His vulnerability
“So now that you have gotten the company you asked for, any plans to make it even better than it is now? With what I know, you do not have so much knowledge about being the co-owner of a company, talk more of being the owner,” Dalton stated loudly as he walked out of the study room, that he had been for more than an hour after Alex left.
Aria was sitting in front of the dresser mirror that was clearly for her, as she applied facial oil and treatment to her face for night purposes only. She continued to subconsciously check her collar bones to observe how sunken they are, and her eyes to see if they were not deep into their socket as well.
She just resided in her fate and let Dalton do whatever he wanted, because she was actually cautious about returning to a room that had been tampered with in her absence.
Though Dalton’s room might not be any better for her either as she didn’t know much about his life, it would help her map out the final plans to get the perpetrator for good.
About the shopping mall she had made Dalton give to her, Aria’s thoughts had never really occurred to the stress she would be responsible for as the new CEO. The management of it was going to solely be in her hands, and yet she was planning to run other findings alongside it.
Her head finally began to process the pending answers she was meant to answer for herself, the moment she heard him ask the formidable question from behind her.
She decided to be bold about giving him a definite answer anyways, considering the part-time jobs she had engaged in for a few months in her past life at stores..
“I shouldn’t reveal my backup plans to you, should I? As for the name, I would like it to be changed to RIAN,” She replied to him, and continued to tap some facial cleansing cream into her face too.
The pyjamas she had changed into after bathing was a silky comfortable one that she didn’t really like, unlike the pretty and sexy nighties that she liked to wear alone. She liked the appreciation of herself first, before any other person had to do that.
“Do you think you can absolutely run it well? Like by the standards of the Miller?” Dalton asked her again seriously this time, and she knew that he definitely needed an answer to the question he was asking her.
“I can, okay. Just let me do my own thing now that it is mine. Checked the contract clauses perfectly to see if everything was perfect, and you didn’t play a sneaky game this time. Sent it for clarifications too,” she informed him.
There was no way she would let him mess with her sanity this time, the same way he had turned the tables on her the day their marriage was supposed to end.
“I am a man of my words and also, of zero tolerance for lagging behind. I do not take a second for an answer,” he boasted to her, as he flicked his left hand to put off the chandelier light and other bright ones in the room.
“Then I hope you go through your own words at the end of everything,” she uttered, which kind of invited tension into the room.
He knew exactly what she was talking about, but decided to feign ignorance so as to prevent troubles. He had really learnt to hold back from replying to every one of her words, and it was working really perfectly.
“How do you know how to inject so well and do other things that I just had to figure out now?” He asked her from the blues the moment he sat on the bed, wanting to ask her initially if she had taken her drugs.Content is property of NôvelDrama.Org.
“Was trained in the streets. Not a new thing,” she replied nonchalantly, and his hand freezed to the MacBook that was about to carry where he had dropped it earlier.
“Weren’t you living with your dad?” He turned to ask her, wondering if he had read her bio-information wrong again, from the very beginning of their life journey.
“Don’t know why I said that,” she shrugged and turned to face the mirror again, and grabbed a nail file in one of the boxes on the table.
It was really hard to be normal the same way she usually acted in her own room, since she now had to share a large room space with Dalton.
“So why are you scared of water? You know, the large ones?” Aria suddenly asked him suddenly, after she had taken notice that the bright lights in the room had been off.
The ones that were put on were just the perfect ones for the moment, and maybe for Dalton who seemed to be splitting his work attention with Aria. He could be in his new study room if he wanted to have no problem of disturbance, but it was kind of hard for him to focus for more than an hour in the same room with her. He wanted to talk.
“Is this some kind of personal getting to know yourselves interview?” Dalton’s eyes squinted when he asked, and the huge lamp that Aria was using on the dresser table went off immediately.
“No, Dalton. I am just genuinely curious to know why, because you do not seem like that,” Aria gave him a befitting reply and turned away from the dresser as soon as she stood up, and just took a seat at where the huge couch was centered in the room.
“And why are you sitting on that and not getting ready to sleep? The bed is big enough for seven people,” he asked.
“It is hard to fall asleep. I will when I am ready,” she answered in an indifferent manner unlike before that she would give no reply, and then turned her head to look away from his direction to the other side of the room. She was beginning to feel lightheaded, and she didn’t want him to know that her body wasn’t feeling too well.
“I almost drowned when I was younger. My father, who tried to rescue me, lost unconsciousness in the pool the moment he brought me out. Fell to the floor and had a head concussion. Things got complicated when it was found out that he had a brain tumor. Died few months later. All my fault.”
The room became so silent immediately Dalton finished speaking, and chills filled the room instantly that crept up to Aria’s body. She was rather shocked than surprised to hear Dalton talk about his past, to a person, anyone would have least expected that he would to.
And it was really so unplanned and phenomenal that such words came out of Dalton’s lips, expressing the deepest part of him, and moreover his pains to her. She could sense the hurt in his voice as he spoke about it, and it was really weird to see a vulnerable side of Dalton.
It now became a clear understanding that that was probably the reason, she had never heard anything about him or seen him before. None of them liked to talk about his death or his existence either, because it was probably better to pretend that nothing happened and that no one was in that space before.
Her legs stood of its own will and moved over to where he was sitting, and her both hands grabbed his cheeks softly without even thinking. She didn’t know why she was doing that or what she would do, because she somewhat knew inside of her that she was bad at consoling people.
“It was definitely never your fault,” she said slowly, and moved her left hand from his cheek to pat his head gently.
Though they didn’t go beyond that emotional check to hugging, they both understood the message they were trying to pass, which was well received.
The next morning was quite an early one for Aria, when she opened her at 3:00am in the morning. Her senses were coming to the awakening of the body, and she sensed that she seemed to have slept well through the night. Her head ache seemed to be gone too.
But surprisingly, she was unable to turn her body the way she normally did every morning, which made her wonder if she was still in her dreams. It irritated her to know that she might have actually just slept well in the dream, and even being encased against a tight wall felt too real.
Her eyes closed back to return to whatever was happening to her, when she felt the reality of something that was comforting and warm. The supposed wall wasn’t as rigid as she thought, and even smelt familiarly nice in her head.
That was when she realized that someone’s arms were around her waist, while her own head was pressed to his rock hard chest. The feeling was too good to let go, and she loved her entire sleep and night in that position.
‘Wait. Did she sleep in the same bed with Dalton? Were they cuddling? Did anything happen again?!’