6 - Gift's intimidating arrogance

He was angry at this situation that was beyond his control and if there was anything he hated more than fake people who took advantage of others like the way he misunderstood Gift's situation, it would be things getting out of his control. 

And what made his anger more intense was the fact that both were related to the same woman. 

He banged his hand on the table as his stomach grumbled. 

Hungry and unfocused, but he didn't have an appetite for anything, not when he dreamt about the food she had cooked the night before and how he wanted more of it. 

He pushed his leather chair back and told himself that he was going to check up on her once but just before he approached the door, it was pushed open and a bandaged figure appeared in front of him. .

Zenith who always prided himself in being able to stand firm in front of adversities panicked. 

His heart shook that he stepped backwards with each step that she took towards him. 

“W..what do you want?” He asked himself when his tall back collided with his high bookshelf, rattling some of its contents to the ground. 

“You can do it,” he heard his sister say and he nodded with a gulp, thinking she was encouraging him before the door was closed. 

But what he did not know was that while he was distracted and unable to focus in his home office, Gift had painfully recovered her memory and in tears recounted her situation to Olivia and her dad who took pity on her. 

While the memory of her past came, the memory of all the things she had done since she woke up on the hospital bed remained as well, and her actions came as a shock to her, but with the encouragement of the father and daughter pair she came to terms with it and also the conclusion that she needed to at least apologize since she had no money to pay her debt yet. 

“I had no idea who he was and just acted based on how I felt. I directed my emotions to the wrong person, so I must apologize to him,” she sounded remorseful that it touched the heart of the father and daughter pair. 

“You don't have to,” Mr Kim finally spoke up and Olivia nodded. 

“That's right, I really loved it when you bought those things and cooked for us,” she said and Gift winced at the amount she had spent. 

Going about the mall in bandages didn't mean anything to her, but the fact that she had bought a new set of interior designs as well as new complete outfit sets for events she knew she would never attend just to spite him made her wince in regret.

She owed him a lot, in fact too much. 

“Exactly, but if you insist on apologizing, we want you to know that Zenith's decision is totally different from ours and that we want you to stay here. My daughter loves your food and you both can always go shopping together,” he said as he pulled his daughter close to put up a close family image and Olivia acted along. 

Anything to make this fun aunty who she could call mom stay. 

“Okay,” Gift brazed up and got off the bed even though she was in pain. 

A wheelchair was brought for her to use, but she insisted on walking on her own, claiming it as punishment as she didn't want to spend their money anymore and after failing at their persuasion, the father and daughter followed her to the door before wishing her good luck. 

“I hope she stays, she has been through a lot,” Mr Kim sighed as he was already cooking up the romance story between the heartbroken girl and his son who had a heart as cold as ice.

“Me too,” Olivia clamped her hands in prayer as she thought about how nice it would be if she could call her mom in front of her classmates and have Gift pick her up from school. 

The two stayed behind as they pressed their ears on the door to eavesdrop on Gift and Zenith's conversation.

Zenith stepped back again even though there was nowhere to go as he pressed his arms on the book shelf ready to climb away from her like a scared spider and Gift, who knew that she wouldn't be loud enough from the distance between them, took two steps closer. 

“Don't come any closer, stay right where you are and don't move an inch closer,” he demanded, unable to take the dryness in his throat and sweat that had formed on his forehead anymore. 

He was having a full blown panic disorder but neither of them realized it. 

Gift on the other hand totally misunderstood his actions as him not wanting to have anything to do with her and while it broke her heart, she understood, so she nodded and took another step forward, because she was not going to give up. 

Plus she wanted to appear as sincere as she felt when giving her apology and she didn't think he would be able to see all that with the bandages and plasters on her swollen face. 

This reaction to Zenith meant that she understood his fears but still wanted to terrify him and he almost passed out so he switched to defense mode and straightened his back and was about to back his way to his chair when she closed the distance between them. 

“Damn it, she's fast,” he lamented mentally as she bent in front of him to pick the fallen books and placed them back to their place on the shelf. 

She did this to calm down her anxiousness as she knew that she was in the wrong. 

Zenith saw this as her proving her dominance and the fact that she was relaxed enough to notice the books and even ignore him. 

This was a first time encounter for him and it made him feel weird. 

When she placed the books back in their place, she rubbed her sweaty palms on her clothes but Zenith saw it as her taking her time to speak which in another scenario would have infuriated him. 

But right now, he was wondering how there was a woman as fearless as this in his life. 

She moved a little closer and blushed at his good-looks before speaking. 

It was a consolation to her that the man she was married to according to the doctor's misunderstanding was 100 times better looking than Ken. 

“I wanted to apologize,” she stepped back a bit after admiring his good-looks and he stared at her his mouth wide open. 

“Apologize?” When she had just mocked him? He thought he had just heard the most insincere apology in his life but he had not recovered enough to rant about it. 

“Yes,” Gift took it as a go ahead and nodded, however a sharp pain shot up to her hips and she decided to sit down instead of collapsing but this was what vexed him even more. 

Nobody had ever dared to sit down before him when they were in the room together, but she had easily bypassed everything and broken a new record and she had claimed to want to apologize.

None of it seemed sincere to him because of the way he had misread her intentions and actions. 

To him, she just wanted to freeload off him and when she was telling him her story about how her best friends had betrayed her, he had only selectively heard two things. 

Orphan and breakup, so he cooked up his own story. 

She was an orphan with a pathetic life and she had foolishly done the things all pathetic people do which was fall in love and she had gotten her retribution. 

“And how is this any of my business?” He asked while still standing and when Gift looked up to him with that hardened face filled with confusion, she frowned as well. 

“Did I ask you for anything?” Was her reply. 

Zenith blinked over a hundred times in the second that passed. To him, not only was she pathetic and full of schemes, she was also arrogant even though she had nothing.