Bear | ✔

Chapter Nineteen

"How did you find me here, anyway? Were you following me?" She asked, dodging his attempts. She tried to drag him on, get him to lose track of the time, until someone showed up for help.

He seemed to have been taken aback by her question. "Ah! Well, I'm not that much of a random drunken guest whom you met in a party. He laughed out loud all of a sudden, as if he had just remembered something hilarious. "Ah, I just realized you don't know who I am. Apologies for my manners, it seems that I have forgotten to introduce myself. The name is Edward Smith, and I'm a very good friend of your husband's."

She didn't know if he was lying or stating the truth, but anyway she didn't care. She knew that he had tweaked his words in order for them to sound that way. She was very sure that David would never do such a thing to her. He loved her, or so he said. But she knew it was the truth. Her heart told her.

So, instead of cowering away like she used to do, Leila took a deep breath, straightened her back and squared her shoulders. "Really? He's never mentioned you," She replied as a timid smile invaded her face. She wasn't going to let such a cowering rat get back to her. He did it once. She wasn't going to allow him another chance to do it again.

"What do you want from me?" She drawled, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I'm here to deliver a message," The so-called Smith replied. "Stay away. You'd better do that or you'll have to face the consequences."

Her face fell. The little bit of confidence that had grown up in her was gone. "What are you talking about?"

He smiled; such an innocent, deceiving smile. "You know very damn well what I'm talking about. Stay away from him, or else you might not as well live long as to get out of that childbirth safely."

"You can't do this," Leila squeaked. "It's illegal. We can sue you for threatening us."

"Well, that's sad, considering my position in the company. Pretty sure your husband can't even dare to think of doing any move toward me. He knows very well what will happen if any charges rise up against me. He'll have a deed to pay, and then your worth wouldn't be enough to fill out that gap. Either way, he'll eventually let you go in the end. Better be you who bring it up first."

Leila frowned at him. She gave a once over and said, "You're disgusting."

He still had that shit-eating smile on his face. She was so angry that she wished she had enough bravery to slap it right out of him. He didn't deserve to be that happy and carefree, not after all that he had done to her. To both of them.

"I'm impressed by your choice of words to describe my brains, Mrs. Gareth. You're not like the last time I remember you, though. You seem to have grown up some ego on you. I see David's been doing very well lately. Good for him. Got to do something about that."

"I'm pretty sure a civilized talk in a wedding is a better way to judge someone, rather than a sneaky attempt at sexual abuse," Leila stated calmly, but her voice lowered with every word she spoke. She didn't want to act like he had never done anything bad before. He was as much of a dick as the rest of them.

For a moment after, Smith didn't say anything. But then he started to laugh. He laughed so hard that his back arched and his eyes squeezed shut in response. Leila stared at him as if he was an alien. She was sure there was nothing funny at all with what she had said.

When he was finally done cracking up, he stood back straighter and wiped away the excess of tears from the corners of his eyes. His face was puffier than usual and his voice vibrated as he spoke.

"Sexual abuse? You really think I tried to rape you?" He asked in disbelief. "I was going to kidnap you, but then that Blondie came in and interrupted me."