And Then It Rained (Sequel to Rain Again; Stand Alone Book) (Completed)

Chapter Eighteen: Her Wound, His Care

There is a weird sort of satisfaction in touching a bandaged area of one's own body. It's like a stress ball.

"On the expense of injuring your own self!" There was sarcasm mixed with agitation on his face. "I wonder what you will do with the such direly saved money. Do you, by any chance, have a loan shark hounding after you? Has daddy stopped giving you pocket money?"

He leaned against the kitchen doorframe with his arms crossed.

Earlier, her heart had softened because of his tending to her wound. It turned to stone again with his pinching remark. "Well, I stopped taking any pocket money or other benefits from daddy the moment my photographs started to sell, even before I found a job," she said with the same sarcasm. "Also, you do not need to worry if there's any loan shark after me. I assure you that my money-related matters won't reach you. And let me know the amount you paid for my little hospital stay last night."

"Why?" He asked.

"I will return the money to you," she replied, caressing the bandage around her foot.

"You don't need to—"

"I do. Because as you mentioned a few days ago—" she said. "Our marriage is not real. And it was forced upon me as well, no matter whether you believe it or not. So, let's just remain monetarily independent as we were before this wedding and civil as we have to go to work level-headed every day." She waved her hand between the distance between them, saying, "This unstable—hellish situation between us is damaging our performances at work. The best thing at this moment is to remain calm and persevere in each other's presence until finding a solution to this mess."

His tone was bitter when he began to say, "None of it would have happened if you—"

"I know it is all my fault," her voice shook. "I shouldn't have returned to Asthel—I shouldn't have. None of it would have happened then. I regret it now—I regret deeply."

Silence reigned between them for a while as Victor stared at her. He opened his mouth to say something but closed his mouth. For once, he perhaps didn't have anything to say.

Turning around, he went into the kitchen.

When pans, spoons, and chopping noises reached her ears, she raised from the chair and limped to the kitchen doorway. She stood leaning against the doorframe in the same place where Victor had—only facing inside the kitchen. With surprise, she watched as Victor chopped onion and vegs like an expert cook. Then she realized he was an expert cook, indeed, when he began the actual cooking process.

In about twenty minutes, he prepared dinner that both looked and smelt incredibly delectable— spaghetti, sauteed vegetables, roast potatoes, and tuna salad. She figured there was no chicken on the menu as she had already burned all the available dead bird body parts from the refrigerator in the name of cooking.

His agility and speed surprised her.

Before tonight, she could never fathom that she would almost moan at the taste of a mouthful of spaghetti cooked by a businessman who was also her forced husband and the person who hated her the most in the world.

Even though she did not look, she could still feel his eyes on her.

For the first time ever, they sat at the same table, eating together. And although silence reigned between them with the spice of underlying animosity, mistrust, and an obscure tomorrow, the paramount taste of respite from all of that, at least for a minuscule occasion of dinner, triumphed.

--

The next morning, Victoria knocked on Sumaia's door again with the eggs she had bought yesterday in her hand.