Mistakenly Eaten

112. A Moment of Betrayal

Nicholas stretched his hand out across the bed that he laid in. the soft sound of the birds chirping and the cool whooshing noise of the ocean, felt mesmerizing for his ears to listen to.

The hybrid engine of the yacht remained in the noiseless mode, that helped him sleep like a child throughout the entire night but the sharp reflection of the sun, refracting back through the surface of the clear blue water, over which they floated, pierced through his eyes, waking him up.

As he brought his hand up, his arm came in contact with Althea’s hand and he immediately retracted his hand back and turned to look towards her.

She laid next to him, her face turned towards the other side. Nicholas immediately placed his hand on top of her face, shielding her away from the bright sunlight that pierced through their windows and fell right on to them.

As Nicholas held his hand above Althea, he noticed her face, in the shadow of his hand.

He couldn’t help but smile as the realization dawned upon him that the sun stood no chance in front of Althea.

Even when she was asleep, she was the brightest and the best thing in any place.

He leaned towards her and gently placed a soft kiss over her jawline.

Althea felt startled out of her sleep, as she began shifting her limbs on the bed and turned her face towards Nicholas, smiling at him the moment her eyes met with his.

“Guess the tables have turned now.” She mocked, getting up and resting her head over her palm, as she placed her elbow on the pillow and looked up at Nicholas, who copied her motion and the two came face to face with one another.

“Are you referring to the fact that it was you before, who used to wake up early and gawk at me?” Nicholas acted cockily, making Althea shake her head and roll her eyes, at how much of a haughty man he was, who liked to fill his own cup of self praises.

“I never gawked at you.” She argued and Nicholas couldn’t help but chuckle up a little.

“Well, I would love for you to gawk at me, stare me in the face and be my cute little stalker.”

Nicholas poked her nose, making Althea scrunch it up a little.

“Oh, so you now want me to stalk you. You know, stalkers get really possessive about their love.” She told him, running a finger down his face. she brought her hand around her jawline and wrapped her fingers around her nape, pulling him closer. Very softly she brushed her lips with his and Nicholas enjoyed the sweet torture that Althea imposed upon him.

“I hate it when you torture me this way.” He informed Althea, who giggled pulling herself back and laid straight on the bed.

He immediately toppled her and brought their mouths together, kissing her endearingly.

“I love you.” He told her, running his hand through her hair.

The night that they spent together was completely magically and Nicholas felt completely in submission to Althea. His existence didn’t even feel his own anymore. He felt that he was blessed with a new life and that life was given to him by her. he felt beyond blessed to have her in his life.

“I love you more but we need to get back to the island.” She told him and Nicholas only groaned in agitation.

“Or we can run away from everyone and just build a life of our own.” He offered making her laugh up a little.

“You don’t have to do that. I think my Mom would accept you.”

“Really? You would take me home to meet your mother?”

Althea nodded to Nicholas’s question, that he asked, full of enthusiasm.

“Of course, I would! You are a perfect guy. You are handsome, have a decent and a nice job and you love me. You check all the compartments for me to take you home.”

“Compartments?” he asked, as he looked at her with a hazy glare.

Althea chimed back at him, “You know, those little boxes that you have next to different options. So, the criteria to be a perfect guy. You check on all of them.”

“That’s it for you? Nice job, good looks and love?” he asked, finding her list of requirements to be simple yet quite briefly sufficient.

“Actually, it is in a descending manner.”

“Ahan? So, what’s the chronology?”

“Love, is the most important thing for me. A guy must love me. I want someone to care for me and my family, just like he would for his own because for me family is important. And I would care for his family the same way. Then comes a good and a decent job. Because, I know how hard life could get and I want to give luxury to my children, things that I didn’t have. A good job means, better financial security. So, yeah! You would have that and at the end comes looks. So, you also check on that department. Hence, for me you are perfect.”

With that, she got out of the bed, leaving Nicholas lost in his own thoughts.

He smiled thinking how Cheryl never made him feel that way. She always kept him on the edge, wanting him to be more perfect. She always emphasized how, she wanted him to be different than the rest of the guys. she demanded things from him and in return gave him nothing but a tougher criterion to be more perfect.

Nicholas had not known love and its essence before he met Cheryl. And he thought that if you loved someone, you would do everything for them to please them but he never realized what it was like to be actually loved and Althea was the one who made him realize so.

He thought that his money would always mark as a factor for any girl to be in immediately agreement to marry him right away and take him home but then there was Althea. She didn’t even know who he actually was and was already talking about a simple future with him.

Her simplicity was definitely something that captured Nicholas’s heart to begin with.

She picked her dress up from the floor and put it on, turning towards Nicholas, who also got up and put his trousers on.

“Oh, by the way, I hope this yacht belonged to the society and you didn’t pay for it. I get it, that it was our first date and you wanted to go beyond our way. But I don’t want you blowing up your money on dates and stuff. You know there are other important things in life and even if we don’t end up together, I would want you to stay financial dependent and free.”

With that Althea walked out of the bedroom and Nicholas couldn’t help but smile to his own self, shaking his head in complete amusement, that Althea assumed of him to be a regular salaried guy, who might make five to six figures. He only wondered and imagined what her reaction would be when she would find out what he actually makes.

He walked out of the bedroom and joined Althea on the deck.

“You go ahead, I have some things to care of at the town, I will join you in the mansion. You will fine, right?”

Althea nodded.

“I have bicycled on the thinnest of the slops of my town. So, I think I can cross a little forest on a small floating piece of land.”

With that she held her heels in her hands and got down from the yacht, having to walk just a little in the water, that heightened down till her calves but soon she was on the dry sand.

She continued walking ahead, smiling, reminiscing the scenes of how perfect her last night was with Nicholas.

It felt amazing to her, for a change of not just recent events but in her life as a whole.

She finally found love and peace, both in the same person and she couldn’t wait till the competition was over and she would get to go back home.

She smiled, shaking her head to her own self and realized that ever since she had started loving Nicholas and had felt his love, her life had become easy and light. The tough pressure that she felt to win the competition, suddenly seemed elated out of her life. Of course, she was still keen and focused on winning the competition and kept her performance uptight and up to the very mark during the cook offs but she felt very little anxious, every time she cooked.

Cooking was already her escape from reality but after Nicholas, even reality seemed too good to be true. She loved living in reality, cooking in reality and feeling elevated and relaxed.

Nicholas was her comfort, her tranquility and her sunrises and sunsets, as he made her life an epitome of bliss.

Keeping the smile intact, she lifted her head up and high to see the path ahead of her, where she was going to enter the forest and cross her way through the trees to reach for the mansion.

But the moment she lifted her head up in the air, she froze entirely, finding Salva standing right ahead of her.

Her breath hitched inside her throat and her lips quivered, as she realized that Salva had been standing there, for who knew how long and he might had seen her getting off the yacht.

“Salva…”

The name slipped off her tongue and she saw nothing but a flared and angered expression on the guy’s face. his eyes were red for some reason and his nostrils flaring with what Althea could tell right off the bat, was aggression.

She hoped that he didn’t know, whom she had actually been out with and only assumed that he might had been angry at her for staying out of the mansion for an entire night. Not finding her in her bedroom, might had alarmed someone in the mansion and he was only out there looking for her and was agitated at her irresponsible behavior.

Unfortunately, before Althea could’ve said anything in her defense, Nicholas cooed from behind Althea, still standing in the water, as he called her out, waving Althea’s scarf in his hand.

“Thea! You forgot your…”

The moment he called her out by the nickname that he had just recently given her, Althea immediately turned back and around, stepping aside at the same time, the very moment she heard Nicholas’s voice.

Nicholas’s words faded midway in the air when he saw Althea stepping away in a horrified expression and right behind her stood his very own cousin, Salva.

Salva let go off a breath, the moment reality him and he realized that his suspicions were correct.

Althea was out the entire night with Nicholas and they were together on a yacht.

Althea’s fancy dress and Nicholas’s possession of her scarf, signified it quite vehemently, that the two were involved romantically.

Salva lived in a moment, where he felt nothing but just betrayal. And that moment turned in to a deep snaring realization for him. Realization that not just the girl that he loved didn't reciprocate his feelings but his very own brother, his best friend and his cousin, hid such a big thing from him, that had led to Salva's heart break.

That very thought and the scene that his eyes were witnessing, were enough to let Salva know that heartbreak had knocked just up at his door.

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