It was no wonder that the restaurant was known all over the city. Natalie wasn’t particularly hungry when they arrived, but the food was so delicious that she managed to eat quite a lot in no time.
She served some meatballs into Brandon’s plate. “This one’s good, try it.”
He nodded and handed her a paper napkin. “You have sauce in the corner of your mouth.”
Natalie ignored the napkin and put her fork down. She looked Brandon in the eye and asked, “Tell me the truth. Are you still mad?”
If this were in the past, he wouldn’t have thought twice about leaning over and wiping her mouth himself. Why was he suddenly just giving her a pitiful piece of paper napkin?
Brandon looked up with a faint smile. “Stop overthinking it. I don’t get jealous over trivial things.”
He knew for a fact that Natalie was not interested in that guy called Derek.
After hearing the answer she wanted, Natalie allowed herself another relieved sigh. “You just told me that you had plans for the afternoon. What will we do? Are we going back to the hotel and hang out in my room?” “I would certainly like that, but do you think you’re up for it?”
Natalie froze, and her face immediately turned red.
His implication was unmistakable, and it was completely different from what she meant.
Thankfully, Brandon didn’t tease her any further. He silently placed two tickets for an art exhibition on the table.
Natalie was pleasantly surprised. “You do read my mind! I wanted to go the art exhibition, but you didn’t come to Northcliffe with me. I thought it’d be boring to go there alone so I gave up on that plan.”
Brandon just smiled and grabbed his coat. “Are you finished eating? Shall we go? Let me take you to the art exhibition, Darling.”
******
At an art gallery in Northcliffe.
The exhibition was a relatively small affair, with only a few photographers and guests wandering around.
Natalie walked arm in arm with Brandon and soaked in all the art around them.
All of a sudden, she picked up on a familiar voice. Natalie turned in its direction, and was taken aback by what she saw.
The person who had spoken was Kathie, and she was laughing merrily with her friend. Upon closer inspection, Natalie found that the woman standing next to Kathie was also familiar. It was the model who had egged her on to get drunk last night.
As she stared at the model’s delicate features, memories of the previous night slowly flashed in Natalie’s mind.
It was this woman who had approached her with her peers in tow, chatting Natalie up and showering her with praises to lower her guard. Before she knew it, they were coercing her into gulping down drink after drink at the party.
Worse still, was that they had promised to send her back to her hotel, but when Natalie woke up, she found herself surrounded by a bunch of hulking men.
Now, seeing how close the model was to Kathie, Natalie had no doubts that Kathie had been the one to set everything up. She had probably wanted to take revenge on Natalie and came up with a plan to humiliate her.
Natalie was livid. She was practically trembling with rage, and she almost strode over and confronted Kathie if Brandon didn’t stop her.
“Why are you angry all of a sudden?” He could tell something was wrong. He followed the direction of her gaze and asked, “What happened?”
“It was that short-haired woman who got me drunk last night. The person next to her is called Kathie Jimenez. Kathie and I had a little… altercation during the party¬last night. I didn’t expect her to take it so personally. She even hired people to…” Natalie bit her lips and swallowed her words. She couldn’t even bring herself to say these things out loud. “She probably wants to get back at me and destroy W Marks Studio while she’s at it.”
“I see. All right, don’t go over there. I’ll take care of this.” Brandon didn’t need to hear anything more. He didn’t care about anything else. These fools had dared to hurt his wife. Naturally, he needed to make them pay the price for it.
Natalie was visibly upset. She didn’t want to get Brandon involved in her work. “Don’t worry,” she said reassuringly. “I can handle it myself.”
“What’s your plan?” Brandon asked. “Confront her face to face? Do you have any evidence to prove it was Kathie who planned everything last night?” Brandon’s questioning hit the nail on the head.
Natalie lowered her head and took a slow, deep breath to calm down. “What are you going to do then?” she asked. Holding her hand gently, Brandon turned back to the painting. “Don’t let someone like Kathie ruin our day,” he advised. “Let’s enjoy the exhibition for now. It’s interesting.”
Natalie’s spirits were low. “They really did ruin my day, though,” she muttered bitterly.
Putting his arm around her shoulder, Brandon said, “Someone told Zuri that I came here. She sent me a message this morning to say how sorry she felt for you. She also said that she’d handle it accordingly. You needn’t worry about it.”
Natalie threw a glance over her shoulder at Kathie, and then nodded obediently.
Kathie was still talking to the female model beside her. She hadn’t noticed Natalie.
Kathie laughed for a while, before realizing that her volume was inappropriate. Covering her lips, she said,
“It was lucky you slipped away early and didn’t get caught.”
The short-haired model looked at her sharply. “But the people we hired were all arrested,” she said. Her eyes darted around nervously.
Kathie wasn’t worried about the arrests, however. “It’s such a shame though,” she replied lightly. “I paid them to do things for me, but they failed.”
Her voice took on a whinier tone. “Honestly, you’re useless. Do you know how hard I had to work to buy time for you? And in the end, you messed up anyway.”
The model was appalled. “How could you blame us?” she asked. “You should have done a more thorough investigation of who she was before you took action.”
The model lowered her voice. “That woman is Brandon Larson’s wife!” she hissed. “The White family’s daughter! We never should have offended her. Brandon would never let us get away with it.”
The short-haired model and her companions had all been frightened when Natalie’s identity had been revealed yesterday.
Fortunately, they had left immediately after surrendering Natalie to the burly men. If they’d lingered a moment longer, they would have been caught and beaten mercilessly by Brandon’s b*odyguards.
Just the thought of it made the model touch her face in fear.
New Book: Beginning with a Daring Encounter
Celsie was tired of being labeled as an introvert, workaholic, and dull virgin by her friends. Determined to prove them wrong, she made a bet that she would do something daring on her 25th birthday. Now that the day had arrived, it was time to fulfill her promise. On her daring to-do list, there was one task: a one-night stand with someone.
Leave a Reply