Escaped My Ex, Got Snatched by His Rival - Chapter 581

Chapter 581: Caught in between
“Don’t look at me like that,” Roman tutted when Penelope glared at him with flames burning in her eyes. “I gave you a chance and asked you to do a good job and in return you failed me. I believe you should have expected that there would be consequences for your actions, Miss Ashford.”

How could Penelope ever think so far? In her entire life, she had never faced any kind of comeuppance until Ariana arrived and ruined everything for her.

“However, there is no need for you to despair yet,” remarked Roman with a smile on his lips. “As long as you can bring Ariana to me just how we planned, I will give you the antidote to this pill. Of course if you fail,” the look in his eyes changed, which made Penelope shudder in fright. “The consequences will be much more severe than this.”

Penelope shuddered even more severely when she heard the threatening words of the man who seemed more than capable of killing her.

“It doesn’t even make any sense.”

Ariana raised her head and nodded along, although she had no idea what Danny was talking about. She agreed to meet with him and Leila for a little bestie meeting but regretted her decision almost immediately.

Her head was out of order as it was a fucking mess and she barely had the energy to function normally. She was tired to the point that she didn’t even want to pretend that she was doing alright. Ariana knew that it was freaking weird as she was feeling like she was going through a drug withdrawal.

When she had never once in her life done anything like that—like she said, weird.

“What do you think, Ari?”

She lifted her head and looked at Danny, “Hmm?”

“Don’t look at me like that; I am talking about Lei. She has gone crazy; look at her—how much trouble she has caused in the past two weeks.”

Ariana knew what trouble Danny was talking about, as she lived with half of the trouble that had turned the entire city upside down together with Leila. She remarked while mixing the sugar in her tea, “You know how she is—just let her do her thing.”

Besides judging from how many times Mateo had ‘pretended’ to come to her room and talk about her friends under the pretence that he wanted to know more about them, Ariana had quite a clear idea about what kind of battle Leila was fighting and sooner or later she was going to lose it.

Leila didn’t trust any men after what Ryan had done to her but from Mateo’s persistence, it was clear as day that what Leila was doing these days was nothing less than digging her own grave and yes, she was saying this despite being her best friend. Whether she was doing it because she really sought thrill or had no clue where her actions were going to lead her, Ariana had no idea.

“I am worried, though,” Danny sighed as he sipped on his cold coffee.

He picked up the large jam pastry and shoved it in his mouth, which reminded her of the sugary sweet monster who finished the sweets that she brought or baked in a matter of seconds.

Only he had been too busy to eat them now. Because the invitations to his engagement party with Penelope had been sent out and Ariana had no energy to bake any more cookies or cakes, even though she knew that everything was fake, she couldn’t accept Nicolai’s name being written together with some other woman.

Especially someone like Penelope.

She recalled the night where he had held her after she had broken down and promised to be there for her all the time and till the day she wanted.

Ariana was afraid that after seeing those disgusting paintings, Nicolai would be disgusted or pity her for the life she was living or even realise that those paintings were not just the epitome of her desperation and desires but also fears and memories.

But nothing.

He didn’t ask any questions and instead helped her bathe and dried her hair before tucking her in the bed.

However, the second he turned around, she held him, afraid that he would leave her but he didn’t. He climbed right back in the bed and let her cling onto him no matter how hard she hugged him.

Only when he hugged her was she able to finally sleep.

The next morning he dropped her off at her house and didn’t question anything. She thought that it was because Nicolai was giving her the space she wanted but it turned out that he had declared a war on Noah.

She had no idea what went down between the two of them in the matter of hours, but Ariana only knew that the two men were now caught in the middle of a fight where they were determined either to ruin one another or kill each other.

Ariana asked Nicolai about this situation but he got jealous and asked her whether she was worried about her ex-husband. And even though she told him that it was not the case, the man didn’t seem to believe it.

In the end she had to dig through things and found out that Nicolai found Noah had been helping his father in recovering the business. Apparently Noah said that Dominic had a decent plan but that was not enough for Nicolai.

And there was also the matter of his and Zena’s marriage.

She caught the two of them outside the marriage registration hall and before she could say anything, Zena asked her to keep this as a secret from Nicolai.

Even though Ariana told her that she couldn’t do it and even warned her not to be with someone like Noah. That man, as charming as he was, needed a lot of growing up before he could take care of a woman.

But Zena was just as hard headed as her brother and Noah was unusually possessive of that woman as well, which showed that he wasn’t going to break this marriage as easily as she expected him to.

But that only made the entire thing even more troublesome for her because she was hiding the truth about Zena’s wedding with Noah.

‘If Nicolai ever finds out that I know about this—he will never forgive me,’ thought Ariana worriedly.

It was bad enough that they were at one another’s throats without this bomb being disclosed. Who knows what he might do once he knows that his precious sister was taken away by his worst enemy?

“You are one to talk,” said Danny, snapping her out of her daze.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she asked with a frown.

“Nicolai de Luca,” Danny leaned back in his chair and questioned, “Do you mind telling me why that man has been hovering around you like a pesky little fly?”