Arranged... With Love...

30. Jewelry

Raya turned off his car and leaned against the backrest. He was so sure that he would be able to set Cade free. Yet things ended up like this.

He could understand Cade's anger and frustration from the turn of events. But there was nothing he could do to be of help.

Taking a deep breath, he got out of his car. He was currently at the mall's parking lot where he was meeting Helly.

Helly had been sticking close to the 'heartbroken' Imm during the Busan trip. Thus, he never got a chance to speak to her alone. Even after returning to Bangkok, they never got to talk as Helly was busy.

She had joined K publishers as a calligrapher, under Cade. As they had urgent work, she was hired as soon as she got back.

She was both excited and happy about her new job that Raya couldn't break the news that he was married. 

Plus, the fact that the marriage was being annulled, put him at a much slower pace.

He reached the fifth floor of the mall where Helly was waiting for him. She waved at him enthusiastically. 

His eyes fell on the signboard of the shop in front of which she was standing. It was a jewelry shop. That was when he remembered that it was his birthday the next day. This made him even guiltier.

"Why are you so slow?" Helly grabbed his hand and dragged him to the store. "Come, help me pick a bracelet. It's for a friend of mine." Since her boyfriend had the habit of forgetting his own birthday, she wasn't scared that Raya would figure out that the bracelet was for him. 

They were greeted by one of the staff of the shop. Helly told the staff that she wanted to take a look at the men's bracelet collection. The staff led them to their bracelet area of the shop.

Helly let go of Raya's hand and started going through the bracelets.

Each second he watched her being so enthusiastic, the guilt inside him grew. He felt like he was the biggest scumbag. He stepped away in order to clear his head. He had to tell Helly everything. He had to do it no matter what.

Helly finally found a bracelet of her liking after searching for a long time. Satisfied, she wanted to see how it would look in her boyfriend's arm. "Raya, try this on na." She turned around and saw that her boyfriend was nowhere to be seen. "Raya?"

SLAP

A resounding slap was delivered to her cheek. She was caught completely off guard. Holding her burning cheek, she raised her head to look at the person who just slapped her.

She saw the person's face. She knew this person. The person was his boyfriend's mother- Lucy.

"You Bitch! Don't you have a sense of shame?" Lucy was fuming mad. "When are you going to stop leeching of my son?"

Raya heard the commotion and ran over to stop his mother from slapping Helly again. "Mom, what are you doing? Please stop it." He begged. He could see more and more people gathering around them to watch them.

"You are asking me to stop?" Lucy looked at her son and then to Helly. "The one who needs to stop is her. She should stop leeching off from a married guy like you."

Helly was shell shocked by the last sentence. "Married guy?"

"Mom, please stop creating a scene. You are embarrassing us," Raya held his mother back.

"You want to ruin your marriage for someone like her, Raya? You are unbelievable!" Lucy didn't bother to hide her disappointment in her tone.

When she and her husband received a call from an old friend of theirs who informed them that their son and son-in-law had filed for a marriage annulment, they were heartbroken. Their friend was the judge who was in charge of the annulment case.

They had requested the judge to not grant them an annulment. This was the reason why the judge refused to give them annulment despite it being a mutually consented case.

The judge was completely bluffing when he brought up Helly's sexuality. 

There were no such thing as asexual people being unable to experience romantic feelings and there was no law that said asexual people can only have platonic relationships. Other than not being really interested in having a sexually active life, asexual people were same as everyone else. There was no exception for them in front of the law. 

Both Raya's and Cade's lawyers were also bribed to make them believe that whatever the judge said was true and that they will have to live together and wait six months to even apply for a divorce.

Raya and Cade were completely blindsided from the truth.

Rob and Lucy had only let out a sigh of relief after they heard that Raya and Cade had left the courtroom without getting their marriage annulled. 

Just like Helly, Lucy had also come to the mall to get a gift for her son's birthday. Even though they were very strict with Raya, it didn't mean that they didn't love him.

She knew that Raya felt that they don't care for him and held grudges about some incidents that happened in his childhood. She never blamed him for that. She knew that it was her and her husband's fault which had hurt Raya who was still a child. She had let her child down in several occasions.

Both Rob and Lucy wanted to make it up to him. And their first step was to have Raya married to Cade. As they had known Cade since he was a kid and knew how much Raya liked him, they felt that Cade would be an excellent choice for their son.

They had assumed that Cade would be able to bring their son back to them and that their family would be together happily.

It was completely unexpected that Raya would hurt Cade to the extent that Cade would be the one wanting their marriage to be broken. 

 Helly snapped out of shock. She realized what Raya had been trying to tell her these days. Seeing Lucy like this, she was a hundred percent sure that Raya was forced into the said marriage.

But she was a bit hurt by the fact that she found out everything like this.

She ignored Lucy and said to Raya. "Settle your mom down. I will be waiting for you at my place. I think we need to talk." She walked past the mother-son duo.

"Just look at her arrogance! So imprudent!" Lucy glared venomously at the departing figure of the young woman.

"Mom, why do you have to create a scene here? Can't you just let me breathe? Why do you guys always have get yourselves involved in every aspect of my life?" Raya asked as the crowd started to disperse.

Lucy looked at her son with teary eyes. "You are right, son. We shouldn't have asked you to marry Cade. We are sorry." She said, wiping the fresh tear from her cheeks and walked away in another direction.