Chapter 50

The way his laugh seems to evict some pleasant reaction from me makes me forget all my earlier anger, and I can see my lips forming into a smile alongside his.

"What do you find so funny?" I asked him and the amusement in his eyes seems to deepen with even more intensity.

I don't know why I'm having this warm feeling in my chest, but as I look at the way Adrian smiles I feel all my defences going down. He has the smile of a million megawatts of energy, and it is attractive as hell.

When I had come in here and woken up on his bed the next morning, I had silently made an agreement with myself as I had done the night before. I had promised myself not to think of Lucas anymore, or think of the life I had before. The ride in his car gave me a lot of time to think, as I thought of the best possible ways to move on.

I'm not ready for any sort of relationship now, and I'm certainly not ready to be falling head over heels for someone whom I barely know, even if he is supposed to be my husband. I think he senses something in my look and the faint smile of satisfaction on his face is replaced with concern.

He cares for me in a way that I do not understand, He seems to notice each and everyone of my expressions, each and every movement I make, each and every suble glance I pass his way, and yet even if he ignores, he still finds a way to tell me that he cares.

"Is this how you're going to keep being silent whenever I'm being possibly attacked?" I ask, hoping to remove the glimmer of bitterness in my voice. He looks at me with something like understanding in his eyes, and I can feel my heart jump into my mouth.

I can hear my heart pounding in my ears, as he plays with something in his fingers. He opens it and I see it's his family.

"If I keep on interfering whenever someone poses a slight threat to you, they will know that you mean much more to me than I have let on. You will become a weakness for them to exploit, and I do not want that.

I want you to be my strength not my weakness. I want you to be someone I can rely on, not someone they would kidnap and ask me to later to give up everything I love In return for . These games mean a lot more to those of us who have stayed here ever since we had been born. This place is like a second home to us, but instead of a home it's more of a prison.

A prison in which you live joyously in one year, and lose your parents the next year. I don't want that to happen to mine, and so I do not want you to ever feel ignored. Know that you are my strength and not my weakness, and that is exactly how much you mean to me. I would never ignore you, so please don't feel that way".