Mistakenly Eaten

38. Challengingly

Althea smiled brightly, removing the curtains from her room and chiming in excitement, as she saw the sun of a new morning shining right in front of her.

She closed her eyes at once and smiled just as brightly as the sun.

She let the sunrays hit her face and breathed in satisfaction.

She was finally living her dream.

Everything was falling perfectly for her.

She had spent the last three years, manifesting for everything that was happening to her.

She was finally bearing the fruit of her hard work and patience.

All the times she cooked in secret at her uncle’s restaurant, all the times she spent late at nights, staying up and perfecting her skills in cooking. All those times, when she would get her dresses and shirts darned instead of buying a new one and simply save money to buy some exotic ingredient to learn cooking. All the times when she would skip meals and save money for either her business or buy her mother a gift.

All those times – brought her there.

Closer to her dreams and she was only a few more hard steps away and finally she would become the next top chef of the secret chef hunter’s society.

She sighed, walking out of her room, in her yoga pants and sports bra, ready for her morning run.

She got out of the mansion and chimed, as she found Fiona and Garry standing at the very entrance of the house.

“Hey! Why did you call us here, this early in the morning?” Garry asked, stepping ahead and Althea stretched her limbs out, doing a little warm up exercise.

“Because, I wanted us to go out for a morning run.”

“A run?” Garry chanted with excitement.

“A run?” Fiona asked with a worried tone, not so pumped up as her crush about the run.

“Yeah! Let’s go running along the island shore. We will be quite pumped up, don’t you guys think? The back side of the mansion looks very mesmerizing and the beach waves also are quite high this time of the day. Let’s go. Fiona do you want to get changed?” Althea asked and looked at Fiona’s state who decided to come up with the best way of joining the mile run later on when Althea and Garry would be at the end of their run.

If it were the good old days, she might have been worried about leaving Althea and Garry alone but after she realized that Althea is not even remotely interested in Garry and she is merely focusing on the competition, she was quite relieved.

“Yes! I have to change.” She immediately excused herself and rushed back inside the house, sighing in relief that she wouldn’t have to go on the long run with Garry and Althea and mapped out a smart plan, whereby she would drop by, at the very end of the run and only run a few steps with the two crazy fitness freaks.

As she made her way towards her room, she passed by Nicholas’s that remained close up till nine in the morning, when Nicholas steps out and since it was just seven, no one dared to even think that Nicholas might even be awake but unbeknownst to everyone, not only was Nicholas awake, he was up and active inside his room.

He laid down on the floor of his bedroom, shirtless and sweated, finally completing his second set of hundred pushups.

He breathed in exhaustion, laying down on his back and looking up at the white ceiling of his room, where an old floral shaped wood and glass chandelier hung right in the middle, looking right back down at him.

He shook his head looking at the chandelier and finally got up from the floor.

He stood up and walked towards his room’s window, picking up his mug of coffee that was placed on the small ceramic table, placed next to the wing chair.

He took a sip of his coffee, making a sore face, as the coffee tasted quite bitter to him.

He couldn’t believe why the coffee tasted so bitter to him.

It wasn’t supposed to taste this bitter but suddenly it did.

He enjoyed the taste of the coffee for the past six months. In fact, there were times in the past six months, when all he survived on for days and weeks was just black coffee.

He liked it, when the bitterness hit his tongue and to him, it became the only thing that he actually enjoyed tasting.

That taste, made him forget the bitterness that was enveloped inside his own heart.

But suddenly that very coffee didn’t taste so good to him.

He placed the mug back on the night stand table, as he walked back towards his bed but stopped when he heard certain chimes coming from right outside his room.

He went back towards the window and saw Althea and Garry wearing sports wear and running towards the back of the mansion.

He c****d up a bit, wondering what the two were up to.

He tried to follow the two and stretched his neck all the way towards the corner of the window, as the two finally turned around the corner and disappeared.

Nicholas’s neck almost broke as he tried his very best to follow the two but ran out of his sight.

Nicholas immediately left his room, grabbing his t shirt on his way out and went towards his gym that was north to his bedroom and once he was inside his gym, he immediately rushed towards the floor to ceiling windows of the gym, that directly welcomed the view of the beach, that was right behind the mansion.

He squinted his eyes, as he watched Althea sprinting by the shore of the beach, making him wonder if the girl had a good stamina.

Well, she was surely a shitty swimmer!

He thought to his own self, as he watched closely that Althea remained afar from the shore and only enjoyed the view of the beachy waves instead of going anywhere near the water body.

This clicked something in Nicholas’s mind.

Maybe she had a phobia?

He wondered, as he watched her take a sprint down the ocean.

He smirked as an idea popped in his head and his plan to teach her a lesson on humility, took an interesting turn.

He looked at the smart watch in his hands, that he had tied up for his work out.

He noticed the time and there was an hour for the entire so called crew of the cooking competition to gather in the kitchen.

He went back to his room and hit the showers, intricately building up his plan on how he would make it tougher for Althea to survive and teach her a good lesson about not ever messing up with him again.

Once Althea was done with the run, she and Garry made her way back inside the house through the back door and the two paused at once, as they saw Fiona finally making her way out, as she wore her sports gear.

“What? You are just coming in now?” Althea inquired and Fiona shook her head.

“No, I was running along the lawns, I didn’t know you guys were at the back. But oh, well! We can do it tomorrow together? How about we hit the showers now and then gather in the kitchen, it is almost time for us to report for our morning routine.” Fiona informed everyone.

Althea nodded and left to get changed and Fiona was also about to move away when Garry grabbed her wrist and held her back.

The strings inside her heart tightened as she felt Garry’s hold on her.

She had been definitely trying her best to avoid him ever since their little interaction, after the night when Althea was about to drown,

“I know you weren’t running.”

Fiona tried to wriggle her hand free from Garry but he only tightened his hold on her wrist.

“Don’t try to lie to me.”

He pulled her closer, making her back hit his chest.

Gently leaning closer to her ear, he whispered slowly, “You know you can’t lie to me.”

His musky scent, mixed with sweat, that was radiating heat off his body and touching Fiona’s back.

“I can tell when you’re lying to me.”

He smirked slightly, the corner of his lips reaching for Fiona’s ear, making her heart beat faster.

He finally let go off her wrist and Fiona immediately ran off and away from him, with her heart beating and pounding loudly inside her chest.

Althea on the other hand, took a quick shower, blow dried her hair and made her way down the stairs, entering the dining hall.

Much to her surprise, the entire dining hall was empty.

She looked at the time on her antique clock placed by the corner of the table and was rendered confused.

It was eight and yet, there were no signs of any breakfast or any other contestants.

She heard certain rumblings coming in from inside the kitchen, so she made her way towards the kitchen and her eyes popped out of her sockets when she saw that everyone was already gathered inside the kitchen and were already cooking the challenge that they had been assigned.

Althea was rendered entirely confused but then her eyes went towards Nicholas, who had his back turned towards her but as soon as he heard the door to the kitchen open up, he immediately turned back towards Althea and c****d with a daunting expression.

“Do you think this is a picnic point?” he asked, with a stern and stiff tone.

Althea gulped hard and shook her head.

“I came down at the exact reporting time and…”

“You are supposed to be in the kitchen fifteen minutes before reporting time.” Nicholas yelled out loud at her, making her shiver in response.

She couldn’t tell why he so full of anger towards her.

The other door to the kitchen also open up and Garry and Fiona also entered the kitchen at the same time, followed by Salva and Serena.

Nicholas clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“Why is nobody in this house ever serious?” he stated in sheer disappointment.

“What’s going on with him now?” Serena asked Salva, who was just as dumbfounded as her.

Nicholas then took a step closer to Althea, making her swallow a hard lump of anxiety that began forming in her throat.

“What do you really think of yourself?” he asked, “Are you really that over confident about your cooking? Showing up whenever you want and sprinting around the island, however you want to?”

Althea’s eyebrows knitted together, listening to Nicholas’s venomous tone and his brittle words.

She could tell that he was being obviously rude towards her and was deliberately using a cruel tone.

“Are you a princess? A spoiled brat who thinks she could get whatever she wants?” he scoffed.

“You are nothing here! A zero on this island, unless and until you don’t prove your worth.”

“What do I have to do, to prove my worth?” she finally spoke up, agony coursing through her veins, as she felt belittled yet challenged by Nicholas’s words.

A smirk appeared on Nicholas’s face, as he finally had Althea under his control.

He can feel her insides squirm and shake with the urge to prove Nicholas wrong and to show him that she was worth something.

“If you really want to do so, then finish today’s first challenge in twenty minutes.”

Althea looked over his shoulder and then looked at everyone else inside the kitchen. The way everyone was sweating and rushing around and running for their lives, she could tell that they were in for a bad time.

She gulped hard and nodded.

“What is the challenge?”

“Make a three course meal in just twenty minutes.”

Salva and Serena had their eyes bulged out at Nicholas’s challenge.

“It’s just impossible.” Salva stepped ahead to intervene, fearing that Nicholas might let his intrusive feelings towards Althea, ruin their hard work over the past entire year/

Nicholas lifted his hands up and stopped Salva from moving any further.

“It is Ms. Ferrara and her decision to accept the challenge.” He told Salva off, rendering him confused and silent.

“Why is he doing this?” He asked Serena, who shrugged her shoulder, with her eyebrows knitted together in just as such muddle as Salva.

“So? What do you say?”

Althea looked at Nicholas for a moment and fidgeted with her thoughts, shifting between her feet.

Nicholas kept a firm eye on her and studied her body language, feeling viciously victorious on the inside.

He liked the fact that Althea was finally crumbling in front of him and her confidence with which she challenged Nicholas, seemed to stumble and shatter.

Nicholas wanted nothing more to see Althea crumble down on her knees in front of him, ever since she challenged him and dared to talk to back to him.

He finally made up his mind that he was going to be victorious in their little game of wits when Althea took a step towards Nicholas and extended her hand forward towards him.

“Challenge accepted."

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Hey Guys!

I just came back from vacation!

I had left the last few chapters to be updated automatically and I just realized that many chapters had been repeated, which was a huge shock for even me.

Sorry for that!

I have just came back and I promise to get the chapters corrected within the next week and as a compensation. You will guys will get multiple new chapters! So, I guess that is a win, win? :P

Thank you for always reading and supporting my work <3