Chapter Two: My Last Wish.

Aruto gave me a curt nod back, and I couldn't help but wonder if he looked a little bit disappointed. If I did see disappointment etched in his beautiful features, it was only for a second, and then he proceeded with his chores.

"Which case?" I asked as I wore my bag over my shoulders and then fixed my clothes.

"A model double signed. She had an exclusive contract with the agency for six years, but she signed early with another agency, and she is kicking up a fuss."

"Talk about the fine print." I sighed as we walked out.

"Are you taking a cab?" Milo asked.

"Yeah, you?"

"I was thinking of staying over at your place," she said.

"Yeah sure, you still have your clothes from last time," I shrugged. " Plus I'd love to have you pay for the cab."

"Wow, frugal friends." She chuckled and then called the cab nonetheless.

"You know, Aruto could be a voice porn actor," I said, and Milo chuckled.

"Should I just set you two up? Though I do have a better guy in mind, and he is just from a nasty break up…" she trailed.

"Aruto is from breaking up with someone? Wait, let's backtrack a bit, Aruto was dating?" I asked, shocked.

Milo sighed then opened her purse to apply some lip balm.

"Yes, Annabelle. You are the only one who has taken a vow of celibacy." She said casually.

"Okay rude," I said.

Was that why his gaze was searching? If we were to hook up, would I just be some booty call?

"How did you know?" I asked her.

"Well, obviously, Aruto is attractive. So I wanted to sink my claws in him, but he was taken at the time, and now, I think I have evolved past the phase of wanting to be a 'hot rebound'." Milo explained.

"And one with an unbreakable self-esteem at that," I added.

"Oh, definitely." She laughed and then raked her hair.

Our driver arrived, and we walked towards the small vehicle to continue our private conversation.

"There is one time he was talking to me, and I swear to God, I almost came!" she said as she slammed the door of the cab. The driver turned to Milo startled, and I almost felt embarrassed for him.

-I am so sorry you have to hear that but to be honest, that has to be a typical one a.m. conversation.-

"Now, I think I'm more resigned to having a nice eating place with a muscular view, you know?" she shrugged then yawned.

Well, now he seemed more off-limits than before.

"I have tried to recruit him continuously to the agency, but he prefers the restaurant," Milo confessed.

We talked more about him on the ride home, like how he teaches kids the guitar and how wholesome he was.

To be honest, the conversation seemed to tempt me to want him to put a baby in me. Well I mean, in less than crude terms.

We had arrived just before two, had showered and were getting ready to go to bed after deciding to grab some water together and chat in the living room.

Milo had shown herself to the guestroom minutes later, and after a while, I went to my bedroom then put on my favourite red silky pyjamas.

-Alone at last!-

I smiled, and then I flipped my tied hair over my shoulders then plopped my body on the bed. I opened my bedside drawer and removed my favourite hard covered book, it had a deep purple hardcover with brown vine-like structures in the book.

The title of the book was, 'My Last Wish'.

The book was about a beautiful poor and hardworking girl called Daisy. She was smarter than most in the Country of Envia, despite being a peasant. Her one desire in life was to visit the palace library. Like me, she had been an orphan, but unlike me, she had been adopted by an abusive family.

One night, tired of the abuse that her adoptive mother's drunken escapades brought, she fled their cottage. On the road, she ran into the carriage of a nobleman, who took pity on her situation.

The nobleman had just lost his daughter, and in light of this incident, he decided to take Daisy in and raise her, as his own daughter, naturally, without informing his grief-stricken wife.

So again, she was stuck with an abusive female figure, albeit this one was more emotional abuse than the previous physical abuse.

Daisy spent her entire life reading books to escape reality, and when that was not enough, she would dress up in maid outfits and then sneak off to the town, either to buy books, watch the festival and or try new cuisines.

Despite all she had been through, she was friendly and easily lovable.

One day, she and her best friend participated in a village competition for tickets to the white winter ball, the most exclusive and marvellous ball in the entire empire. She sneaks away from the ball and enters the library to gawk at the books, the girl meets the first prince in the library and rejects the princes' advances because he was engaged.

This act makes him want her more. The prince grants her access to the castle to occasionally read books so that he could see her. After a while, The prince's fiancé Vivanna, who is horrible, finds out about his interest in the girl. Now, Vivanna is madly in love with the prince, but their engagement is contract-based. In one of the lines of the contract, the Prince and Vivanna agree to stay out of each other's love lives.

Naturally, Vivanna mercilessly tortures the female protagonist, to the point where the prince assigns her a personal Knight to watch over her. Of course, Vivanna doesn't stop being annoying. Instead, she tries to seduce her Knight so that she has more access to Daisy.

Because of Daisy's nature with female authority figures, Daisy is actually terrified of the horrific Vivanna.

Daisy confronts the prince about the nature of the relationship between him and his wicked fiancée, and the prince confesses that he was monitoring her ties to uproot corruption in the land.

Daisy, the strong female protagonist, proclaims that she is tired of just doing nothing when she is attacked, so she launches a counter-attack against Vivanna and of course, Vivanna with years of practice under her belt nearly kills her. Because of this event, Daisy's life is severely shortened and to make matters worse, she loses her memory.

This is where the title, 'My Last Wish' comes to play. But of course, she also forgets that she is dying.

When Daisy loses her memory, she begins to fall madly in love with the Knight the prince had offered to protect her. This is because he was always there for her. Seeing this happen, the prince decided to hasten his plan to get rid of Vivanna. That and yes, a little of, 'How dare you touch the person I love.'

He sets Vivanna up to fall into the same traps of corruption her father did and further bankrupts her already bankrupt land until her people, Vivanna is a duchess, become too restless and plan to stage a coup. The prince, who at this point, had already successfully assassinated his corrupt father and was now 'King', rode in with his white horse. He gave the people of the land the courage to proceed with the coup.

He has her head chopped off, and Vivanna's execution ends with the cheering fans as her people.

I was among the cheering townspeople, I mean not physically but spiritually, that woman was god awful!

But the most important scenes for me in the book were the sex scenes between Daisy and the first prince, as he is trying to win her love from the Knight.

From their dialogues! To the intensity of craving each other, the author of the book, lets you see poor village girl Daisy get more than she had bargained for.

He kept on rocking her world then forcing her to look at him so that she would remember her love for him. Of course, the prince hadn't bargained that Vivanna's former butler and one of her concubines would fall for Daisy as well.

Because of the pressure the prince places on Daisy, to fall for him, Daisy finds herself comforted by the easy men in the group to be around. Eventually, Daisy finds herself in love with all of them!

The book was the perfect spice I needed in my life.

I often found myself envying Daisy, but who didn't?

The backlash the book had received for having a free-spirited protagonist was insane, but that was normal with the book's growth in popularity. When the book was adapted into a movie, I bought my ticket among the very first people!

The book had such a positive reception that some people even cosplayed as the characters at book signing events. Still, sadly, the author never shows up to those events. Finally, just last week, I met the editor of the book, and she hinted a sequel to me!

No one had ever met the author of the book, which just added to its charm. Even the editor had confessed severally that they only spoke through emails and it was always sort of onesided. Of course, this was a  simple sales pitch, and it was later debunked.

But, the thing is, the editor's confessions had never really been proven to be false.

A chill crept up my spine.

"That's enough of life's mysteries Annabelle!" I smiled to myself then switched off my main lights and let my green bedside lamp stay on.

Just one chapter.

I goaded myself as a thought formed in my head.

-Famous last words.-