Chapter Nine: Arnold
1304 Words
MAI
“I’m not a cheap commoner,” I said, my voice trembling despite my effort to steady it.
My eyes darted around the room as the last shards of glass settled on the marble floor. My chest rose and fell too fast, my hands still shaking from the force I’d used when I hurled the glass of water across the room.
I hadn’t planned to do it. I hadn’t even realised I was capable of it.
But something inside me had snapped.
“Then what are you?” Mabel asked, turning fully toward me now, her lips curling. “Didn’t you come here to eat Bryan’s money?”
The words hit harder than the slap she’d given April earlier.
There was nothing I hated more than being dragged into petty, vicious fights especially fights that weren’t even mine. Especially fights over Bryan, who sat beside me like a detached god, watching two women tear into each other over him as if he were a trophy waiting to be claimed.
A prize.
A possession.
He hadn’t stopped them.
He hadn’t said a word.
“What’s there to like about Bryan?” I asked before I could stop myself.
The room went strangely still.
I could feel it immediately, the heat of his stare burning into the side of my face, heavy and deliberate. It was the kind of look that made your skin tighten, like you were standing too close to fire.
“What?” April turned sharply toward me. “What do you mean by that?”
“The most powerful man in all of Russia,” Mabel cut in, her voice sharp with disbelief, “capable of moving mountains and he’s not to your liking?”
She glared at me like I was something foul she’d found under her shoe.
Such a chaotic household.
Everyone is talking over each other. Everyone is fighting. Everyone is desperate to be seen, to be chosen, to win.
I clenched my hands at my sides, my nails biting into my palms, especially because I could still feel his gaze on me; cool, assessing and dangerous.
Like he could strip the courage right off me just by looking.
Like I should sit down.
Like I should shut up.
“There’s nothing to like about this man,” I said, forcing the words out, “that both of you are fighting over.”
I needed them to hear it.
I needed him to hear it.
“But you’re marrying him, you fool!” Mabel snapped. “If nothing is interesting about him, why are you here?”
“This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard from a commoner,” April added with a scoff. “But I guess that’s exactly why you are one.”
“I’m not a commoner,” I said quickly, the words tumbling out before I could swallow them back. “I’m a woman who owns a bakery in the heart of London. I was... I was...”
My voice faltered.
“Until you chose to be with me.”
Bryan finished the sentence for me as he stood.
The sound of his chair scraping against the floor was loud in the sudden silence. Every nerve in my body tightened.
“You won Best Baker of the Year because of me,” he continued calmly, stepping closer. “I made that happen.”
“I didn’t ask for it,” I said, my voice low.
“That’s not what matters,” he replied. “What matters is the happiness you wore when they announced your name.”
His eyes dropped to my hands.
I reacted instantly, hiding them behind my back.
I refused to let him see how badly I was shaking.
“You didn’t care how you won,” he went on softly. “You were just happy you did.”
He leaned closer.
I closed my eyes as his breath brushed my skin, warm and unsettling, like hot coffee held too close to bare flesh.
“You were smiling,” he murmured, a slow, knowing smile curving his lips. “You were glowing.”
I swallowed hard.
“Now,” he said, his voice lowering and darkening, “you stand in front of my mother and say there’s nothing to like about me?”
My stomach dropped.
“Then I suppose,” he continued quietly, “I’ll have to teach you how I want my bride to speak to me.”
Fear rushed through me, not sharp, not sudden, but heavy and sinking.
This wasn’t anger.
This was possession.
“Bryan,” I said through clenched teeth, forcing myself to meet his grey eyes.
“I’m not going to be—”
“Don’t,” he cut in gently. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
His gaze softened just enough to be terrifying.
“You might get yourself into more trouble with me,” he said. “And I hate seeing you in trouble.”
Before I could respond, the doors burst open.
“Sir!”
Jason stumbled into the room, panting, his face pale. Bryan turned instantly, his attention snapping away from me. Jason’s eyes flicked toward Bryan’s mother, who rose at once.
“It happened,” Jason said.
Bryan didn’t ask what.
He didn’t need to.
He was already moving, his mother right behind him.
They were gone within seconds.
What happened?
Why the rush?
Yesterday it had been Victor or whatever his name was. And now this?
How many secrets were buried in this house?
I barely had time to breathe before pain exploded across my scalp.
Fingers fisted into my hair, yanking hard enough that tears sprang instantly to my eyes.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” I screamed, clawing at the hand pulling me backwards. “Let me go!”
I was dragged across the floor, my feet scrambling uselessly.
“It hurts! Let me go!” I cried.
“It hurts?” Mabel snarled. “And you dared get cheeky with Bryan? You dared win him over with your cheap tricks?”
I lunged forward, fury overriding pain, grabbing her by the neck.
She shrieked.
We crashed into each other, bodies colliding, both of us gasping, clawing, shaking.
“How dare you touch me!” she screamed.
“Get your hands out of my hair!” I yelled back.
She shoved me hard. I stumbled and fell against the table, my back slamming painfully into the edge.
We stood there glaring, staring at each other, hatred thick in the air.
“You think this will make him choose you?” she asked, stepping closer, poking my forehead. “You think this is how you win?”
She laughed.
“Don’t play this game.” She said, trying to sound like Bryan.
“You’re the one who dragged me into it,” I shot back. “I didn’t choose this.”
“You don’t have to choose,” she said coldly. “You just have to leave while you still can.”
“No one is leaving.” The voice came from across the room.
My senses blurred.
Arnold.
The same man I’d seen on television for ten years. The blue-eyed raven. The legend. My fantasy. The reason why I m*********d for ten whole years.
The man who had haunted my thoughts long before I ever stepped into this house. Long before I saw him.
My breath caught as he approached.
When I saw him yesterday, I thought it was a dream.
But now he was here again.
Real. Solid.
Broad shoulders. Calm confidence. Taller, somehow, than Bryan ever seemed.
He stopped in front of me.
Gently, impossibly gently, he cupped my face.
I felt it. The rush in between my legs, especially when he flashed a smile looking tenderly into my eyes
- Writer
