4. BLUE EYES, COLD HEART

CHAPTER FOUR

BLUE EYES, COLD HEART

I should mind my own fucking business and focus on something more immediate. You know? Like the fact that the wine stain wasn’t coming off the dress and already mentally calculating the four thousand dollars I’ll be losing. There goes taking down my debt, I guess. What fuck is the material of this dress anyway? I try to scrub it harder but that only seems to make it worse. There is knock on the bathroom door than makes me pause mid-handwash.

“Can I come in for a second?”  It’s the same guy from earlier. Believe me that husky voice is quite hard to forget despite our short interaction and my current predicament.

“Still naked,” I shout back, hoping he can actually hear me and leave me the hell alone. My night is already a shitty one so far. Maybe I should have just taken my own advice and just stayed home with mum.

“The stain won’t get out because that is a dry-cleaning-only type of fabric. I’m quite frankly surprised you don’t know that,” He answers from the other side of the door, “ Look, you can take my coat and my sister could find you something to change into. Unless of course, you are planning to ditch the party. Which frankly I cannot blame you for,”

I don’t know what is worse. Getting sound advise from a stranger or realizing that is probably the only option I have at my disposal. Well, at least chivalry is not dead. Pressing the dress against my body, I walk to the door and open a tiny gap that is large enough for him to pass his coat. It’s significantly huge and I instantly swim in it. After buttoning it up, I fold the dress and step out. The stranger is leaning against the wall and now without his coat on, not only do I notice how unfairly attractive he is but he looks like those well-built, sexy men in fashion magazines who mostly pose in their underwear.

“Thank you,” I say, “If there is a way, I can repay you for this, please tell me. I can even pay you money or something,”

He groans, his face still dressed in the same cold, passive expression, “Don’t read into it,”

“Why would I read into-“ I stop mid-way when he suddenly clamps my mouth shut just as my ears pick up the sound of heels coming down our way along with the voices of two women chit-chatting and laughing about something.

“Fuck,” He cusses glancing down for the corridor for the nearest door. But I’m more puzzled by his reaction to even understand what is going.

Unfortunately for him, the two women come into focus and the moment they pick up on us, they come to a standstill. The stranger still has his hand on my lips. Did he sneak into the party uninvited or something? What if he is married and his wife might think he is cheating on her with me? Before I can even filter the millions of questions running through my mind, one of the women who has her phone out, raises it and snaps a photo. Oh heavens. He is definitely married. I’m so screwed. And probably so is he. Because no matter how you look at it, this situation right now can only make the mind go to the worst case scenario.

“Delete it,” He commands, his voice ice-thin, “ Unless you want your father’s company sinking, I’d suggest you delete the photo, Mina. Oh, and do me a favor and get my sister down here, ASAP,”

The woman who had taken the photo looks visibly terrified. She presses something on her phone which I’m assuming is her deleting the photo before scurrying back upstairs with her friend in tow. For a brief second, I’m genuinely terrified. What if this man is some hit guy or perhaps some mafia dude? I heard these parties have a variety of people. I tap his hand and he finally lets it fall.

“Fuck!” He cusses and begins pacing. For a few uncomfortable minutes, only silence settles in the air between.

“Um…I promise I will keep my mouth shut,” I have idea why I said that but it does make him stop mid stop mid-pacing and stare daggers at me.

“What else did you think you were going to do? Run you fucking mouth? Don’t make me take a time out of my schedule to track you down if I ever hear my name from the media just because you are looking for your two seconds of fame,”

I stare at him completely confused, “Two seconds of fame? First of all, I’m very grateful you helped me out and second, more importantly, I don’t know who you are and I certainly do not give a fuck,”

Surprise flares in the blue of his iris and he is about to say something when the sound of a pair of heels coming downstairs reaches both our ears and what do you know. I’m staring right at the hostess of the party.

“Mina just told me something diabolical about you being with a woman-“Alessia Romano stops mid-sentence, glances at me, then at the taller man beside me, “ What the hell is happening here? Why is there a woman dressed in nothing but your coat, dear brother?” then her eyes widened dramatically, “ Wait, did you… mum is going to freak out. I need to call her right now and-“

“Alessia, you are not calling anybody and second, help her out. She stained her dress with wine,” he walks past me but pauses briefly to look at me one more time, “ Oh, and you can keep that coat. I don’t need it,”

He walks away, leaving me gob-smacked in the middle of a corridor as my brain starts to slowly process everything that just happened in the past couple of minutes. So the strange man who is clearly suffering from a personality complex disorder or something is the brother to the hostess of the yacht party? He must come from a very influential old money family. Lucky bastard.

“I have so many questions but right now, let’s you changed into something less…well, my brother’s coat,” Alessia is awfully chirpy in the best way possible.

It almost feels like I just walked in the middle of something that I have absolutely no clue about. Alessia is more than helpful and despite my previous misconceptions about what kind of person she could possibly be, I find myself feeling completely relaxed in her presence. She quickly helps me into an extremely sexy, tight little black dress which I’m certain is probably more than my entire years’ worth salary but damn to I look and feel hot.

“So, how do you know my brother?” She asks while helping me fix my make-up.

“I actually don’t,” I answer, “He helped me out in the bathroom. I was having a bit of a crisis over my ruined dress and he happened to be nearby,”

“You expect me to believe my brother helped out of the goodness of his heart?” she scoffs purely out of amusement, “So tell me how you two really know each other no matter how ridiculous it sounds. Believe me, you won’t be getting any judgment from me,”

“I swear we don’t really know each other. We just met a couple of minutes before you came,”

She sighs, “Well, that is disappointing. I was finally beginning to have some hope for my brother,” But before I can ask what she means by that, she perks up, “Alright. Let’s get back to the party and pop those champagnes and honey, you can keep the dress,”

Even as we head back, I couldn’t get the sadness I’d seen in her eyes out of my mind. And a part of me, unwillingly so, finds myself suddenly intrigued by the stranger with icy blue eyes.