Engulfed By His Shadow

Chapter 10 : Charmed

UNEDITED
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Cloyd's eyes ran over the girl standing in the middle of her two friends, dressed in the attire he selected for her. She looked perfect and so deliciously inviting that it was difficult to waver his attention off her, he thought.

"Crystal," Mark held out his hand for Crystal to step forward and then spoke, "This is Mr. Cloyd Deighton, an old acquaintance of mine whom I met in Snowcourt on an eventful day. When I told him about my desire to have a surprise birthday party for you, Mr. Deighton was kind enough to offer his help and but for his generosity, this would not have been possible," Mark suppressed a scoff and didn't bother describing any more about his status or position as the chairman. His ingress had already spoken volumes about his quintessential standard of power and charisma combined.

"And this is my daughter, Crystal," Mark introduced proudly to which Cloyd gently took her soft hand in his and bowed to kiss it.

"Crystal," With a gentle tone, Cloyd called out her name and made a brief contact with her eyes.

Her heart skipped a beat and her voice started dying down in her throat. Crystal felt that his voice was so familiar but those sharp and soul penetrating gorgeous grey eyes were surely not. He had hair the color of deep copper brown that looked very silk, thick and wild and some strands were let to rest freely over the side of his forehead. A sharp jawline and symmetrical nose completed his look of drool worthy perfection. Just to think of all the women falling for his appearance and money would make one's head ache, Crystal thought.

"Thank you for taking the trouble to make this evening so perfect for me. I don't know how to express my happiness about this in words," Crystal finally gained some strength to speak confidently and thanked both her father and Cloyd.

"I am glad and wish you a prosperous birthday," Cloyd cocked his head a little and smiled, "Forgive me for being late, I had an urgent meeting that had to be attended."

"That's not a problem at all," Mark who kept watching Cloyd drinking in his daughter's physique so deeply that he decided to interrupt them and take Mr. Deighton away from Crystal. The list of people invited only included close friends and family. Geldard had made sure of each and every guest. Not everyone had the chance of having a small talk with Cloyd. He remained silent and surprisingly unnoticed for the rest of the party and if introduced, he stood before like any other guest. Nothing more and important was disclosed.

As they left Crystal and her friends, Reyna couldn't help but view her opinions on Cloyd which seemed as if she was extremely impressed, "What a mouth watering definition of a man," She smirked over the man at the distance and Joe cringed at the funky choice of words, "He isn't a piece of juicy bacon, Rey."

Crystal chuckled at them when Joe made another joke on how hungry Reyna can get to eat up an entire man for a meal.

In the middle of this, Reyna did have a slight memory of hearing the expensive name before but she couldn't exactly put her finger as to where.

The rest of the function went well with people enjoying, chatting and eating. Everyone looked satisfied and merry which let Mark take a sigh in relief but the extra expense over the group of musicians made him frown. He did ask Cloyd about it but he simply threw away the matter by sneering, "You cannot expect a party to go well without music. Either way, it's all on me."

A while later everyone gathered around the center table where two men placed a delicious cake with care and all the friends and family, especially Rey, waited for Crystal to perform the customary cake cutting. Victoria was among the first ones to rush by her side and wish her again followed by Mr. Moore and Reyna.