Raven settled down on an empty triple seat in the back of the bus, taking the window side. Her eyes fell on her reflection in the translucent glass; the bleeding hadn't stopped. She wouldn't have noticed Aidan's thumb ring if he hadn't slapped her.
An uncontrolled smile appeared on her lips, and tears filled her eyes. The slap hurt, but it was better for her to take it than Richard. It was good that she ended a potential fight between the two.
However, questions lingered in her mind. Why did Richard show up there? Why was he following her? She resolved to ask him when she returned. For now, she needed to focus on meeting her father. She wondered if he had any surprises for her.
As the bus moved, Raven noticed Aidan following in his car, sometimes behind and sometimes beside the bus, racing on the road. She tried not to pay attention to him, but her mind kept wandering. How would the old her have reacted? Aidan was acting like a real husband whose wife was mad at him. But she was no longer the same person.
Aidan still liked to show off, she thought. She glanced at her phone, trying not to be invested in him, and saw a text from Selena hovering on the screen. Now, it all makes sense. Selena must have informed Richard and exaggerated the situation.
[Selena: That man was Aidan??!? You didn't tell us!]
Raven sighed deeply and ignored the message. She didn't want to start a drama. Selena knew about Aidan and her past feelings for him. She would have reacted weirdly if Raven had introduced him. She might have shouted in front of him and made strange faces, confusing him as to why she acted like she saw Raven's crush.
Aidan was not her crush anymore. Those feelings had faded.
Lost in her thoughts, she was startled when two guys sat beside her, even though nearly half the bus was empty. She glared at them, but they grinned at her. It was weird.
They must have seen the slap mark and thought she ran away from home. In their eyes, she might be an innocent prey that they could hunt openly.
"You're bleeding," one of them said, pointing his finger at her, nearly touching her face. She flinched and replied, "My husband hit me," playing along, pretending to be oppressed.
"Husband… these days, they are quite violent," the other one said as he noticed his partner's color draining and gave him a reassuring look.
The first man regained his confidence and said, "What kind of husband would hit a pretty girl like you?" His hands approached her arm, but she jerked away.
"That kind of husband," she said, pointing at Aidan's car and moving away to let them see clearly. Aidan wasn't popular, but his car was.
"Your husband is rich?" The two asked, their eyes glittering as if they had hit a jackpot, thinking of kidnapping her for ransom.
"Yes, he is from the Azure Family," she nodded with a bright smile that took over their excitement.
The Azure family used to be weak among the elites, and her father had helped them several times. But things changed over the years when Aidan took over half of the business. He grew stronger, and people began to fear him because, unlike her father and others, he didn't have a good temper. He would easily resort to illegal means of taking care of things.
In short, Aidan always stood against the law, walking on his own ethics and morals.
How did she know all this? It took her years to connect bits of information from her father's slips of the tongue, which she later confirmed with Aidan's sister. It turned out to be true. She still felt guilty for calling his brother a 'scoundrel' on chat.
"Madam, our stop is here," The two men stood up and left hurriedly as soon as the bus stopped. Raven smirked at them. It worked after all. Nobody would believe her if she said she used a rogue to get out of a situation peacefully.
If Aidan hadn't been there, she might have slapped the two men and shouted at them, but this wouldn't have worked successfully. The bus was full of teenagers and working women, hardly any good men. Nobody would have helped her if those two decided to fight back with force.
She closed her eyes and leaned back. It would take her another hour to reach her father. She had tried calling him and even texting her mother, but neither of them answered.
Ten minutes later, she got a call from her father.
"I sent Aidan to pick you up…." Before he could finish, her hidden anger burst, and she replied, keeping her composure, "Which was highly inappropriate. I am taking the bus as usual and will reach you soon."
"Why would you take the bus? I wanted you to come sooner; that is why I sent him." His words thundered, fueling her anger, but she swallowed it back. She shouldn't argue with him.
"Father, you should have at least given him my number or my name. It's the bare minimum when you send someone to look for me. He was standing for three hours in the sun, hungry and tired. Anyway, I thought I wouldn't survive in his car because he drove half-asleep," she said. It wasn't false, but it wasn't the real reason she got out of his car in the first place.
It was Aidan himself. His narrow eyes and thin lips resembled those of the main character of the drama she had been watching recently. Out of the blue, he reminded her of that character, and her heart skipped a beat.
However, on top of that, the way he advertised her as his wife and the way he talked to her as if she were some criminal made her furious. She did borrow his name to get rid of those two scoundrels, but it wasn't the same. She would have used anyone, even Richard, if she had to save herself.
He could have chosen to say the truth, 'Hey, I am looking for Raven Rain. She's a family friend.'
She must be overthinking again. He must have said it in a fit of rage after standing in the sun for hours.
"Make sure you are dressed well, then. I had asked Aidan to bring you to the mall. Now I know where he spent all that time I gave him. Is it true? He waited for you?" Her father sounded quite interested in Aidan's good behavior. Isn't he the same person who always badmouthed him? He always said Aidan was a scoundrel who would go to jail sooner or later.
She hung up the phone, feeling her father was not being cautious at all.
Raven was curious: why did her father ask and allow Aidan to accompany her to shop for a birthday dress? What right did this stranger have? As a man of her age, it was highly inappropriate.
If her mother knew that her father was being clueless again and sending her with a stranger to pick up a dress, she would surely give him an earful. Raven wasn't going to tell her mother about her father sending Aidan to her university. But this thing about the dress? She would inform her mother for sure.
Her father sometimes lost his senses in an attempt to become open-minded and liberal. He didn't understand how weird it was for Aidan to come with her to choose a dress. Perhaps, she was being orthodox, but if he wanted to be open-minded, why didn't he teach her how to drive a car, let her go to the gym, or allow her to go on a solo trip?
This so-called liberal ideology of his would surely bring her a huge disaster. Today's Richard incident was just a trailer. She couldn't forget Aidan's words when he confronted Richard: 'I am her husband. Why do you care?'
A man who had nothing to do with her had the audacity to make false claims in front of people, identifying himself as her husband. It shouldn't be taken lightly.
Let's say Aidan had that kind of personality. But then, her father was acting weird too. Why would he send a man he hates to his daughter? He should keep her safe and away from him.
"I should keep my distance from Aidan. I can't associate myself with him," she affirmed herself and folded her arms. "I cannot fall for the person I moved on from. He is, after all, Aidan of Azure. I am no match for him."
"So, you are afraid of me?" a voice interrupted her thoughts.
"So, you are afraid of me?" Aidan asked, his voice tinged with a mix of curiosity and regret. The question hung in the air, unexpectedly heavy, and Aidan felt a strange, piercing pain in his heart. He had intended to tease her, but the backlash was immediate and confusing.
Raven froze at his words, her face turning paler. Her reaction was telling—was she genuinely scared of him? The thought twisted in Aidan's mind. Was it because of the slap? He needed to explain it to her, to tell her that it was an accident, that he would never intentionally hurt her. The slap was meant for that bastard, not her.
Aidan moved to sit next to her, his presence looming. Raven held her breath, her body stiffening as if she were bracing herself against a tidal wave. She turned her head away, her cheeks flushing with the effort of holding her breath, and opened the window to look outside, effectively ignoring him.
The silence between them was suffocating. Aidan narrowed his eyes, frustration bubbling up. He wanted her to speak, to scold him if she needed to, but not to act as if she were truly scared of him. He placed a hand on her shoulder and demanded, "Answer me!"
"Get your hands off me!" Raven snapped, glaring at him as she jerked his hand away. Aidan was taken aback, feeling a mix of humiliation and anger as he noticed the disapproving gazes from the other passengers. He was worried they would mistake him for a molester harassing a defenseless girl. The slap mark on her face only added to the misunderstanding.
'You are a stranger to her,' a voice in his head reminded him. Despite their past, despite the memories they shared, he was a stranger now. This realization stung more than he expected. He didn't want to be a stranger or even just an acquaintance; he wanted to be more than that.
The word "husband" had slipped out earlier, a desperate attempt to claim some connection to her, but now he doubted its impact. He looked around, feeling the weight of the public's judgment. He wanted to explain that he knew her, that she knew him, but the question gnawed at him—what exactly was he to her?
"I know him. He is with me," Raven's voice broke through his thoughts, her breath brushing against his ear. Aidan felt a sudden calm wash over him, her words soothing the turmoil inside him. He turned to look at her, but she had already turned away, her gaze fixed on the window.
"Thanks," he muttered, hoping for more, but she remained silent. The pain of her distance gnawed at him. If it weren't for Uncle William sending him, he might never have remembered her. Now that he had, an unexplainable pain tormented him.
"Did the bleeding stop?" he asked, his voice softer now. Guilt gnawed at him, and he hoped that addressing her wound might ease his conscience.
"Hmph," she responded, still not looking at him. The dismissive noise stung, and Aidan fought the urge to grab her face and make her look at him, to see the hurt he had caused. He wanted to apologize for more than just the physical wound.
"Does it hurt?" he asked again, hoping for more than a curt response.
"Mister Aidan, I am made of flesh and bone; it will hurt if I am hurt. But don't blame yourself, I know you wanted to hit Richard," Raven replied, her voice calm but distant.
Aidan's eyes widened. 'Why must you burn me like this?' he thought, feeling a surge of anger. Richard's name on her lips felt like a slap. Was he her boyfriend? The thought of their closeness irritated him.
"You said it was highly inappropriate for your father to send me to pick you up, but do you know he even asked me to get you a dress for some event?" Aidan said, his tone laced with frustration.
"My birthday," Raven answered, her voice steady.
"What?" Aidan was taken aback. Her birthday? He hadn't realized.
She turned to him finally, nodding. "The event is my birthday."
Before he could process this, she continued, "You don't have to worry about anything. If, in the future, my father asks you to run strange errands like this, just ignore him. After two or three times, he will not bother you."
Aidan scoffed, "I am obedient to my father, and Uncle William is also like my father. I will not refuse him. Why should I offend him just because you asked me? What am I to you?"
Raven's eyes narrowed. "Will you rob a bank if he wants you to?" she asked, her tone firm.
"Gladly, not just that, I need one command, just one..." Aidan leaned closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "I will kill, I will murder, I will massacre. I will do anything for him."
Raven paled again, her breath hitching. "You have gone crazy. Why would you be this loyal to my father?"
Aidan's eyes softened as he looked at her wound. "Why are you obedient to him?" she asked again, her voice softer, almost pleading.
Aidan didn't have an answer. He wasn't obedient, but he wanted to be. He had never been in Uncle William's good graces, and it hadn't bothered him before. But now, with Raven's disapproval and her distance, he found himself regretting his past indifference. He wanted to be someone she could trust—someone she could see as more than just a stranger.