Escaped My Ex, Got Snatched by His Rival - Chapter 65

Delusional narcissist
Because Ari lost control of her temper, her voice rose a bit. She attracted the attention of the people sitting at the next table and lowered her head in shame. A furious blush coated her cheeks as she muttered an apology to the couple, who looked deeply offended.

Ari did not know whether it was because they were upset over the fact that she had used such harsh and insulting words in their presence. Or was it because the two found her not pleasing to their eyes as she had …maybe… indirectly said something rude about their personal life?

Nicolai hit the surface of the table again and again with his palm. Apparently, this loss of temper was amusing in his eyes rather than despicable and annoying. Ari turned to look at the man with a glare in her eyes, but at the same time, she heaved a sigh of relief. The last time she lost composure like this, she met with a pair of reproaching, steely eyes that were filled with annoyance.

“This is not funny,” she hissed at the man who sat across her.

“I beg to differ,” Nicolai coughed hysterically as he rubbed his chest and then took a sip from his ice cream milkshake. Only then did his laughing fit subsided a little. “You should have seen your expression just now, it was hilarious.”

Ari opened her lips but then pressed them tightly. She could feel control slipping from her fingers and this was not what she was, Ari knew that she was better than this.

“And there we go,” Ari snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Nicolai’s words. She raised her head and turned her attention to the man in front of her. “Back to square one.”

“What do you mean?” She questioned him and Nicolai rolled his eyes at her.

He looked her dead in the eyes and instead of answering her question, he asked his own, “Did anyone tell you, that you know how to get on someone’s freaking nerves? I thought we were finally getting somewhere but nope. You have to lock yourself up.”

Of course, Ari knew what he was talking about. Ever since she was young, Ari did not trust people around her. For her, getting up and mingling with the crowd and smiling along with her friends was something that she needed to do unless she wanted to be ostracized as the black sheep. One who did not obey the rules of the society.

She smiled and laughed along with the people who were next to her, even those who did not have much connection with her. This was the reason not even her closest friends tried to form a deeper form with her, they stayed on their guards, and Ari did not blame them for that.

“It is an interesting challenge,” Ari heard Nicolai say from somewhere, surprised she raised her head and looked at him. She questioned confusingly, “What do you mean by interesting? What are you talking about?”

She was not fascinating. Ariel yes. But not her. She was the gloomy and unwanted sister whom no one paid attention to.

“Getting closer to you, Pallas,” Nicolai shot back with a smile on his face. He leaned back on the chair on which he was sitting and then crossed his ankles under the table.

Ari felt him move his feet against her legs, and she pulled them back. She did not know whether it was intentional or unintentional, Ari did not like him or anyone in her space.

He leaned his face on the back of his clenched knuckles as he remarked, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to get the only person who will see all of your sides, including your deepest, darkest desires and secrets.”

“I don’t have secrets,” Ari countered.

“So was it a yes about me getting close to you?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“No takebacks, baby,” Nicolai spoke in a babyish voice.

Ari’s cheeks eyes widened a fraction as she looked around them before turning to look at the man who was inclined to ruin her life.

“You should not call me that. I am neither your baby nor even your friend,” Ari cleared up the air that seemed to have been tainted by something that occurred between the two of them when Nicolai called her ‘baby.’

Nicolai arched a brow and then titled his head to the side. She watched him poke his tongue against the inside of his cheek. A second later, he said to her, “Are you still hoping that cheating husband of yours would suddenly wake up and make everything right like in fairy tales? Did I snatch something precious from you? I am sorry, I did not know that calling you baby would be that big of a deal.”

He really did not expect Ari to react like such as he called even Aiden, a baby sometimes and that man was his cousin. The word baby did not hold that much importance to him.

Ari breathed and then breathed out. Just as she forced herself to believe that this man was not that bad.

He did something to make her back pedal and think that she was the one who was foolish to believe that there was any good in him.

“For your information, I am not. I just don’t like being called intimate when we are not even acquainted. It might be a thing for you, given the things that I have heard about you, but this is not ….” She frowned, wanting to find the right word without sounding rude. However, a second later she shook her head and decided to give up saying anything. No matter how rude or mean, Nicolai was, he had indeed helped her.

Instead of taking offence, he grinned and offered, “Do you know, if you keep paying so much attention to me, I will start thinking that you have a thing for me.”

“Do you need a psychiatrist’s help? Because having delusions as heavy as this is quite dangerous,” Ari offered with a sweet smile that was downright psychopathic.