Chapter Three: An Unexpected Proposal.

“Get down!”

Strong hands suddenly wrapped around me and pushed me to the ground. More gunshots echoed around us, and a gravestone next to me shattered to pieces as a bullet destroyed it.

“W-What’s going on!?”

Mavros, who was shielding me with his body, ignored my question. He rolled us towards a group of stones and hid us behind it, and for a moment the rain of bullets stopped.

It was then that I noticed that my arm was bleeding.

“Stay still,” Mavros said, but I wasn’t listening.

I was staring at the garish injury on my biceps. It wasn’t deep, but it wept red with blood that soaked into my dress.

When I didn’t say anything for several moments, Mavros glanced at me and saw the wound.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, and immediately tore a piece from his dress shirt.

“W-What are you doing?” I gasped as he grabbed my arm and wrapped the piece tightly around it, soaking it with my blood.

“You’ll need to run soon, and you can’t do that while you’re bleeding.”

I stared at him as he applied the cloth. For some strange, inexplicable reason, my heart began to beat quickly, faster than it ever had, as if I was infected with something. Heat rushed across my chest, up to my neck, and settled on my cheeks with a heavy blush.

I hadn’t really let myself dwell on how absolutely beautiful Mavros Blackwood was before. Aside from him being my husband’s brother, I had also tried my best to be a faithful wife to Eden.

But now I couldn’t deny it. I was bewitched by the way his rich, glossy black hair fell along his roguishly handsome face, and the way his long eyelashes kissed his cheeks and hid his dark blue eyes.

‘This isn’t the time, girl,’ I thought to myself, shaking my head.

Mavros tightened the bandage he had created, then glanced over the stone we were hiding behind. The shooter still hadn’t attacked us.

“On my mark, you’ll run as fast as you can the moment I tell you to,” he said. “Can you do that?”

I nodded my head, shivering as I remained that someone wanted one or both of us dead at the moment.

“Good,” he nodded, then glanced around for several moments.

He raised three fingers and started counting them down.

“Three…two…one. Now!”

He grabbed my hand and surged to his feet, dragging me with him. The both of us ran, and almost immediately the shooter started attacking us once again.

“Where are we going!?”

“My car isn’t far from here,” was his reply, shouted over the sound of booming gunshots.

Sure enough, we reached his car; a black, large but sleek vehicle parked not far away from the entrance to the graveyard.

“I came with a car too!” I said, pointing at my Chevrolet which was parked across the street.

“We can’t take the risk,” Mavros grunted as he opened the door. “My door has built-in security that makes it so that it can’t be tampered with. We don’t know if the shooter has planted a bomb in your car.”

I realized he was telling the truth, so I allowed him to guide me into the car. We both entered through the passenger seat, since there was no time for Mavros to go around the car to the driver’s entrance. As he closed the door, bullets slammed against the glass, but they only managed to graze them at best.

“Is the glass bulletproof?”

“Yes.”

Mavros started the car and drove off quickly. I stared back at the graveyard through the window, shaking with fear at what had just happened.

‘BOOM!’

As I was watching the graveyard, suddenly my car, which was parked in front of it, erupted into a massive explosion that made me jump with fright.

“No!” I exclaimed, shocked and devastated at the sight of my vehicle covered in flames and destroyed beyond recognition.

Mavros didn’t look back; he knew that doing so would be a mistake, so he simply increased his speed and drove off even faster.

Soon enough, we left the graveyard in the distance, and a tense silence settled between us.

I didn’t know what to think.

I had just returned for a divorce that had destroyed my life, only to stumble into an assassination that I only escaped by pure, dumb luck.

“W-Who would do this?” I whispered in despair, tears welling in my eyes and running down my cheeks.

‘Why would anyone try to kill me? I’d never made any enemies, as far as I knew. Heck, as shameful as it was to say it, I was basically a housewife for Eden. I never participated in politics or groups that would endanger my life.’

‘So why…wait…was it –.’

“Are you okay?” Mavros’s voice jolted me from my spiral. I glanced at him; he was staring at the road with a hard, cold expression that filled me with fear. It felt like I was looking at a monster in human skin.

“I-I don’t know.”

He hummed, keeping silent for a moment.

“Do you know who could’ve done this to you?”

“I don’t…” I wanted to say that I didn’t know, but the words refused to leave my lips. Because I was pretty sure I did.

“You think it’s Eden.”

Coming from Mavros’s mouth, it didn’t sound like a question at all. It sounded like an accusation; one I didn’t know how to answer.

Before I could, he continued.

“It’s not Eden.”

I looked at him, hope springing in my heart.

“Then who?”

“Before I can tell you, you have to promise me something,” he said. Something about his voice made the hair on my skin stand at attention. He was serious, uncompromising; this was a request he would make lightly.

“What?” I asked.

He didn’t answer the question at first. He slowed the car down, then parked on the side of the road, a road that was abandoned as far as the both of us could see.

He reached into his glove compartment, and pulled out something that made my breath catch.

“Laura Hayes, will you marry me?”