today?"

"Because you had too many drinks to drive, which apparently I was responsible for, so you forced me to drive you everywhere."

"Don't be a smartass, I told you at the salon you could leave but you still stayed. I didn't make you stay, you decided that all on your own." I break my gaze from the terrace and look at him as he just shrugs his shoulders.

"I thought you were a busy man, apparently so busy to even take an absurd intelligence theft lawsuit." I tell him with a smirk, mostly quoting what he told his father the day we met in the elevator.

I see his eyes darken, well that made him mad all of a sudden.

"I am." He says his gaze intensely on my side.

"Apparently you're not busy en-." That's when it dawned on me. I start grinning at my realization. He couldn't possibly...

"What?" He asks in his strangely calm demeanor. I've never seen him doing something that wasn't smirking or furrowing his brows. Who would've thought he could actually feel something.

"You felt bad."

"I didn't."

"Yes you did. That's why you drove us everywhere, that's why you came with us to my apartment, that's why you asked if Mariana knew about her engagement. You felt bad because you thought you ruined something." I say with a pointing finger. This shit is hilarious. Who would have thought the tall, brooding green eyed man who always had an either annoying smirk or a scowl would feel bad.