Mistakenly Eaten

30. Some Decisions Can Be tough

29:

Salva and Serena stood right outside the kitchen, pacing back and forth in the main foyer.

The two walked in opposite directions from each other, crossing each other’s path every time, they would walk across one another.

“I don’t know what he is up to. I am really worried.” Serena mumbled as she passed by Salva, who was just as anxious as she was and simply continued pacing around the foyer.

“I am really worried, what if he says that he doesn’t Althea? What do you we do then? What if he gets mad and refuses to eat anything at all? What if he goes back in depression? I am really getting sick here.”

Serena perched down, bending her knees and pressed her weight on her ankles, resting her back against the staircase.

She held her head in her hands and Salva also stopped walking after listening to Serena’s worries.

He was just as confused, scared and frightened as her.

In the past two weeks, he had seen a slight sense of hope in Nicholas’s behavior.

He wasn’t too adamant anymore. He was more lenient and had also picked up some different activities other than his work.

They had all noticed how happy, Althea’s food made him.

He was obviously changing for the better and they were willing to keep it hidden from it, as long as he wasn’t fully recovered or at least of the mindset that he wanted to get off the island and work back on his life.

“Cheryl had broken my little boy entirely. That witch, ruined his life. I wish to murder her if I could. I am that selfish for saving the boy’s life and turning him back to the soulful person that he once was. That’s why I didn’t care enough about Althea and if I am being honest…”

Serena spoke, looking up at Salva, taking him by surprise, with her casual confession, that seemed to have come straight out of her heart, without any apparent guilt.

“… I don’t care about the girl’s feelings. She is a nice girl and I want her to understand, if she ever found out. Salva…”

Serene got up from her spot and walked up towards Salva, holding the young man’s hands, who was quite surprised to see a complete different side of the woman, who was always sweet and loving. But he eventually realized that her love for Nicholas held no bounds.

It was quite clear as a day, that she loved Nicholas like her own child. Fiona, Nick, Salva, Garry they were like her own kids, that she had loved and cared for, that she had brought up under her gentle shadow. She would do anything for those kids, be it betray or hurt someone else.

“… if Nicholas doesn’t agree to the entire set up, do anything but make that girl stay. We can lie to Nicholas that we have Althea’s trust or she agreed to be the chef but we can not let that girl go. As you said that she is our only hope.”

Salva saw the lostness and hopelessness in Serena’s eyes.

He saw that even she was hurt after seeing Nicholas’s state and condition and seeing the slight change that he had developed, igniting the slight sense of hope in everyone’s hearts, no one was willing to let go off Althea, even Serena.

She was infamous amongst the entire Santiago family and their relatives who had known of her and whose children were taken care of by Serena, as the most kind hearted woman and seeing how selfish and indifferent she had turned Salva understood what might have went wrong.

Or perhaps, something went right and her love for Nicholas got triggered.

He gently sighed and patted, Serena’s hand on top of his.

“Don’t worry! I will do something but even I am not willing to let go off Althea. I will make sure that even if Nicholas is against the idea, I will do everything in my power to keep that girl here. If I have to lie and set up an entire drama once again, I will do it but I will do anything to keep Althea on this island. I am only hoping that I don’t have to resort down to threatening Althea. I have been trying so hard to not to succumb down to that very last resort but even if I have to, to keep her here and even if Nicholas doesn’t understand that it is for his own good, I will still do it. I will do anything to help that bastard recover and get his ass off this island. I promise you, that I will help Nicholas become better.”

Serena gently smiled, through all of her worries as she heard Salva’s words and at the same time, the two heard footsteps approaching them.

They immediately turned and saw Nicholas coming their way.

Salva stepped ahead to ask him about his decision but Nicholas ignored his existence and simply stepped inside the kitchen, making Serena and Salva lose any hope.

The two followed him inside the kitchen and found him walking towards Althea, who was focused on her dish.

She made the same pasta, as asked by the event organizers in the beginning of the dinner cook off.

But this time, she had given it a different touch and instead of chicken, she had used smoked salmon.

She was just about to place the final piece of coriander leaf on the very top, when Nicholas stopped right in front of her.

Her eyes were focused on the dish and she was trying to find the perfect spot for the leaf but the moment she felt a shadow falling on top of the dish, she felt distracted which made her look up and ahead of her.

Her eyes widened the moment she saw Nicholas standing in front of her. he had appeared in front of her before in the beginning as well and finding him there again, somehow didn’t seem to fit right in to Althea’s heart.

Her mind drowned in anxiety, as Nicholas moved the plate of pasta from in front of her and slid in towards him, looking down at the dish with a keen eye, making Althea’s heart drown in turn in sheer anxiety and fear.

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Well, what do you think Nicholas will do now?

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