Mistakenly Eaten

17. An Educationist Now

Althea felt something hard formed in her throat, something that made her gulp hard just to swallow it down but that lump of anxiety remained still.

A color so deep and blue sparkled as it looked right at her, making her almost shiver and quiver in the arms of the man who held her.

Thick eyebrows knotted together, right above those eyes, facial hair grown all over his jaw, giving him a mysterious look. There was some sense of pain and agony in Nicholas’s gaze and Althea couldn’t comprehend why he was looking at her with that look in his eyes.

Althea’s eyes bulged out as she finally realized that the man who called her out, making her fall down and then caught her was the director of the Secret Chef Hunters’ Society. She gulped hard, as the somber feeling began dawning upon her that it might be her last moments in the competition.

Nicholas held her in his arms, looking keenly at her face. he wasn’t able to look clearly the night before. It was dark, when he held her wrist but looking at her face in broad daylight, there was just something so peculiarly indifferent about the image he had in his image.

To him, she was supposedly a p********e but she looked innocent.

She had this softness in her eyes, that pierced right through his eyes.

The way her eyebrows were knitted together, not because she was merely confused but because she was scared.

Maybe scared of Nicholas and people around him were obviously always scared of him because of his status and power but not her. she was merely scared of some reason that Nicholas yearned to unearth.

Serena and Salva in to Nicholas’s office and found it empty but soon their eyes darted towards the side door of his office that was opened up and they walked towards it, carrying the lunch trolley that Althea had prepared.

Their eyes bulged out of their sockets as they found Nicholas holding Althea in his arms.

Salva immediately pushed Serena back and inside the office, closing up the door and hiding the dishes from Althea, making sure that she didn’t even remotely find out about their big little scheme.

Hearing the doors being closed behind them, both Althea and Nicholas, felt startled and without giving it much thought, Nicholas took a step back, extending his arms forward and dropped Althea down on the floor, making her butt hit the hard wooden floor.

Both Salva and Fiona, who stood next to each other, scrunched, feeling Althea’s pain, who also had her mouth hung open and her back numb with pain.

She looked up at Nicholas, with nothing but sheer anger and agony.

She immediately got up on her feet and stood in front of him with her hands over her hips.

“What the hell is your problem?” she asked in a definitely offended tone.

Nicholas c****d an eyebrow at her, judging her audacity to call him out like that.

Salva’s breath hitched inside his throat, squeaking silently, realizing that Althea might have stepped on Nicholas’s nerves.

He never liked being spoken such rudely to.

He liked it more, when people were obedient, soft and more inclined in front of him.

He distasted when people spoke with an obscene tone, especially the one in which Althea just spoke to him with.

Althea was obviously upset that one after the other, that guy was being extensively crude towards her. she had her own issues but unknowingly, she didn’t realize that she had created issues with Nicholas as well, who was obviously taken aback by her tone.

“Who the f**k are you to talk to me like that?” he spat back at her, making Althea gasp out loud.

“I get it! You might be a big shot but don’t you have an ounce of any manner? I just fell down because you called me out abruptly. I could’ve fallen down and hurt myself and then just you threw me down like that. I still could’ve gotten hurt and…”

“A. what the hell are you doing in my library and B. you are welcome, I saved you. You were being reckless and you are welcome that I saved you and I just showed you, how badly you could’ve been hurt.”

Althea felt insulted by Nicholas’s answer.

“Your library? I get it you have some sort of power but don’t be too blinded by it. What you have today, can be taken away from you or perhaps leave you without giving you any reason.”

Althea spoke those words oblivious of the fact, how sharply they cut through Nick’s heart.

Those words, drove him back to the time when he stood at the altar, waiting for his bride who never showed up and what showed up instead was a lousy letter with just a lame ‘Sorry’, written on it.

To Nick it felt like Althea had deliberately stepped on his nerves.

He took a step closer to her, his face full of anger and his eyes filled with angst, telling Althea that he wasn’t happy with her argument.

“You are lucky you are a woman!” he gritted through his teeth, “Get out of my sight, before I forget your gender.”

He yelled at her, turning around and storming off in to his office, slamming the door loudly, making everyone quiver with fear.

Althea was obviously surprised to see his angered reaction. She suspected him to argue back with her but the way he acted, seemed like Nicholas had taken her words personally, which was beyond Althea’s comprehension.

Fiona smirked, happy that her plan worked and Salva immediately walked up to Althea, “What the hell are you doing here?”

He asked, in quite a scolding tone.

“I came here to get the books that you asked for…” Althea told Salva, quite confused and surprised to find him questioning her presence in the library.

“What books? I didn’t ask you to get any books.”

Salva stated sternly, leaving Althea bewildered.

She clearly remembered Fiona telling her that Salva had asked her to get the books.

Which only meant one thing; that Fiona lied to her.

“I guess, I was just confused.”

Althea lied, hiding Fiona’s part of the story and bowed her head low, walking out of the library and back towards the staircase, passing through the main foyer, right outside of which, through the slightly open doors of the house, one could see that Garry and Fiona were standing in front of each other.

“Gigi didn’t ask for me.” Garry told Fiona, who made a pretentiously virtuous face.

“Really? But I thought that he did and you know how he gets when you don’t listen to him. so, I thought it was for the best that you listened to him and ask him what he wanted. That’s why I asked you to go and see him.”

Garry hummed and left for his room, leaving Fiona happy that she got away with her little trick.

Inside Nicholas’s office, he was fuming and pacing with anger.

Althea’s words echoing in his mind over and over again.

In the past six months, ever since Cheryl left him, the thing that bothered him the most was the fact that Cheryl left without any explanation and Althea’s words were a reminder that anyone could leave him whenever they wanted to.

It hurt and bruised his ego the way Althea called him out on his weakest points.

“You told me that she is a p********e brought from town.” Nick turned to look at Serena, who was shaking with fear.

Salva entered the office from the side door and stood next to Serena, gently touching her shoulder and assuring her that he was going to be there for her and take charge of the situation.

“Serena confused her for someone else.” Salva cooked up another lie, making Nicholas look up at Salva.

“Then who the f**k is she? I don’t want her anywhere near this island. Throw her back to wherever you brought her from.”

“We can’t fire her. we hired her on a contract.”

“For what?” Nick asked flustered by Salva’s continuous puzzling words.

“As an educationist.”

“A what?” Nick asked but even Serena was confused, as she looked up at Salva, wondering what new story he was going to cook up now.

“Didn’t you see it? She was in the library, getting books. Remember, I told you this morning about different activities that we are doing to increase work efficiency.”

“So, bring that uncouth woman? Do you see her as an educationist?” Nicholas rose his concern, to which Salva shrugged at him.

“Just let her off this one time, I’ll make sure she doesn’t come anywhere in front of you and she is here only for a day or two, until the activities are taking place. I will warn her to not to roam around the mansion. Is that fine?”

Nick didn’t say much and simply nodded, walking towards his desk but stopped when his eyes landed on the food trolley that was filled with all the three courses that unbeknownst to him, Althea had prepared.

“Is that my lunch?” he inquired, the colors on each plate looking extremely appealing.

Serena nodded silently, pushing the tray forward and Nick sat down over on the sofa chairs inside the office and Salva signaled Serena to serve him the food, before he lost his cool again.

Once, Nicholas was settled down to eating in silence, enjoying his lunch, Salva sighed getting out of the room, finding it quite odd that Nick’s medicine to calming down was Althea’s food and at the same time, Althea was also becoming his trigger to get angry as well.

He rubbed his temples, remembering that he had ended up yelling at poor Althea as well but then he also remembered her telling that she went to the library to get the books that he had asked her to get.

He clearly remembered not demanding any such task from her, which made him wonder how Althea ended up in the library to begin with.

If she was lying to him, than it was actually concerning to him. it meant that he had to keep a strict check on her. but then again, he also realized that she didn’t have any particular reason to lie to him.

As Salva worried about Althea, the girl sat inside her room, by the edge of her bed, tapping her feet on the floor, rushed with the remembrance of Nicholas’s face and his expressions.

There was some reason why the man was filled with anger, even before she said anything to him and right after the two fought, he got extremely agitated by her words.

She bit her tongue inside her mouth, regretting her words.

The reason why she had decided to stay silent in front of her uncle and cousin, when they would bully her was because she never trusted her tongue.

She knew that she always ended up saying the most truthful things that would hurt people. And even though, Nick seemed like a coerced, self centered and arrogant guy but it still disturbed Althea that she had ended up saying something to him that had triggered him in to deep anger.

She could feel that his anger wasn’t just related to her challenging his power but it bloomed from somewhere deep and unintentionally she had ended up hurting him.

She wasn’t someone who enjoyed hurting people and since he was her senior and director of the society, she decided that she needed to make peace with him.

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What do you think Althea would do now?

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