The Return of Amanda (sequel to For the Last Time)

Chapter 17

A/N: The image above does not belong to me. It belongs to the person who uploaded it on the internet.

Amanda's POV

After my father's unexpected announcement of Perth's and my engagement, Perth's father and my own father stared us down as if to challenge us to contest the announcement.

I noted how Perth continued to act as though the announcement did not faze him at all. He just kept on asking the waiter to refill his glass of wine. I guess he didn't care at all if he got wasted or not. After all our family driver was going to bring him home after the party.

When I felt that I had spent enough time at the VIP table fronting the whole room, I made my way to Neen's table.

"Let's elope tonight," I whispered to her as I took the chair right beside her.

"What???" I couldn't blame her for the look of utter shock on her face.

"It's now or never," I said grimly. "I know my father very well. If I don't run away now he will bury me deeper and deeper into his selfish plans."

"Where would we run off to?" Neen asked, indecision written all over face.

"I have a condo unit in the Philippines, but that would be the first place he would look if I were to disappear," I said. "How about  you, do you have any dwellings outside of Thailand?"

"New York," she replied.

"Is it available for us to use?" I asked.

"Of course," she replied. "I have a housekeeper who maintains my apartment there."

"Great!" I said. "Let's book our plane tickets right now."

"Whoa Nelly," Neen said. "Even if my apartment in New York is available, it would be so easy for your father to track us down there. We should go to a place where I or you don't have a dwelling."

"You're right," I agreed. "What place do you suggest?"

"We could rent a place for transients until the frenzy of your father looking for us blows over," she said.

"And where would that be?" I asked, growing a bit impatient. I was straining to get out of this hellhole of a banquet hall.

"Where in the Philippines is your condo unit?" she asked.

"Manila," I replied.

"Well, let's look for a place to rent in the countryside instead of Manila. Some seaside town where your father would not think of looking for us," Neen suggested.

"That's a brilliant idea!" I exclaimed, squeezing her hand.

I fished out my phone from my purse and booked a flight with Philippine Air Lines. The earliest flight available was a red eye flight. We would depart from Suvarnabhumi Airport at half past midnight and arrive in Manila at half past three in the morning.

"Wait for me in your car," I said to Neen. "I will stay with my parents to see off the last of our guests so that they won't suspect anything amiss."

"I'm parked on the third level area C." Neen said. "I will text you the exact location of my car."

"Okay," I said, my heart beating fast with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. In a few hours I would be spending the rest of my life with the one I love.

Perth and his father were among the last of my guests to leave the banquet hall.

Perth looked a bit too wasted to bid me goodbye properly. His eyes were beginning to droop.

"Don't worry," I whispered in his ear. "Our wedding is not gonna happen. Trust me."

He looked at me with unfocused eyes.

"Don't worry." he said back to me. "I have no plans of divorcing Saint."

"Good," I said. "Treat him well," I added. "Don't make him regret that he married you."

He made a face at me before allowing our family driver to wheel him out of the banquet hall.

Since I had come to the banquet hall with my parents in my parents' car, they were expecting me to ride back with them.

 "I don't wanna go home yet," I pouted at my father. "It's not even nine o'clock yet. I don't wanna spend the rest of the night cooped up at home. It's my birthday for crying out loud. Let me continue to party with my own friend until I'm ready to settle down for the night."

"Instead of spending time with your friend, you could spend time with Perth so that you could get to know him better before marrying him." my father scolded me.

"I have the rest of my life to do that," I said to my father with a wink.

It seemed to do the trick because he made no further protests as I walked out of the lobby without them.

While waiting for the parking lot elevator to bring me to the third level, I called Neen and she gave me the exact location of her car.

"How did you manage to get out of your father's tentacles?" Neen asked with a broad smile as I settled into the passenger seat beside her.

"Excellent acting skills," I replied, matching her broad smile.

"We have to pass by my place first to pick up my passport and pack a few clothes," she said.

Oh shit, I forgot all about passports and clothes.

"Let's quickly stop by my house first before my parents get there," I said. "Since it's not our family driver but my father who's driving, we will get there ahead of him. My father tends to drive slowly because he's scared of getting into a vehicular accident."

Neen waited in her car while I quickly packed a few clothes into a small suitcase and placed my passport into my purse. Neen did the same at her place as quickly as she could.

Soon we were making our way to Suvarnabhumi Airport.

While waiting to board our plane, we googled the different coastal towns in the Philippines.

As we were going through our possible choices from the images in Neen's phone, suddenly she pointed excitedly at an image of a majestic looking volcano.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "That's the Mayon Volcano that Metawin the actor said in an interview that he wanted to visit!"

I knew who Metawin was. He was that very popular good looking BL actor who recently starred in the drama series 2Gether.

"Let's go there and make our temporary residence there!" I suggested excitedly

"Yesss!" Neen said with a big smile before giving me a big hug.