I Like Your Shoes | ✓

Chapter 35 | Cupid Screwed Up

Hey guys, just before you proceed, I'd like to thank you all for the 2k reads. When I started writing this, I didn't even expect a 100 people to read this. Now there's 2000 (I know it's not much, but I start small, don't blame me). Thank you for your support and I hope we'll go even farther!
Go read the chapter now! <3

♢

[Ambrosia Bellemore]

The morning I was supposed to leave for Venice, I was awake at six thirty, almost giving Freida a concussion as she walked in and saw me sipping on my coffee.

"Early you woke up?" Freida asks, her eyebrows so high up on her forehead I was scared it might fly off.

"Please not the yoda again." I groan.

"You woke up early?" She switches into her normal tone.

"I didn't wake up, Freida. I was up all night." I sigh, resting my chin on my palm.

"You're worrying about your boss again?"

"No. Not about that." I sigh.

"Okay, then what about?"

"Remember the guy I told you about? The guy on the plane who pretended to be Benjamin?" I ask, my eyes drifting close of their own accord.

"He was all you talked about the first month, Ambrosia." Freida says lightly.

"Yeah. Well, I was thinking last night."

"Wow, you can do that?" I glare at her dangerously and she pretends to zip her mouth and throw away the keys.

"Well, I was thinking that I must be a fool not to see that he wasn't Benjamin." I admit.

"I can't blame you, Ambrosia. Taking a stranger to be someone you know sounds exactly like something you'd do." She says, batting her eyes innocently.

"Shut up. Well, now that I'm thinking of it, he did drop hints here and there to make me realise that he wasn't Benjamin."

"Like what?"

"Well, when I asked him why he was being nice to me all of a sudden, he told me,'I'm not him, Ambrosia'. And I-I should have known," My voice cracks a little, so I clear my throat.

"Benjamin Earlswood could never turn into a man half as good, half as wonderful as that man on the plane. I should have known, I'm such a fool." I run an agitated hand across my face.

"Why is it bothering you now?" She asks all of a sudden and I wonder if I should tell her.

"Wait. I need to show you something." I jump out of my chair and rush into my room. Opening the little drawer next to my bed, I take the box and walk downstairs slowly.

"Shoes? What does it have to do with anything?" Freida asks, when I open the box and show her what's inside.

"Everything, Freida. They've got to do with everything."

Because they were the same red shoes I'd worn on my flight to New York. The same red ruby shoes I'd lost in a cab in New York.

"Where did you find them?" Freida asks, when I'm done telling her the story of the shoes.

"In Calum Achorn's office." I whisper.

"Your boss? Was he in the same plane as you?" Her eyebrows scrunched up, confused.

"Freida, he was the one next to me." I tell her with a sigh.

"You mean...your boss?" She asks, realisation sinking in. "He was pretending to be Benjamin?"

I nod grimly.

"Calum Achorn is the plane guy."

~•~

[Calum Achorn]

I hoped Ambrosia wouldn't be late today.

But who was I kidding.

She rushes in fifteen minutes later when the flight has just five minutes to take off. She doesn't look at me as she slumps into the seat next to me, and I automatically sit up straighter. The smell of waffles and strawberries surrounds me, and it takes all of me not to lean down and take a sniff.

"Good morning, Miss Bellemore." I greet, smiling, pretending as if the tension between us wasn't pressing heavily against our chests.

"To you too, sir." She greets, her eyes fleeting to meet mine for a second, and then furtively turning away.

Why is she acting like what we'd done was a mistake? It wasn't right, I admit, it was various levels of wrong, but it wasn't a mistake.

A sudden irritation flares in my heart, but I try to force it down. I can't get angry on her for something she wasn't responsible for. I was supposed to do the right thing, I was supposed to know better. But I hadn't, and she was right in pretending that the kiss hadn't happened.

And I should do the same, and try to put this little blip behind me.

With that in mind, I lean back and try to get some sleep, trying to ignore the woman by my side even though she was echoing in my brain.

~•~

Yeah, short chapter. I'm sorry.
But...Ambrosia knows!
What do think will this tension do? Will it make them do things they're trying to avoid? *wiggles eyebrows*.
Do vote, bye!