Chapter 23
I flinched, startled by Patricia’s loud screech.
Unlike what we were expecting, she didn’t back out. Instead, she continued to rage on, not letting up.
She began to stomp my way, hands lifted forward in my direction. But I didn’t let her threat get to me. I remained still in Jaiden’s arms, contemplating what to do.
What a stubborn brat. She’s getting on my nerves now. I scowled. ‘No means no, you psycho
Even though I could not see Patricia, I could sense that she was about to seize a hold on me at any given second. Now that she was a step away from me and Jaiden, just within an arm’s reach, she could tear me off him by force and reveal my face to everybody there.
around and giving Patricia a lesson on what public humiliation
I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists, keeping myself from turning arou was truly supposed to be.
“Touch her, and you’ll pay for it, Jaiden growled out all of a sudden, and I stiffened, needing to double–take.
I would never forget the first time I saw him so mad. His deep, low voice was extremely daunting–as expected from the Alpha of the Juhwood pack. I couldn’t help but take a glimpse of what was going on.
Slowly, I looked up to him once more, but I was unprepared for what would come into view.
I found Jaiden’s slimed, half–lidded eyes glinting with pure rage. And it wasn’t only that. One of his hands was no longer holding me, as it was now stretched forward, gripping Patricia by her wrist
She had attempted to haul me away from him, it seemed. But in the end, she did not even get to touch her not y tightly before she could do so,
Iwith him grasping her
“A–Alpha?” Patricia stammered out, shocked and indignant. “W–What do you think you’re doing? How can y you don’t let go of me right now, I’ll take it as harassment –
you be
harsh to a girl? If
“Harassment, you say? I scoffed without looking at Patricia, finding her so immature it was aggravating. “For someone who’s about to harass me herself, you sure know how to blame others. So what if you’re a girl? You think the world will pity you just because of that?
“Of course, they will! And if this comes out on social media=”
“If it does, you’ll only make things worse for you and better for
- as.
“There are witnesses and cameras everywhere, Ms. Patricia. If you continue to throw tantrums like this, it’ll do bad for your image more than to us, don’t you think Jaiden muttered under his breath, threatening her. “Though I’ll have you know that looking bad in front of these people will be the least of your worries if you dare touch a single hair on her.”
I definitely did not see that coming, not Jaiden’s warnings to make her stop nor Patricia’s tamed expression as she fell silent.
At that moment, I realized that the reason why he let this commotion blow up into this one big spectacle was to knock sense into this obsessive admirer of his What he was really after was the press. Then again, earlier, he did say something about her that turned out to be a pivotal part of his plan –
*To be honest, I don’t believe that Ms. Patricia is truly in love with me,” he had told me. “Despite how she is, I can tell that she doesn’t mean any of u. I mean, her love confession came out of the blue, and knowing her pack’s connection with ours, I highly suspect that she just wants to keep me for the sake of her selfish gains–to gain more fame and stronger relations with the Ashwood’s
I did not think that his claims were far–fetched In fact, it made sense. This was what being part of high society was all about.
It always involved gaining prominence, increasing wealth, spreading influence, competing for the top, and making use of others as
For a long moment. I regarded Jaiden in silence.
Youran
you know”
330PM P P
Chapter 23
The pretend couple act had concluded at last, and by this point, the flames we set off had been more or less extinguished.
When he threatened Patricia after she tried to grab a hold of me, she was stuck in stunned silence for a while, completely thrown at a Joss. Once she finally decided to back off, Jaiden pulled me away from the crowd in a hurry, all the while still embracing me to hide my
But since the audience had gotten larger without us noticing, leaving wasn’t easy. “Woah!” Much to my surprise, he picked me up and carried me away from the noisy crowd.
Though caught off guard, I had no choice but to let him as I continued hiding from the onlookers. But maybe he was taking the lead‘ a little too literally. Still not contented, he put a hand on my head and eased my face into his shoulder.
“Please, hang on a bit longer. I’ll put you down when I get to a good spot,” he whispered in my car, holding me closer.
Jazden still seemed mad even though his confrontation with Patricia was now over.
I was grateful that he defended me, but I was also worried that he had pushed himself too much. Using threats wasn’t part of the plan, after all. He did it only because I almost got hurt, which would not have happened if I’d done a better job on being convincing
really should put me down now. It had been tough for you,” I insisted, not wanting to trouble him any more than this.
He couldn’t possibly be not even the least bit exhausted. Not only did he get spent arguing with Patricia, but he also had to force his way through a large crowd when we left. He had fought to keep me hidden at all costs.
“I’ll never go near that place again,” I grimaced, making Jaiden chuckle.
Yeah, let’s not go back.”
“Not like we still have a reason to, anyway?
“Oh, but aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Hmm? What?”
Your hat.
I paused.
On second thought, I may have no choice but to go back, after all. Now, I was starting to feel torn between rushing back to the coffee shop and letting him continue to take me further away from it
Returning there would only waste his efforts to get the two of us out of there, though. Not to mention, Patricia and her fan club were probably still there. Escaping from the crowd was the best choice right now,
“Don’t worry, Vivi. I’ll find it for you. We have to wait for things to settle down, though. Is that alright?” Jaiden assured me, to which 1 replied, “Well, if we’re just going to wait anyway, I’ll come with you, Let’s find it together, Hopefully, they won’t take too long. I’m afraid someone already threw it away.”
“Sorry for involving you this much. Things almost got out of control in the end.
“We didn’t expect that she’d go after me like that, so don’t feel too bad. If anything, you made the right choice. She wouldn’t stop otherwise, and everyone would remain blind to her true nature.”
I definitely got to have a word or two when someone’s doing something wrong, and that woman was obviously obsessed. No matter what her reasons were for roping Jaiden into this mess, I could not just stand around and let a friend deal with it all by himself.
I just hoped that this incident had taught Patricia a lesson.
“Here we go” At last, Jaiden put me down.
We took this chance to let out a breath we didn’t know we had been holding. I must say that he’s pretty strong. He didn’t seem to break that much sweat even when he had carried me all the way from there to here
He had sturdy arms, I could tell when he was holding me earlier, and he had the ideal physique.
“You’ve been working out, I see,” I blurted out absentmindedly.
Jaiden looked at me in confusion. Hub! Working on what?”
You know, bodybuilding and stuff”
3:38 PM P
Chapter 21
“O–Oh, well yes. What about it?”
“Nothing. Just thought you’ve got a figure of a mosdel”
He blushed, now back to being flustered. I was only simply stating facts, though.
““A–Anyway, I apologize again for dragging you into something not very fun today, Vivi,” Jaiden started, changing the subject. “I caused you quite the trouble,”
“Who told you I didn’t have fun?” I giggled. “Don’t you already know by now, Jay? I often get into trouble, and sometimes, getting into one can tum out to be fun.”
He looked astonished to hear this. I didn’t say that just to cheer him up, though. It was really what I felt
“Now, let’s go find my hat, then we’ll take off!”
With that, I grabbed Jaiden by the wrist before making a dash back to the coffee shop. He laughed as he followed me, finally looking at the bright side.
“We can go and have a bit more fun if you want! We still have time before we go home, don’t we? Oh, but maybe, we can leave out the frouble this time.” I quipped while I continued tugging him along, earning more amused Laughter from him.
“If that’s the lady’s wish, then it shall be
e done
We never did get the hat back in the end.
For the whole car ride on the way back, I sulked. Wanting to cheer me up, Jaiden invited me to a restaurant with a live music band. As 1 did not feel like going home yet either, I agreed to come with him.
“As someone who loves to enjoy a meal with good music, I always find it a huge bonus when I eat out and there’s one,” he shared with me. “But the hard thing for some music lovers like me is that it’s not so easy to find a good restaurant with guaranteed great live music”
From there, he enumerated his top picks for restaurants that had the additional feature he was looking for. “I bet you’re gonna love this one, Vivi. Oh, and this is my treat,” he said as he took me to the best of his list, ecstatic to show me one of his favorite spots in the city
“Woah! This looks amazing. Jay!”
Once there, I found that the restaurant did not only have standard live music with acoustic sets and a grand piano, but it also happened to be one of the premier sports bars in the metro. It offered an intimate ambiance, indoor games like billiards, a lounge for watching sports, and as he wanted, a music band that changed genres every week.
For today, they were playing classical jazz music, my favorite type of music.
“So awesome!” I chirped as I took my seat across from Jaiden and watched the band playing on the stage in front of us. “Td never been in this kind of place before. Do you come here often?”
“Yeah, I do, at least since I became the pack’s leader. My favorite music band performs here from time to time I go here to watch them
“That’s nice. You really do love music, huh?”
Jaiden nodded and grinned at me while I gave him as
