I'm No Cinderella

Chapter 26

A/N:- We're almost to the end now. Do tell me your thoughts so far.

I was afraid to go back to work that week, partly because I knew that the Lion would try to bully me. Surprisingly he did the opposite. He was actually nice to me. We had a meeting in the morning and he never even yelled at me to prepare for it. He even smiled at me.

                    I did my job as usual, until evening when he came by my office and beckoned me to follow him as we headed to the car park. He didn’t say a thing until we reached my car.

                    “I actually wanted to thank you,” he said as I looked at him quizzically.                

                    “Thank me?” I repeated, “For what?”

                    “For helping Aidan out in his most depressed moments,” he said as I looked at him. He was sincerely saying it, without a hint of sarcasm. I was bracing for something mean he might say as he usually does.

                    “You’re welcome,” I said, “but I did not do it for you.”

                    He blinked at me.

                    “I did it because Aidan’s a nice guy and he just needed someone to hang out with,” I said, “I don’t know why he chose me, but I know that when you’re depressed you just need supportive people by your side. When my heart was broken, I had no one by my side and my healing took longer. Aidan would probably heal faster.”

                    “I’m sorry,” Ryan said as I looked at him, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you were lonely.”

                    I looked at him, my throat constricted. I didn’t know what to say. Would I love him if he appeared at the moment I just lost hope in men?

                    “I have to go home,” I said, but he pulled my hand back and made me face him.

                    “Samantha,” he whispered my name, looking into my eyes, “I really mean it.”

                    “There’s nothing you can do about it,” I said, “Whatever happened in the past just… happened. I can’t change it and neither can you.”

                    “Then you can look to the present and the future,” he said as I looked into his eyes, “Don’t push away your future.”

                    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said as I pulled my hand away, “I need to go.”

                    I did not wait for him to say anything as I opened my car door and sped off. I don’t know what he meant and I’m not about to dissect the things he said. Leah would be the first to pounce on me if she even knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the Lion. Nope, the best thing to do is to ignore the things he said.

                    He came to find me later that week about the ski trip that I’ve even forgotten about with all the things that have been going on with my life. I wanted to just cancel the trip but he brought it up in front of Mrs. Hilda, Sam and Kayla so there’s no backing out of it. They were all excited and I had to smile and pretend that I am happy too. We went shopping that weekend at Greenstone Mall to get new winter clothing as our state did not have very cold winters so we needn’t dress up too warmly here. Ryan came along as well, but we might as well be strangers with the couple of words that we uttered to each other.