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5. I'll pay you

DIANE’S POV

“Really?” Alicia asked the minute I answered her call and I wondered if ditching my best friend, skipping a class for the first time, and picking said best friend’s call when she was infamous for her flair for the dramatic and the need to be hysterical was the best thing to do but it was too late to second guess anything.

“I don’t know what is going on but right now I am staring at a seat next to me that is always occupied with your pretty little ass and it is empty.” She paused and I rolled my eyes knowing that she was just getting ready to go full out with the hysterics. “If I didn’t know better I will think that you just ditched me in an Accounting class and sneaked to the library.”

I stared at my front porch from where I stood and exhaled. She doesn’t know better obviously because I was at home. “I am not at the library so please don’t go checking.” Or giving Mrs. Harrison the librarian a heart attack by storming inside the library and screaming that I should come out from my hiding place I added in my head. It won’t be the first time she had done it.

“So where are you? The Accounting class will soon start in a few minutes. If you hurry, we might have a few minutes to talk about Clara's horrible boots before Mr. Boring Bethany comes in.”

I rolled my eyes. Clara was Alicia's arch-enemy since preschool so it is safe to say that their rivalry was as strong as our friendship and ever since then they had gone neck-deep competing for the same thing.

Prom Queen in high school.

More followers on i********: than the other.

More YouTube subscribers than the other.

I can only say that Clara reciprocated the feeling Alicia had towards her and it isn’t like they did anything to hide their resentment for the other even though it means they had to stoop, bad mouth, and lie about each other.

We both knew that Clara won’t be caught dead in anything that wasn’t as perfect as she looked just like Alicia but I wasn’t about to tell her that not when I had to delicately that I had left school because Jackson had shouted my name across the hall and waved at me. He was about to head for me and tongue-tied and panicked I dashed out of the hall but remembering we had the same class some minutes from now and embarrassed, I had totally lost it like a coward and ran back home. Yes, a boy regardless of how cute he looked was all it took for me to ruin my perfect attendance and leave my best friend.

I was about to tell Alicia that along with muttering please forgive me while she cursed me to entire damnation for abandoning her alone in the never-ending torture of Mr. Bethany’s droning voice when I noticed the black cars parked in front of our house. I don’t know much about cars but I knew no one in our neighborhood drove something so luxurious and expensive looking.

My heart thundered against my chest and my throat dried at the mere thought of who was in and though it was ridiculous and if I thought harder it might be a long-time wealthy family friend but there were four cars and it only made sense that it had to be a man who needed security.

And who else would need such a high amount of security if not a super popular and wealthy man?

“Alicia I will have to call you back,” I whispered and hanging up on what I thought was an incoming bout of protest, I shoved my phone into my pocket and slowly made my way inside the house trying not to get too excited since it was ridiculous to believe he was really in there, in my sitting room.

The hair at my back stood just like in my dreams and my chest constricted making breathing almost too difficult as I opened the door and step into the sitting room my eyes going wide and my mouth falling open.

Regardless of how many times I have thought of meeting Caelian again even though I know how laughable the idea was and how creative I had gotten with the circumstance of our meeting I had never imagined my father kneeling in the middle of the sitting room and around him were tall scary looking strangers wearing a black suit and a scowl. I counted and they were about ten and by the look of things, father was scared as hell, and Caelian…

Reaffirming that I had been stupid sometimes to think that I magnified his attractiveness two years ago in my head Caelian towered in front of my father, a scowl on a face that had starred many times in my dream than I was comfortable admitting looking every bit a walking example that a man could be sinfully gorgeous and still be allowed to roam the street.

He wore a white shirt tucked loosely into a black slack and he looked pissed and hot.

I gulped and my bag hit the ground making twelve pairs of eyes turn toward my direction and I froze.

“Diane,” Dad’s voice came out croaked and almost in a whimper. He looked terrified as he stared at me in disbelief while I snapped out of my trance and stepped closer to where he was despite my ricocheting heart still trying to make sense of what I had walked in on and the feverish dream that Caelian eyes were on me, watching how my baggy jeans clung to my hips and how my knitted crop top was a bit tight around my chest area.

It was as if the room got chillingly quiet even as I noticed the fidgety way father stared at me like he had seen a ghost. He looked so terrified and pale.

“You shouldn’t be here,”

Okay ouch… not the warmest welcome my father has offered me but to be fair I needed to cut the man a slack, it is not like I come back every day to find him on the floor and men around him who looked like they were part of the mafia surrounding him.

“What is going on here?” I asked turning towards Caelian the minute I was sure I had hormones under control. He quickly shoved his hands into his pocket which I found weird but I didn’t have time to examine those suspicions because up close how was I to know that this man could even get more unbelievably attractive and his grey spectacular eyes could be so distracting?

I rolled my eyes as he watched me like I was the one who had barged into his house and made his father kneel in front of me. I turned to my father helping him to a seat ignoring his protest and from the corner of my eyes, one of the men had looked like he was just about to stop me but he had looked at Caelian and had stopped.

I turned towards Caelian, my chin in the air and my hands on my waist.

“I don’t know what is going on here but someone should start talking else I will be calling the police,” I said bringing out my phone. Yes, I was a scholarship student so of course, I knew that threatening ten men who looked like they will be more than obliged to silence me forever was a very fuckastic idea but there was something about Caelian that made me feel safe, protected, invincible, sassy and might I add remarkably foolish.

And it didn’t help as his lips curved into a smirk that made my heart falter.

“I am not sure your father will like that very much especially since he signed legal documents that implicate him if the police get here because Princess your father, unfortunately, is owing me money.” He looked at my father making him gulp audibly and then mumbled under his breath, “That is if we forget that every cop in this city is under my payroll.”

“Father what is he talking about? You owe him money? How?” I turned back towards Caelian who was staring at me like I was a joke and oh how amusing I was to him right now even as I brought out all the money in my pocket and placed it on the table. I wonder why he will make such a deal about a couple of bucks since he was stupefying rich but that was something else I will never understand about wealthy people. “Look that is 50 bucks and if it doesn’t cover what he owes you, you can just send me your account number and I will wire the rest of the money to you.”

Father closed his eyes and I looked at him. “There was no need to make him seat on the floor. He is sick and doesn’t need this kind of stress just because of a couple of bucks.”

Caelian looked at the money on the table and then back at me, the smirk still intact on my face.

“Do you think we are joking here?” one of the men closest to my father gruffly asked and I tried not to squirm at the scary tremor of his voice even as Caelian lifted his hand in the air and just like that the man kept quiet although now glaring at me.

“I think there was a need for him to seat on the floor for 2 million dollars but what do I know?”

My head swirled and my knees threatened to give way as I tried to believe that I had heard wrong. There was no way he meant 2 million dollars right?!

“Erm…” I blinked in confusion. “Did you just say…”

I trailed off but Caelian nodded still looking amused and I would have been curious to know what he really thought was funny about all of this if I don’t have a pressing need to know how the f**k my father was owing this man such a huge amount of money.

I turned towards father but he wouldn’t even look at me. “You shouldn’t have been here,” he murmured instead.

“But I am here now and you might as well deal with it,” I snapped tired and frustrated. “How…” my lips trembled. “2 million!” I asked with incredulity.

“Well, all the experimental treatment your mother had to undergo wasn’t exactly cheap.”

“Don’t you dare bring mother’s name into all of this,” I shouted back at him before I could stop myself. I had never once raised my voice at anyone even at my little sister who was constantly testing my patience but I had the urge to do more than raise my voice at father right now. Mother had been tired, she had asked father to give up on the chemo and special treatment. The doctor had advised that her body couldn’t take anymore and it’d be wise to give up but Father had been selfish.

My eyes watered, we all had been.

I stumbled towards father and although I had the strongest urge to seat down next to him and sniffle, to act my age and look clueless.

Old habits rarely die easily so I turned towards Caelian whose hand remained in his pockets like he had all day to watch me and my father even though I know he was a very busy man but he was no longer smirking. Good.

“I will pay you.” I dug my hand into my skin forcing myself not to cry even as father sobbed behind me. “I will pay you every penny once I am done with college and get a good job,” I said eagerly. “I know I can land a great paying job the minute I am done with college. I am sure to graduate with the best result but I will read even harder now I know how much is hanging on this.”

“Why will you do that you this stupid child?” father asked sniffling yet chuckling. “Please just let your i***t of your father solve his problems himself. It is embarrassing to watch you save me again and again.”