Spurned but not broken

chapter 9

*ONE WEEK LATER*

Amelie looked up at the steps in front of her. Steps that lead to unknown possibilities. Steps that lead her to an unknown future. Just the thought had her tingling with excitement of what lay ahead. She turned her head to face her friend beside her, both seemingly radiating the same amount of anticipation and joy at the prospect of their adventure. Both with the biggest smiles on their faces at finally going out into the world together like they had always dreamt of.

"You ready for this sugar t**s?" Summer grinned at her best friend.

Laughing at the old nickname, Amelie beamed at her friend "more than ready lucious lips."

The girls couldn't help but giggle to themselves. Those nicknames were from years ago, when they started laughing at the stupid things guys would say to them provocatively, assuming them to be the most s****l pickup lines known to man, that they obviously thought they could get any woman with them.

One guy had told Summer she had blow job lips and that he'd love to test them out. That earned her that specific name, and Amelie had almost wet herself when she'd seen the guy crumple to the floor seconds later after Summer had not so graciously brought his knee up between his legs. Amelies, on the other hand, had come from Summer, after continuously watching guy and guy staring at her friend's chest rather than her eyes when talking to her. She'd been convinced that her chest must have smelt like sugar with all the pests it seemed to attract.

Once they had calmed themselves down, they smiled at each other, held hands and faced forward, both taking the first step together towards their new chapter in life.

Jaxon had spent the last week looking into the woman he couldn't shake from his thoughts. After finding out her name, he'd ordered his friend to find out anything and everything he could about her.

Amelie, just her name, seemed to arouse feelings in him he'd never felt before. He himself didn't quite understand his reaction to her. He could barely even remember anything of interacting with her, and from the CCTV footage it seemed like he hadn't even spoken to her before they'd walked back into the VIP section and left together.

The door to his office suddenly swung open whilst he was deep in thought, Johnathon bursting through the door, visibly out of breath, hunching over and trying to take deep lungfuls of air before he could regain his composure and tell his friend the information he'd just found out.

Jaxon raised an eyebrow at his friend, waiting for him to be in a state where he could explain just why he'd so dramatically disrupted him. After a couple of moments, Johnathon straightened himself and beamed at his friend, taking long, swift stride to the large desk and promptly putting a file in front of his friend with everything he'd painstakingly found.

Looking down at the file, Jaxon frowned in confusion before he looked back up at his friend expectantly.

"It's all the information I have been able to find out about the girl." Johnathon beamed proudly.

Promptly snatching up the file, Jaxon began to read through the information; her background, academics, employment, but he could tell his friend had more to say.

"I looked into the rumors the bar owner mentioned" Johnathon began. "Turns out it was Amelie that was engaged."

Jaxon took a second to regain himself. He'd half expected that to be the case, that woman was too amazing. But he wanted to know what had happened for the engagement to have been called off, and who to sorry ass was that'd lost such a woman.

"Turns out that night you met her, was supposed to have been her engagement party... except the jerk she was meant to be marrying had some other girl there as his fiancé."

Feeling himself bristle with anger at the news, Jaxon took a long, deep breath. But he didn't know whether he should be angry at what the jerk had done to her, or be happy because it'd lead to him meeting her.

"Who was it?"

Johnathon looked at his childhood friend, a sly smile creeping to his lips, piquing Jaxons' interest.

"Oh, you're going to love this." He began, the gleam in his eyes made Jaxon aware that his next words were indeed going to be interesting.

"Her fiancé was none other than your, oh-so, slimy little cousin, Jason Stephenson."

Jaxon couldn't hold back the smirk that had found its way to his lips. His cousin was every bit the i***t he'd always known him to be if he'd managed to let an incredible woman like that go, especially considering the woman he'd chosen over her.

He'd unfortunately had the displeasure of meeting her during the past week after attending a family meal in celebration of his cousin's new engagement. He'd seen the way she'd looked at him during the encounter, not so subtly eyeing him up and trying to seductively smile at him on multiple occasions. Jaxon had thought she must have been on something, especially to think she was actually appealing. She must have thought very highly of herself after nabbing his cousin, because although he was an i***t, he still came from money, which must have made his dull and obnoxious personality remotely appealing enough for her to consider him. They were both perfect for each other, Jaxon had thought, both as shallow and vapid as the other.

He was slightly to curious however, as to how his imbecile of a cousin had managed to appeal to a woman like Amelie. From her information, she'd clearly not been interested in money, she'd gotten a great education and was top of her year, and from what he could remember of the club, she'd seemed like an interesting and outgoing woman. He felt himself become even more interested in her, if that was even possible at that point. Now he really had to meet her again. He wanted to know just who this woman really was.

"Any news on where she is? I'd like to speak with her." Jaxon asked his friend casually, not wanting to sound too obvious to his friend about his interest.

Jonathon simply laughed, after making him run around for an entire week digging up every scrap of information he could find, now he wanted to try and act cool.

"Her contact information, address and place of employment are all listed in the file." With that, he smiled knowingly at his friend before he turned around and left the office, closing the door behind him, to give the man some privacy.

Jaxon picked the file back up, examining all the information he'd been given. He decided that a phone call would be the easiest way to contact her. He would make up an excuse about finding her number, maybe blame it on the tampered drinks from that night. Now he just had to think of what he was going to say, how he could persuade her to meet him. He pulled out his phone and dialed the number, waiting for it to ring. A second later an automated voice sounded through the receiver "The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service," and then the line was dropped.

He spent the next few days sending Johnathon out to find her and invite her to a meeting, but every location listed in her information gave the same end result. She was gone.