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Panic started to etch on Abi’s face.
Tears pooled in her eyes again, glistening on her long dark lashes before they flowed endlessly. She shook her head at him like she was in denial.
She tried to open her lips but they just trembled. It was so hard to speak. She felt like she was choking for air.
“No, Alex. Y-you said you don’t do love. You said you would never… fall in love… with anyone…” she stammered, her voice raw with both pain and disbelief. This was it, her greatest happiness and greatest fear.
No… he can’t fall for her. He can’t love her!
Alex smiled half a smile but his eyes became unbelievably tender.
“Well, I did say that and I meant it back then… I have never felt anything like this before. I was certain that I was not capable of feeling anything like this but…” He looked at her thoughtfully for a few seconds, before he picked up one of her hands and pressed it lightly to his face. And then he smiled and half bit his lower lip. She’d never seen him struggle so hard for words. “I… I don’t know what happened, Abigail. I just know that I won’t be able to bear it if you leave me.”
He held her hands tightly and then he held her face with both his hands, his thumbs wiping her tears away as he gently bumped his forehead on hers.
“That’s why I came here… to get you to come back, to be with me again. That’s the third reason why I’m here. Don’t worry, you won’t have any reason to be scared anymore because everyone who harmed you, or are trying to harm you, are all gone. I’ve dealt with all of them tonight. No one will harm you again because I will protect you,” he promised, his eyes burning with certainty, almost like a knight or a king pledging to protect his queen.
It was then that Abi finally noticed the drops of red, that looked to be blood, splashed all over his neck and on the sleeves of his shirt. His hair was damp and his clothes seemed to be as well.
“So come back home with me, Abigail,” he asked, his voice almost pleading as he pulled her into his embrace.
But Abi just sobbed even harder after hearing all the words he uttered. And she couldn’t stop.
“Please…” she uttered between her sobs when suddenly, someone knocked on the door.
“Abi? Are you alright? Please open the door.”
Andrew’s voice startled the two of them and they stared at the door.
“D-dad? I’m fine.” Abi forced herself to speak even though her voice cracked. She couldn’t let her father see Alex here. No, she couldn’t let him see Alex with all this blood on him.
Panicking, Abi looked at Alex, still sniffling as she forced herself to stop crying.
“Alex, please –”
Before Abi could tell him to leave, Alex suddenly bent down and kissed her. It was quick but was gentle and emotional.
“I’ll go and get changed,” he said, and then he gave her another quick kiss before he ran to the window and disappeared.
“Abi,” Andrew called out again, jolting Abi back to reality.
She hastily opened the door and her father’s extremely worried face welcomed her.
The man was surprised at his daughter’s wounded expression.
“Abi, what happened?” he asked and Abi hugged him and cried again. She didn’t know how many more tears she had left in her. She felt like all she had done that night was cry her eyes out.
“Dad, what should I do? What should I do? Alex… he said he’s fallen in love with me, dad,” she told him as she trembled in his arms. She couldn’t even smile and feel happy that the man she loved had actually just confessed to her. The man she loved actually said he loved her, too! This should have been one of the happiest moments of her life but here she was, bawling her eyes out because she knew what was waiting ahead of him.
“Dad, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to hurt Alex, dad. I don’t want to make him… I don’t want him to suffer because of me. I love him so much. I don’t want him to go through all that pain.”
Andrew was heartbroken as he felt his daughter tremble in his embrace. He didn’t know that his daughter’s anxiety and phobia was worse than he thought. He could see her intense fear and he felt bad because he knew he was the reason his daughter was now like this.
…
Alex arrived at his mansion in a hurry. He even ignored the men who approached him to ask where he had just come from.
He simply dashed upstairs to his room but everyone noticed he no longer looked like a dead fish who had given up on life. Even though he didn’t say a word, they could tell simply because his dark aura that had been raging like a typhoon was nowhere to be felt.
Xavier and Kai looked at each other before their gaze fell on the nonchalant man sitting quietly on the chair in the room.
It seemed that the storm had ended. Or maybe not?
Minutes went by and Alex finally emerged from upstairs.
The three guys waiting for him looked at him and they all fell speechless.
Alex was wearing his finest suit?! What? Where the hell was he going?
They watched him gracefully walk towards the door, almost sparkling with all his unreal gorgeousness. None of them dared to call out his name to get the sparkly man’s attention. Well, Xavier who used to be the only one who always dared, was now too scared because what he saw that night was now engraved in his mind. He didn’t want to do anything that might trigger the now sleeping dark dragon.
However, to their surprise, Alex halted and looked at them so seriously before he walked over to the trio.
His gaze fell on Xavier.
“Tell me, what should I bring?”
“Huh?”
“To Abigail. She was very upset and crying when I left her. I think I should bring her something to cheer her up. So, tell me, what do you think is the best thing I could bring to cheer her up?”
Xavier could only gape at him, eyes wide in utter disbelief.
After a few seconds, when Xavier couldn’t say anything because he was still dumbstruck, Alex’s mouth twitched and he impatiently left.
