CHAPTER 4: XANDER’S DEMAND

ATHENA'S POV

“I am not moving in with you.”

My voice is firm, so he knows I'm not playing around or joking around at all.

Xander, however, doesn’t look impressed, if anything, he looks amused, like I just told him the sky is purple in colour.

His fingers drum lazily against the polished surface of his desk and his gaze lock onto mine.

“You don’t have a choice, Athena.”

I shake my head, giving him a look. “Excuse me?”

Xander leans forward, the corner of his lips twitching just a bit.

“Let me make this very simple for you. You’re carrying my child. That means any decision regarding you and the baby goes through me first. I've said this already before,” he adds like I'm a nursery child he's trying to teach the alphabets.

"You do not-----”

“That’s not debatable,” he says, not allowing me to finish my sentence.

I slam my hands on his desk, “You arrogant, self centered, self-righteous,—”

Xander sighs loudly like he's really tired, then cuts me off again.

“Look, this isn’t about you,” he says. “This is about my heir.”

I inhale, totally taken aback. “Your... heir?”

His eyes find mine and hold them. “Yes. And I will not allow my child to be raised in unsafe conditions.”

“Unsafe conditions?!" I scoff.

This is unbelievable.

"I have a stable career, a home AND a normal life. You are the one who lives in a world full of scandal and corruption.”

His expression doesn’t change one bit but then he says, “You received a threat, didn’t you?”

I stiffen. “What?”

Xander tilts his head, watching me carefully. “Your body language gave it away.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out of it to defend myself with.

Damn it.

“I—”

“Who sent it?” he demands.

However instead of replying him, I ball my palms up into fists and turn my head away from him.

“I don’t know,” I say truthfully.

Xander stands up at this point, “That’s exactly why you need to be protected.”

“I don’t need your protection.”

The corners of his lips curl upward, but his eyes remain point blank, “Wrong again.”

_

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_

I storm out of his office, angry, breathing terribly and on the verge of throwing my purse at a random male.

The man is infuriating.

He's controlling, ruthless, uncaring and impossible to talk with.

But honestly, if I tell myself the truth, he’s not wrong, at least in just a way.

Pausing in my steps, I reach into the side pocket of my bag and take my phone out, holding it with more strength than I should as I open my message box and read the text from before again.

The words glare back at me like they are warning written in hardened cement block.

I swallow hard. Really i don’t want to admit it, but Xander is right.

Something bigger is happening here and I don't even know what it is or where to start from in finding out, and if I don’t tread carefully, I could end up in very deep waters.

Shakily, I let out an embarrassingly loud breath and press my fingers to my temples, rubbing it in round circles like it was my last hope in calming down.

Moving in with Xander Knight? Hah! The thought alone makes me nauseous but what other choice besides that do I really have?

-------

Tonight, I lie awake in my apartment, staring up at the ceiling and that is because my mind won’t shut off.

Everything about this situation is a nightmare, but the worst part is again Xander is likely to be right about something because it doesn’t feel like I'll be waking up anytime soon from this nightmare.

As I roll about on my bed, wishing for sleep so that I can finally have a break from my over clouded thoughts, I feel a vibration near my waist and jerk upright.

Looking down, I see that it is just my phone buzzing and scold myself for jumping easily.

Suddenly I'm not sure if I should check the caller ID or not, so I just let my phone to keep ringing.

It keeps ringing on and on untill I grab it again, finally tired of the sound of my own ring tone.

But by the time I pick it, it stops ringing, I try to look at my call log but find that the number didn't register there at all.

Then all of a sudden, a message comes in.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: < You shouldn’t have ignored the first warning, Athena.

I try to breathe, maybe... maybe...

I don't even get to finish my thoughts before another message comes in.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: < Look outside.

This makes me freeze and I sit for a while on my bed, wondering if i should go outside, then i decide that I would just take a peek at my window.

My hands tremble as I get up from my bed and I don't even bother to look around for my slippers to slide my feet into them, I just walk to the window.

Pushing aside the curtain, I peer out into the dully lighted street, looking around for goodness knows what exactly.

At first, I see nothing, then someone's shadow catches my eyesight and I see the person move to stand directly across the street, looking right at me.

I can’t see their face, but I feel it that he or she is watching me.

My pulse skyrockets and I back away from the window, rubbing my clammy hands on the curtain as I pull it completely closed over the window.

This is real, someone is watching me and just the fact alone has made a suffocating sort of panic to climb its way into my chest.

Now, I know I can’t stay here, I have no choice; what if something happens to me?

Tomorrow, I’m moving in with Xander Knight.