TWENTY-THREE

ANISHA'S POV

I was really anxious to know why Eden was very particular about saving Liam. He had shown a great interest in Liam, from the very beginning. As far as I knew, Eden was our housemate; and he was a plumber. I knew him as Eden, a quiet man who minded his own business. Slowly, as I replayed the events of the kidnapping, I remembered that Eden just appeared at the la Martina' house, offering to help us to escape. When I looked back, I could tell that there was a lot that I did not know about him. It appeared to me like he had planned this all along, and I became very much convinced that he had a lot to do with the death of ma'am Larissa. Who was he? What did he want?

I was brought back from my thoughts to reality by a small groan from Liam, who was lying on the dirty couch. I stretched out my hand to rub his back. At the very same time, Dylan also meant to comfort Liam, so my hand landed on top of his, unintentionally. When our hands accidentally touched, I quickly retracted my hand and apologized, "I'm sorry I'm very sorry."

Dylan, who must have been lost in thoughts of his own, looked at me and smiled, "why are you sorry?" I felt so embarrassed that I wished to just disappear or to melt into the floor. I had no intention of responding, but he spoke again, "why should you be sorry?"

"I …I…I didn't mean to touch you", the moment the words left my mouth, I felt that they sounded seriously wrong, and I quickly added; "your hand. I mean I didn't meant to touch your hand."

Oh no! How could I be that clumsy with both my actions and my words! I cursed myself and fixed my eyes on Liam. I had no intention of looking elsewhere, else I met the man's beautiful eyes. No, I did not want to look at him. The handsome man laughed. I quickly looked away and promised myself not to utter one more single word, or else I would seriously embarrass myself!

"You're one very shy girl," he commented.

"I'm not shy," I snapped and prayed for someone to just open the door and come in to disturb our talk.

"You can't even look at me when you talk to me." He sounded like he was going to laugh.

"I…I'm just not used to being around people like you," my mouth said that on its own. No, it was not me who chose those words.

He chuckled, "people like me? What kind of a person am I?"

Oh no, when will the conversation ever end? Tension, tension, anxiety too. I wanted it to end already.

"The rich," I whispered with my eyes fixed to the ground.

"You and I are the same. We're both human beings just born into different families," he spoke and I dared not look at him.

"We're different," I stood my ground.

"It doesn't matter from which families we come from. You and I are friends."

"Friends? …Friends? I would never call myself your friend." Again, my mouth did that by itself.

"But why not? I have always wanted to be friends with you, Anisha. It's a pity that we met under such circumstances. But, once we're out of this place, I want us to meet up and chat, and get to know each other better."

"There's nothing much to know about me," I said shyly.

"Trust me there is a lot," Dylan said.

He must have been smiling, his voice sounded even more angelic, but still I made sure not to look at him. A sense of guilt covered me, from nowhere. Why? I felt bad. The circumstance was bad. I was a murder suspect on the run; baby Liam was very sick, and yet here I was, feeling extremely happy to be in the same room with Dylan de Milo.

"Seriously Anisha, once we're out of this place, let's plan to meet and get to know each other as friends. After all, after going through what we're going through now together, it only makes sense for us to keep in touch."

Ok. He sounded serious. He meant it, right? What did he want to know about me? If he wanted to know about me, then why did he never talk to me back at Olga? He was just bored, wasn't he? He was just lonely in this place, and he was just talking to me for he had nothing better to do, right? I lifted my eyes slowly, meaning to catch a glimpse of the handsome man, and I caught him looking straight at me. I quickly looked away and prayed harder for Liam to wake up at that moment. Why was I feeling so shy?

What, how could my brain even be that much excited in the presence of the billionaire? He was a de Milo! I needed to remind myself over and over again…Anisha, this is the only son of the de Milos. He is not in your league. Stop crushing on him or hoping that you two can become best buddies. He belongs in a different world. You belong in the world of the poor; the low people of society. You two cannot be friends! With that thought in mind, I smiled. It was not a smile of joy, but rather self pity.

"You don't have to be that shy. You can talk to me about anything and everything, just like how you talk to your friend." He said. He sounded calm, and kind too. It was time to change the subject…time to change the subject….

"Do you think Liam will be fine?" I asked in a shaky voice.

"Changing the subject? … Yes, I believe he will be fine. But that may depend on how long this man will decide to keep us here!" Silence.

What else should I say? I lifted my eyes and…he was still looking at me. Happiness surged in my heart. At least once in my lifetime, I managed to get his attention. I knew that one day he was going to forget me, but then, that day was not now. I needed to enjoy the attention. I was happy. The more I felt happy, the more I also tried my best to suppress that happiness. Reminding myself over and over that Dylan was out of reach for me, I calmed myself down and chased away the smile.

Being a member of the de Milo family was enough to attract too many crushes, and it was a well known fact that Dylan had many of them. Almost every girl, worthy of it or not, would one day secretly dream of becoming Mrs. de Milo. Mrs de Milo? Really? Dream on, girl! I could not believe that I actually had the guts to even dream of becoming Mrs de Milo. I burst out laughing, before I suddenly became quiet.

"You seem to be really enjoying yourself", he said.

I immediately felt very bad. Here I was, messing up my only chance with Dylan. How could I act like a lunatic, laughing to myself like that? I felt like pinching myself, then I calmed myself down and said

"sorry, I have a lot of things going through my mind"

"Funny things, I guess." He said.

"Ok to be honest, I never thought one day I would be locked in a room with you".

"Well it's good that we are. The only other time we've been in the same room was at Olga." He slowly wiped the sweat off Liam's forehead.

"Yes but we never spoke to each other. I never spoke to you, neither did you." My voice betrayed me. it came out like a complaint.

"So many times I wanted to speak to you, but I never had the guts." He told me.

"That cannot be true" I was quick to deny it.

"Well, it is true. I wanted to talk to you, but you were always busy with someone or something."

"Ok, did you want to talk to me specifically, as Anisha; or you wanted to talk to me as a child at Olga. I mean, if you had had the chance, were you going to talk to Anisha, or to a child at Olga?" I was beginning to find courage to ask the man some questions.

"I wanted to talk to you specifically. Anisha Meyerton. I liked your singing, I liked how you always went out of your way to help the younger children. So I wanted to tell you that I admired that about you."

"You, you actually admired me?" I smiled.

"I did. The first day that I went to Olga, I was expecting to see a bunch of sad kids. Knowing that it was an orphanage, I thought everyone there would be sad. But when I saw you, you looked happy, and you were happily assisting the children around you. So you painted a different picture for me. I thought the home was a sad place, but I realised it could also be a happy place."

Oh, ok. Who would have known that he watched me over all those years?

"We must meet up as friends and get to know each other better," he repeated.

"I guess we can," I finally responded to that.

"If we make it out of this fiasco, it surely will be good to look back at these days." He smiled at me but the failure to find hope in the situation made me fail to smile back at him.

"Don't lose hope now, Anisha. Although this place is heavily guarded, you and I both know that we still have that man. I am sure he will come back to help us." Dylan assured me.

"Why hasn't he come back yet?" I was feeling defeated.

"He is probably looking for the best moment. I trust he will come back. Once I am gone, you will need to be strong. If anyone finds out that I am gone, they will torture you. Stick to what I told you before. You say you don't know anything; you were asleep and when you woke up, I was gone. That should be your statement and don't change it. Do you understand, Anisha?"

"Yes," I nodded my head and felt hot tears beginning to fall.