CHAPTER 29

 
 
Hunter almost forgot to breathe. Clarice was
really his goddess. He had to pinch himself in the arm just to make
sure he wasn’t dreaming.
His goddess was so beautiful in that
one-shoulder white silk dress, draped to the left, like a Grecian
goddess. He found it hard to breathe. All his anger, the previous
feeling of madness that was there before she arrived, had
completely vanished as soon as he laid his eyes on her.
Then he remembered why he was feeling so
angry with her in the first place. It was because he’d been
standing outside for a damn half hour, shivering in the cold,
almost freezing to death.
That’s right. Winton had decided to pick her
up per Anton’s instruction. Hunter himself had ventured all the way
to Clarice’s dental practice just to wait on her, only to find out
later that she’d taken off half the day to prepare herself for the
pre-conference ball. And Winton was the one who took her for her
full body makeover. That damn shit.
That was over four hours ago. And he’d been
waiting for almost half an hour now. The ball had already started,
but still Clarice hadn’t shown up.
He was standing at the entrance of their
hotel, waiting impatiently for her arrival, swearing once or twice
as he watched the time tick by. He’d even sworn he was going to
strangle Winton when he did show up.
And finally, Winton did show, driving
through the throng of people milling around near the entrance of
Silverton Hotel. At that time, Hunter couldn’t suppress his anger
and annoyance so he stalked to Winton’s car, opened the passenger
door, and dragged Clarice to the side, planning to give her a good
scolding before unleashing his wrath towards Winton. Except… when
he did see her, he was struck speechless and almost forgot to
breathe.
“What took you so long?” he yelled at
Clarice, gripping her hand so tight, forcing himself to break out
of his stupid reverie.
“Excuse me?” Clarice asked in astonishment.
“Has the devil decided to possess you today? I just got here. I
want a drink. Now let my hand go.” Then she flung away his hand and
walked elegantly, like a swan, into the reception area. Hunter saw
red as he stared at her retreating back.
“Ah, Master Hunter.” Winton came trotting to
him.
“Don’t Master Hunter me!” Hunter shouted,
turning his wrath towards Winton now. “Where the hell did you take
her?”
“Ah, to the petrol station,” Winton replied,
aghast at Hunter’s devilish behavior.
“Why did you take her there?” Hunter shouted
to the poor man. “You were supposed to come straight here after her
makeover, which should have been over half an hour ago.”
“My car was about to run out of petrol,”
Winton replied. “I needed to fill it up.”
“Why didn’t you fill up yesterday if you
knew it was running low?”
“Because the petrol was on sale today so I
thought I’d take advantage—”
“You’re fired,” Hunter said, halting Winton
midsentence, turning swiftly to follow Clarice’s footsteps.
“Whaaaaat?” Winton shrieked, running after
Hunter. “Master Hunter,” he pleaded. “You can’t do this to your
number one employee.”
Hunter didn’t listen to Winton’s moaning as
he raced after Clarice. He needed to find her. His mission tonight
was to stop her confessing to Anton. Come hell or high water, he
would.
Once he got inside, though, his eyes
searched frantically for that white silk Grecian goddess. Except
when he did find her, she was already in conversation with
Anton.
He let out an angry growl.
Bloody hell. He fisted his hands tightly. No
way, there was no way he would let her confess tonight.
So Hunter made his way to her, but with
every single step, someone was always standing in his way, an
obstacle he had to somehow bypass to get to Clarice. And it wasn’t
just any normal people; it had to be the old crows from Queenstown.
God, he just hoped she hadn’t said anything yet about their
baby.
“Ah, young Hunter?” one old man said. “How’s
life here?”
“When’re you going to go back down south?”
another asked. “I have lots of sheep. You can come have a look at
them. My wooly one is named Molly; she’s always in need of a
handsome young man like you to look after her. She can make you a
good investment.”
South Island! Sheep! Investment! What’s
so important about sheep anyway? He’d seen so many sheep since
he was born it made his head spin, and he was definitely not a
farmer. What was more important right now was to get to Clarice so
she wouldn’t make a fool of herself. But obviously, Hunter couldn’t
say any of those things. Instead, he just smiled and gave his
greetings to the old crows who intercepted his path.
“Ah, no,” Hunter replied just out of
politeness, though his eyes weren’t on them.
“What’s that?” one of the old crows asked.
“Did you say go? When, when would you go?”
Obviously, this old bat was also hard of
hearing.
“Look, I’m sorry, but I see one of my
friends over there.” He feigned an excuse, no longer wanting to
talk to them. “I should go say hello.” And then before the old
croons could get in another word, he made his escape, hastening his
steps to Clarice. He’d almost reached her side when the host
suddenly announced for everyone to take their seats at the dining
table, which in turn made everyone stand and block his way yet
again.
Damn! He tried to fight his way
through the congestion around the many dining tables so he could
sit next to Clarice, but she somehow got swallowed in the crowd,
disappearing from his sight. When he finally saw her again, she was
already sitting next to Anton, smiling. And there were no spare
seats left at their table. Could this be the worst day of his
life?
Hunter flicked his eyes and saw a few spare
seats a few tables away so he seated himself there. Suddenly, he
felt someone sitting next to him. Turning around, he found Fern
smiling at him.
“Well, Hunter?” she asked, blocking the
image of Clarice and Anton together. “Does Fern look beautiful
tonight? Will she be able to attract someone’s eyes tonight?”
“Yeah,” Hunter said absentmindedly, not
looking at his friend at all, just trying to move his head so he
could see Clarice again, but Fern moved in front of his face again,
wanting to show off her beautiful green gown.
Hunter became irritated. “Could you just
move over there?”
“What’s wrong, Hunter?” Fern asked. “Why do
you sound so mad?”
“It’s nothing,” Hunter said, ignoring his
friend’s question. God, he wanted to just march over there and
shred his cousin to pieces. How dare he smile at Clarice like that?
For once, he disliked his cousin for having such a calm demeanor,
unlike himself, who was always so irrational and fiery, a trait
Clarice disliked. She’d always said he was an immature kid.
Fern directed her gaze to where Hunter was
staring, and she too felt something. Although she wasn’t raving mad
like Hunter, who wanted to strangle and shred his own cousin to
pieces, she felt sad.
Should she give up? Here she had taken a
total of six hours to accomplish this look she sported. With her
red hair in ringlets and her dress a nice emerald green shade, she
was sure Anton would stop to admire her, but he was already looking
at Clarice, the goddess.
Gosh, Clarice was so beautiful with her long
jet-black hair bundled to the side like that. Who would look at a
fiery red-haired girl who always speaks in third person?
At the same time both Hunter and Fern were
tormented by their own internal feelings towards their respected
interests, both Clarice and Anton were busy conversing with each
other about the conference tomorrow.
“Your presentation starts at two p.m.,”
Anton said, smiling at Clarice. “Is that all right?”
“Yes. I’ve prepared everything,” Clarice
said.
Clarice continued to converse with Anton
about her health and that yes, she was fine now after going to the
hospital, just low blood pressure. She had to resort to lying to
him since she didn’t want to bring up the subject of her pregnancy
yet. There were too many people around; she couldn’t shake the
feeling that someone’s stare was boring into her back. It was a
very unsettling feeling. So she pretended to drop her napkin. While
picking it up, she diverted her gaze in the direction that feeling
was emitting from and sure enough, her eyes smack landed on a pair
of azure eyes.
That Casanova Hunter. He was staring at her
strangely, like a fire had ignited in his eyes, a glowing ember
within them. His mouth still held an angry snarl, just like when
he’d attacked her with his devious words when she’d first exited
the car.
Why was he acting like that? She was pretty
upset too when she first arrived. She could remember feeling so
nervous about her confession tonight and had prepared herself
mentally for that moment, even meditating in the car, but Winton
had to talk to her, constantly interrupting her like a dog yapping
for attention. She was on the verge of snapping at him. And then
when Hunter dragged her out like that, she literally cracked,
lashing out at him, accusing him of being the devil incarnate.
Tonight she was determined to tell Anton.
She wouldn’t let any distraction waylay her like the last time when
they were in the Cambodian restaurant together. That old blind man
falling on her lap shook her resolve. Well, tonight, she wasn’t
going to let it go. Tonight, even Hunter wouldn’t distract her from
her goal. She would talk to Anton and tell him about their baby. If
Anton didn’t want a part of it, then she would be fine with that
too. But she just needed to get this off her chest.
When the song “Sway” by Michael Bublé came
on, Anton asked her permission to dance. Finding that sitting in
her chair was only making her more uncomfortable with that
Casanova’s eyes boring into her back, she agreed and took his hand,
letting him glide her to the dance floor.
Hunter gritted his teeth in anger. How dare
she choose Anton over him, despite knowing full well now that he
was the actual heir of Silverton Enterprises, not Anton? And there
was also the fact that he was the father of her child. But
obviously, he couldn’t tell her that, well, not yet anyway.
Otherwise, she would freak out.
Watching the pair dance only made his blood
boil even more. Hunter grabbed a champagne off one of the trays and
downed it in one go, feeling the sting of the liquid burn his
throat, but man, he didn’t give a damn about his throat at the
moment.
“Don’t you think dancing is a very intimate
art, Hunter?” Fern asked sadly as she watched the one man she’d
been thinking about constantly since she arrived in New Zealand,
that brown-haired man she realized always made her heart jump
whenever he was around, now dancing so intimately with Clarice.
Hunter gripped the empty glass so tight his
knuckles turned white. If he applied a little more pressure surely
the glass would shatter into millions of tiny crystals. And hearing
Fern say this only made his nostrils flare even more. If he were a
dragon, he would have breathed fire and burned down the whole damn
hotel by now.
“What do you mean intimate, Fern?” Hunter
asked bitterly, his eyes glued to the dancing couple as they swayed
and laughed like lovers.
“Fern means one can easily talk to one
another without letting other people know what they’re
discussing.”
Hunter jerked his eyes to his friend then,
his breathing rough.
“You mean to say they could say anything in
the throng of people and no one would know?” Hunter asked for
confirmation.
“Yes,” Fern said, still eyeing Anton
laughing with Clarice.
“Even a confession?” Hunter asked in fright,
as he could feel his goal crumpling down on him.
“Even a confession,” Fern said
absentmindedly.
Hunter snapped. “Come on, Fern. Let’s
dance.”
“Wh-what?” Fern was so startled when Hunter
dragged her onto the dance floor, standing so close to the other
couple, it made her heart jump again.
“Hunter, what are you planning?” Fern
whispered close to his ear.
“I need your help.”
“Hunter needs Fern’s help?” Fern asked, her
interest piqued now.
“Mmm.” Hunter nodded. Then he whispered
something into Fern’s ear, which made her eyes light up. Fern
looked at Clarice, gave her a smile, and nodded to Hunter.
Fern was only too willing to oblige as she
laid her hands on top of Hunter’s shoulders and they both proceeded
with their dance, swaying to the sound of Michael Bublé’s song.
So Hunter was trying to make Clarice
jealous, was he? Fern knew Hunter liked Clarice, but she didn’t
know it went to this extent. Oh, she was glad to be of help. In
fact, Fern also wanted to make Anton jealous. So she hoped by
dancing with Hunter, Anton would take notice.
Hunter’s plan was to make Clarice jealous,
but he also wanted to hear and survey the dancing couple at a
closer quarter too. If Clarice planned to confess to Anton, he
would make it his mission to annoy the heck out of them, hence
preventing Clarice’s admission.
When he saw Clarice drawing her face towards
Anton, Hunter took action. Once or twice, he would intentionally
bump into them just to disrupt the dancing pair and to annoy the
living hell out of Clarice, as if to inform her, Look, you’re
not the only one with a dancing partner. But Hunter’s mission
only backfired threefold and Hunter gritted his teeth harder,
almost breaking his enamel, when he saw Clarice laughing at what
his goddamn cousin was saying, his action having no effect
whatsoever on them.
Hunter couldn’t take it. She was already
pregnant, so how dare she treat other men like that, especially his
cousin? He was furious, literally pissed off with the whole
situation, and he was about to storm away, throwing his usual
tantrum like most rich heirs would, but then another idea emerged
inside his mind and he took action.