Chapter Ten
Luke
“Fetch the car, please.”
The last thing I expected was an angry Leila telling me to get the car. I’ve never seen her so angry before, not even after she found out about Ares and Cassie when he came to see her for the first time.
That day, when Ares came over to be introduced and she caught him and Cassie tangled up in a heated kiss in the garden, the fire in her eyes was something I thought I’d never forget.
Yet somehow, right now, she’s even angrier.
Her lips are twisted, and her eyes look like they could shoot flames.
I hurry to do as she asks, pulling the car up to the entrance, and she gets in.
I look at her through the rearview mirror and want to ask her what’s wrong so I can make her feel better, but she looks at me and turns away, pressing her head to the car window.
I constantly stare at her through the mirror. It kills me that I don’t know what’s wrong or how to make her feel better. I want to take away all of her pain, and lately, she seems to be feeling a lot of it.
In the past years, she could manage to shut off whenever she was angry or in pain, but she’s bottled off so much now that it’s difficult for her to control her emotions these days.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask slowly, ensuring my voice escapes calmly enough to not further aggravate her. My eyes dart to the rear mirror, and I see as she nods in response.
“You would think I already have enough going on with the press ripping me to shreds in all the tabloids and Dad picking a mate for me. But now you can add me walking in on him kissing Cassie’s mom to the list,” she says in a breathless rush.
My brows shoot up in surprise and confusion. What?
She speaks on, a rare moment of allowing herself to rant. It is clear in the things she says and the way she says them that the tension of everything that has happened is getting to her.
My fingers tighten over the steering wheel. All I want to do is stop the car, take her into my arms, and console her, but I know she won’t want me to do that, so I continue driving until I get to Cassie’s place like she asked.
When Cassie meets her outside, I’m relieved that she has someone she can talk to about all her problems and tell the things that she won’t tell me, although it’s a painful thought to think that she can’t be completely free with me.
No, this isn’t about me. I need to find a way to help her.
But what can I do? I’m only one person, merely a bodyguard. I cannot do anything to solve the problems that plague her as much as I wish that I could. I can only offer her temporary in relief in bed, and while that does help to calm her, it doesn’t solve any of the problems that she has.
She’d been so angry and hurt. I wish she would damn it all and choose me. I will make sure that she never cries except tears of joy.
Face reality, Luke. She can never be with you.
I run my hand down my face, utterly exasperated.
The press will have a field day if she chooses me as her mate.
I can already see the headlines and the mockery as they laugh at her for her inability to find a suitable mate after losing the best one to her sister and having to settle for a Beta that cannot even feel the strength of her pheromones.
My heart clenches at the thought. As much as I want so badly to be with her, I will not be responsible for anything that will lead to more pain and mockery than she has already had to face.
I think about Henry’s advice. There never seems to be a right time to tell her how I feel. Although, after all that she’s been through, would she even be interested in hearing any of that?
Maybe it is best if I stick to what she needs me for and don’t try to be anything more. Her words replay in my head, words that have played over and over again: it doesn’t count.
Could things truly have changed since then, or do I still not count because of what I am?
Before I can think further about this and cause myself to spiral downward, the door opens, jarring me from my thoughts.
She gently closes the door and sighs. I start the car and drive off from the mansion. However, we’re only past the gate when she breaks down in tears. Her body convulses from the strength of her sobs.
My heart breaks from seeing her cry. It’s a near impossible thing to see her like this, especially because she’s usually so strong and guarded. She never allows people to see her become emotional, not even when she’s very happy, which is also a rare moment for her.
It’s sad the hand that life has dealt her. I remember the first time I ever saw her cry. She was still a teenager, and I was just a regular guard in the house.
I had been passing by on my normal perimeter search to ensure that nothing had gone wrong when a sound reached my ears.
**
I stop in my tracks, confused. Did I truly hear anything, or was that a figment of my imagination? After a few seconds with no sound, I assume that I imagined it and turn around to continue on my way when I hear it again.
This time, with no means of blaming it on anything else, I follow the sound in the direction I heard it coming from. As I walk closer, the sound becomes clearer, and I pause. Who could be crying here?
Is it one of the maids punished by Mrs. Kaye for something they failed to do right? I consider leaving but change my mind. If there’s someone who needs a shoulder to cry on or some form of comfort, I would like to be there for them.
I push the door open, my lips open to ask the maid what’s wrong, but instead of a maid, Leila is crouched against a wall, her head nestled in her hands.
She looks up when the sound of the door hitting the wall reaches her ears, and I wince. I should have been more careful and gentle when coming in.
It’s still a little surprising to me to find Leila here, yet I can’t leave.
She stands up immediately, squaring her shoulders and wiping her eyes.
“What are you doing here? Why are you staring at me like that? You should not be watching me cry,” she says. Her tone is defensive and angry as though she wishes she had not been caught in a position that shows her as weak.
But it’s her face I focus on. Her eyes hold such sadness, and her face is contorted in pain.
“Are you okay?” I ask finally, ignoring her questions.
She looks at me with fire in her eyes to replace the pain.
“Of course, I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be? And why are you coming into the bathroom? Shouldn’t you have knocked first? What if I was in a state that you shouldn’t have seen me in?”
I only went in because it was the public garden bathroom, and I only opened the stall because I heard crying.
Like now? I refrain from asking that, knowing that it will only embarrass her, and she will retreat into herself. That’s the opposite of what I want to happen.
The hurt that she feels is so evident, she’s unable to keep it from her face even now as she stares at me, obviously angry at the interruption.
Every time I’ve seen her around the mansion, she constantly has a stoic expression, keeping her face deliberately blank so that it’s impossible to know what she’s feeling.
“I—You know, it’s okay to cry sometimes,” I assure her. “You don’t always have to bottle up your emotions every single time.”
Her hands clench into fists, and I wonder if I should retreat. My mind is made up quickly. I will keep at it until I know that I have made an impact, no matter how small.
“Besides, you are already strong anyway, and crying will not take away from your strength. Instead, it’s like a measure of strength because only those who are strong are able to take their feelings into consideration and know when they should let go.”
Her hands are no longer clenched in anger. She stares at me with bright blue eyes like she’s considering what she should do. I shift on my feet as she takes me in. It feels like I’m being perused.
What’s going on in that head? What does she see as she looks at me, a guard who’s trying to offer her advice?
She remains quiet for a long time, and I’m about to apologize for disturbing her and offering unsolicited advice when she finally speaks.
“C-can you stay with me for a bit?”
I struggle and fail to hide the surprise in my expression. She’s never been the type to allow anyone in, from what I’ve observed of her in the times that I’ve seen her. Sometimes, it even seems like she keeps her parents at arm’s length—not that I can blame her.
“But you cannot look at me.”
I nod slowly and turn away, facing the entrance and staring out at the garden grass, a small smile playing on my lips. Even now, she still wishes for a semblance of what she’s always known to be strength.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask after a moment, content to listen to whatever it is that plagues her, whether she needs advice or not will be left for after she tells me. If she tells me.
“Yes, I do,” she says in a small voice, different from the one she’s spoken in all along.
“Mom is upset with me,” she says suddenly. “I have been learning the ropes for the family business to make sure that when it is time for me to take over, I’ll be able to do so properly.”
She pauses, and I want to ask why her mom is upset but I hold back, not wanting to push her back into her shell with my curiosity. She’ll tell me in her own time… I think.
“Mom is disappointed because I wasn’t able to close a business deal. It’s the first time that I’ve had to do something like this on my own, and I was quite nervous. I didn’t look closely at the facts, and I failed at it. So now, she’s very angry with me.”
I balk. It’s a good thing she asked me to turn away because now she doesn’t have to see my expression. How is this the kind of problem that a teenager has?
Although she’s not like most teenagers, considering the family she was born into, it makes no sense that the reason for her tears would be something like this.
Shouldn’t she be crying over a boy or some drama with her friends at this age instead of worrying over something as serious as a business deal?
I try to clamp down on my surprise. It’s absurd that she’s just a teenager, and she’s already going through the kind of stress that should be left for adulthood.
“Failing once, especially the first time, doesn’t mean that you’re a failure. All it means is that you’re learning. People have failed so many times and at so many things, but the important thing is that they do not give up.”
She’s quiet as I speak, and I know she’s listening. “Their inability to admit defeat and continue to learn and be better after every failed attempt is why they go on to succeed, and you will, too.”
“Do you know what you did wrong that made you fail to close the deal?” I ask.
“Yes, I do.”
I nod. “Good, so you know not to repeat that or, at the very least, to modify it so that you’ll be better the next time you have a go at it.”
“Yes,” she repeats.
“That’s all that matters now. I need you to know that you’re not a failure. You’re amazing, and everyone is utterly impressed with the extent you’ve gone to. There are not many who can do the things you do. It’s why they sing your praises.”
Her tears die down to gentle sniffles, and I continue, happy to be getting through to her. “You should not see yourself as a failure when no one else sees you as one.”
The sound of her blowing her nose reaches my ears, and I smile, glad to know that she’s all right now. A weight crashes into my back, and I stiffen my feet as I register her warmth.
She wraps her arms around my midsection, hugging me from behind. It’s shocking that she’s hugging me. This is the first time that I’m speaking to her, so it’s quite strange that she’s hugging me.
“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful and have managed to pull me from my despair.”
She leaves me standing there, looking after her as she disappears around the corner.
In the days after that, every time I saw her, she never acted like she knew me or acknowledged me, and we soon resumed our roles as guard and boss.
It almost made me wonder if I had imagined the whole thing or if she had quickly forgotten about the interaction and moved on with her life.
However, I hoped that she hadn’t returned to her problem or allowed it to weigh her down.
**
I watch her now in the car. So much has changed since then, but the one thing that remains constant is that I cannot comfort her as well as I wish. I consider stopping the car but choose instead to drive her straight home.
She manages to pull herself together enough to climb up the stairs to her room without anyone wondering what has happened to her.
We reach her room, and I close the door behind me. She hadn’t asked me to come up with her, but I cannot leave her alone while she’s like this.
I take her into my arms, and her tears begin once again. I kiss the top of her head, my heart hurting because of her pain. “It’ll be all right. All of this will pass, and you will be stronger for it, trust me.”
She holds her hand up to my face after some time has passed, tracing my jawline and up to the sides of my lips. Her lips follow, replacing her hands as she kisses me.
I pull her close, giving in to the warmth and softness of her lips, my thoughts running miles in my head.
Would I be able to live with it if I don’t tell her how I feel, and she leaves me after she’s married?