CONFIDENCE

Eirene didn't show up that night despite Ares hoping to see her. He knew it was inappropriate,

but he couldn't help it. He wanted to know more about her.

He was entirely whipped and bewitched by her.

"Ares, are you listening?" Cristian Queen stopped reading the papers and kept them on the desk made of African Blackwood.

"Yes, father." Ares nodded and blinked a couple of times to assure him, although he didn't remember what they were discussing about for the last five minutes.

Cristian lowered his glasses and looked up to his son standing across the desk with tangled fingers. "Son, what is going on?"

"Nothing." He replied without skipping a beat.

"C'mon, I'm your father. I can feel that there is something on your mind." The CEO removed the silver glasses and gestured for the boy to sit down.

The boy complied and sat down but didn't open his mouth. Cristian waited for his son patiently while smiling faintly. In a minute, Ares began looking around the office to escape from his father's stares but found nothing new.

After a minute of squirming under the stare, Ares finally spat out in a weak voice, "Th-there is this person. And there is something about her... I don't know how to explain it."

"Are you in love?" The man held his hand in front of the boy and asked excitedly.

"Dad, no! I'm too young for that!" The boy stood up from the chair with a cute panicked expression. The chair almost bumped into the wall from the force Ares pushed with.

While the son went to bring back the chair he pushed away, the father told him, "I married your mother when we were both twenty, so I think you are not too young for marriage."

"Time has changed, dad. We don't marry at that age nowadays." The boy faced his father once again as he sat back down.

"Stop trying to change the subject, Ares." Cristian wiggled his eyebrows and asked, "Tell me. Who is she?"

Ares thought for a second before answering, "I don't think you know her-"

"Just say it."

"Ms Queen... Eirene Queen..." Ares looked down and didn't witness the drastic change of facial expression on his father. "It's not like I like her- I mean I do like her in a human way but not like like as in love but I like her, I just want to get to know her. She seemed lonely and sad and hurt and I want to help her somehow. I genuinely wish that at least when she comes to the hotel, she can be relaxed and comfortable. Leave her work for another day and just think about bringing inner peace to oneself, not like meditation but pure pleasure... no that sounded wrong. I meant to have fun. I want her to have fun and escape reality even for just a night, oh no that sounded wrong again. Just for a day. I mean I'm not favouring her, I want that for everyone that comes to our hotel-"

"Son, you can stop. I understand." The CEO put his hand up in a hurry and leaned back in his seat.

"Okay..." Ares sat back on his chair too and looked up at his father timidly. "Are you gonna do anything?"

Cristian frowned, "Am I supposed to do something?"

Ares replied quickly, "No. Just asking. Curiousity."

"Mmm. Well, good for you. Better experience love at an early age." His father told him.

"Why's that?"

"Falling in love is one of the best things in this messed up world. But it can also be the worst thing that can happen. You've seen many young women, around your age or a little older than you, on the news committing suicide from being heartbroken because they didn't experience love before that age. They want to escape from the pain and they think that death can take their pain away, but what they don't realise is that their death cause more sadness and hatred to the people around them."

"Is that why you've been telling me to find someone since I was fifteen?"

"You have to build immunity to heartbreak so that it wouldn't lead you to that choice."

Ares looked down at his fingers and thought about the person he was interested in, Eirene Queen.

As far as he knew, he never heard of a dating rumour about her. Has she ever been in love? Is she asexual or something? Wait, is there a possibility that she was secretly married?

'Stop it, Ares! Now you are thinking like a stalker. It's none of my business if she has a partner or not. Oh my god, why am I so creepy?'

"Son, are you going to stay here until I finish work or you want to go back home?" Cristian shook Ares out of the trance as he went through the papers lightly.

"I can wait for you." The boy stood up from his seat and looked for his bag. "I'll do my studies here."

"Okay."

The father and the son didn't speak a word until an hour later when Cristian was done, and Raanan came to the room to pick them up.

Cristian checked Ares's laptop screen from behind and asked, "How's it going?" The screen showed an e-book about hotel management, and the boy was making summary notes out of it.

"Well. I understand most of the things here. The only problem I have is using my own words to summarise this and including my opinion on this." Ares looked up from his computer and finally found Ranaan standing at the door. "Hi. We are leaving?"

His father nodded, "Yes."

"Okay." Ares packed his things in his bag at once and left the office with the two waiting for him.

-----

Jaxon asked as he loosened his tie, "That boy... What was his name..."

"Ares?" Eirene looked up from her phone and asked at once.

Upon seeing the reaction, Jaxon smirked inwardly.

How can he forget the name of the boy who made it to the list of people Eirene trusted. Plus, the boy has something that captured the frozen iron heart of the queen of villains.

"Yeah, that's the name." He answered and sat down on the sofa opposite the actress.

"What about him?" She pretended like she didn't care, but the moment she turned off her phone to listen to whatever Jaxon was going to say was very a busted move.

"Nothing much." He shrugged and crossed his legs. "He just asked me if you were sick or something since you haven't shown up in a week. He thinks you got some kind of food poisoning from drinking the wine he made."

Eirene smiled slightly, meaning she just moved the corner of her lips by a millimetre, and there was no way Jaxon was missing that.

"Why don't you go to the bar? I've checked it many times. This hotel is clean and they don't sell info. I also couldn't find any reporters in disguise, or that's just cause I suck at spotting them." The assistant genuinely touched his jaw and doubted his ability.

"I-I," Eirene stumbled on the words to say, which rarely happened to her, and placed her slim fingers at the smooth temple troubledly.

"Look, nobody is forcing you to go. He asked me and I also had the same question." Jaxon removed his suit jacket and walked to the kitchen to serve himself a glass of water. "If you don't want to say, that's fine. I feel bad for the boy though. He looked really bad. He truly believes he made you sick."

Eirene stayed quiet since she didn't know what to say. She also didn't know why she wasn't going to the bar anymore.

Every time she thought about going, the thing in her heart would start making her feel uncomfortable, and she decided not to go.

"It's the final day here. Are you going?" Eirene checked the time on her phone after hearing the man.

Jaxon also checked the time and saw that it was thirty minutes before the closing. He looked back up and found the actress in the same position. He thought she'd be leaving after seeing the time, but he was wrong.

It took a few seconds for him to realise that she was no longer reading the time but the picture she set as the wallpaper of her phone.

"She'll understand." Jaxon told her gently from the kitchen.

"She wants me there but I'm here, going to meet someone for my own satisfaction..." She replied quietly, close to a whisper, yet it was full of harshness, guilt and anger.

"Don't think like that." Jaxon came by her side. "If I were her, I'd be happy to hear that you finally found someone, putting the past behind you and trying your best to move on. This isn't something you should feel guilty about or selfish." He smiled when Eirene turned to look at him, "This is, in fact, something that needs celebration. It's a courageous act and not many people who went through the same thing as you be so positive as you."

"That's too much, Jaxon." The actress lowered her eye level and looked back at her phone, precisely the wallpaper.

"I don't think so." He replied charmingly and continued, "Now go. I know if you don't go now you are going to regret it and I'm also going to regret that I didn't force you to go. So shoo."

The actress wasn't smiling when she was forced to stand up, but there was humour in her eyes. "...Fine."

As she walked to the bedroom, she heard Jaxon in the back whining, "God, what kind of tsundere is that? Seriously..."