Twisted Paradise

Chapter 9

He walked her home.

He was initially going to give her a ride but she had insisted on sobering up from the cool air.

As if she needed it.

Her alcohol tolerance was high. She'd just wanted to walk with him on a starry night.

Throughout the whole walk, he seemed a bit off as if he had, just now, made an earth-shattering revelation. As if something hit him like a heavy ton of bricks.

A far cry from his usual calm and composed self.

Given his reactions - from the light widening of his mahogany eyes to the guileless fluttering of his dark long lashes - whenever she got close to him, she'd think he had never been close to a woman before.

Did she spook him somehow?

By the time they reached her building, Lily was left with question upon question.

As she gave him a parting smile before entering, she could have sworn there was a hint of rosy patches nestled on his cheeks. But they were gone before she could fixate on them, leaving her questioning whether they really were present.

But given the disturbance among the callousness that floated in his eyes back in the park, Lily was confident he was no longer as unaffected as he had been in the past.

So she chose to be optimistic.

Entering her room, the first place she strode to was the bathroom. After a long day, submerging herself in lukewarm water was extremely rewarding. She usually liked to use jasmine-scented bath bombs but this time she chose lavender.

Crazy how much it relaxed her muscles and calmed her mind.

Lily thought she was going to die, or at least, get very close to it when she first spotted him following her. But if she reacted too strongly, that might make him suspicious. So she pretended to not notice it and then acted like it didn't matter.

His eyes pierced through her the whole time in that bar. She could feel his gaze on her when she was dancing with her target for the night. For one inexplicable second, she feared he might interrupt them and mess up her plan.

It had happened before.

Men tended to be possessive of her whenever she was dating them. She didn't like it. But changing her boyfriends like clothes didn't help much - all were the same.

While she always firmly made her boundaries clear, she didn't take any serious steps because she never dated any of them long enough for it to create any major conflict.

Maybe she couldn't understand their emotions properly. That didn't matter. She couldn't properly explain it but whenever it happened, she felt restricted and suffocated.

She had spent seven years of her life feeling that way, and another four years trying not to feel that way.

Was she wrong for being utterly tired of it?

No, she wasn't.

And she didn't care if she was.

She was only pleasantly surprised when Blaise was just carefully watching her.

And she liked it.

She had decided to let him off easy for stalking her after that.

When he had asked her why she gave the money to that homeless girl, she had entertained the thought of lying and telling him it was just her wanting to help the poor and the needy. That looking towards the girl tugged at her heartstrings.