Eyes on the ceiling watching nothing, face drawn with pain while in bed leaning on her back, Nadia Browne was deep in a heap of thoughts.
"What do I do?" For hours, her soul was stuck in constant torment, scratching her head.
"Besides the sad ending of my love life with Marlon there's Bob Lee, a nice guy who is getting married to another lady _ the same guy who craved to keep me and I refused his humble request... matters worse, I've just discovered that he is a billionaire CEO."
Regretful thoughts raced within her mind.
"Had I known that I was to end up lonely, I would have held so tight on the bird that flew in my arms, ready to be kept," a tear rolled down her cheek, silently haunted by her own decisions.
In other words, Nadia Browne regretted on the huge loss she made when she failed to give Bob Lee a chance in her life, thinking she had gold already in Marlon.
"Only a fool like me, with all this beauty ends up lonely," her head couldn't give her space to rest, as painful judgments upon blames on herself piled.
Suddenly, as her head was still drifting with crushing thoughts, adding and multiplying but no substantial results to solve the pain equation in her soul, her mobile phone rang.
Hesitantly, after it had gone multiple seconds of ringing, she stretched a hand and fetched it from the bedside where it was.
"My Love," the screen read when she lazily looked at it.
"Damn, this man!" she blurted.
With obvious signs of strong dislike and mind distress, "I don't want anything to do with this jerk _ nothing he does now that I care about anymore!" at the back of her mind Nadia said.
She slided, "No," on the screen, rejecting his call and blocking his contact immediately.
As if that wasn't enough, after thinking for a second, she even deleted it out of her phone contacts _ as if deleting wasn't enough too, Nadia threw the phone away at the edge of the bed where she kept her legs.
And just like she told her friend Sonia, Nadia cut Marlon inside out, off her life for good.
However, after throwing the phone, Nadia sat up abruptly. She gazed intently at it with eagerness.
In the midst, thoughts battled, "No, Yes!" Confused for almost a minute while looking at the phone. All over a sudden, she moved and grabbed it back in hand.
Quickly, on tension she scrolled through the many contacts she had and, "Pretty boy," she stopped scrolling immediately she landed on this saved contact name.
Totally anxious about the dramatic move she was about to make, Nadia took a deep breathe and sat upright.
"Only a fool looses without trying," she spoke aloud to herself with determination.
Nadia braved the tension and anxiety and dialed the contact.
While on the dinning table spooning gravy onto his potatoes, of course with his mother and fiancée Ishtar filling their stomachs with the last meal of the day as well, Bob Lee's phone rang down on the table right next to his glass of red wine. There was no caller ID when he looked at the screen.
To avoid disturbing his fork to mouth session, Bob Lee chose to answer through the loud speaker instead of holding the phone on his ear.
"Hello!" Calmly in a free state of mind he responded.
"Hope you've been well Bob Lee!" A female voice he could never forget that left injuries on his soul echoed when his mother and Ishtar were listening.
Bob Lee jumped startledly, loosing grip off his spoon, hence it fell down on the floor.
"Excuse me!" In panick, as he turned off the loud speaker, accidentally he knocked the wine glass down and spilled all the wine on the table, "sorry...," upon apologising for the mess, he qickly picked the phone on its verge to get wet and stood up real quick, to go somewhere private where he could possibly express himself freely in a conversation.
His mother and fiancée Ishtar looked at him like; "what the hell is going on!" At the back of their minds, while he panicked. Suspicious and sad, Ishtar began forking the food on her plate lazily. She felt kind of jealousy.
So fast on the stairs, he got to his bedroom and closed himself inside.
"Nadia!" He exclaimed impulsively.
"How have you been Bob Lee?" As a master of manupilative techniques, back in part two, with trust in her charming soft voice, Nadia politely greeted.
"Why the hell are you calling me now like you care? Why are you even contacting me for heavens sake?" With sparking anger in his voice, "have you forgotten the spiteful way you talked to me when I desperately desired your loving?" Question on question, he expressed wrath.
"I've slapped my face heavily since that day, hating how I treated our relationship and I'm here to carry the heavy cross for my own crimes," with too much humbleness she said.
"You're a rattle snake in the garden of Eden Nadia _ a temptation! And the wounds you left on me, am glad to tell you they healed _ and, since we don't have a strong bond together, better off to pretend we've never met!" Angrily, Bob Lee wasn't kind.
It was a way for him to relieve the full month inner suffering.
Nadia softly began to go tricky on his mind.
"I am ready to be punished in any way you want; my contact won't go off this time... It's alright, any punishment you choose for me, I'll be here waiting."
"Really Nadia?!" Her words seemed to have a magical effect on him, Bob Lee sighed in disbelief.
By giving her a listening ear, it was a golden opportunity, exactly what she wished for.
"You may choose not to forgive me," Nadia sniffed like she was crying, "it's also a harsh punishment for me _ It's my fault to force staying away from you after realizing that my heart deeply desired you, I accept."
"That's a lie Nadia! You never wanted to talk with me! And when you talked your voice sounded careless! Matters worse you even changed your contact, clearly indicating you didn't need me to bother you!" All she could feel was anger in his voice.
But she expected the worst from him when she made the call.
"You were too magnificent for me, that's why I was scared to continue with you... but until today, I've fought with myself to get over your feelings and failed," only lies could save her.
Bob Lee felt proud on hearing this.
Besides, among all the ladies he used to play with, Nadia Browne was a different version of story. She had really snatched his mind, body and soul away from him in just that one night they spent in a hotel suite together. That little time left big memories.
Bob Lee couldn't get over Nadia.
At this moment, on the phone whenever she talked, Bob Lee felt compassion for her tricky sniffing and whipping. His pain and anger were out of the window, replaced with affection.
However, he didn't want to show how easily his defense was softened. He continued to put on a show.
"You think this is how it's gonna end! Hurt me so deeply _ take a month then come back, apologize and all-over a sudden every thing is okay? A lie to yourself! Do you even know how your carelessness nearly led me loose my life?"
But Nadia was wise enough to read and tell that the anger ingredient in his voice is lost, not as it had been _ and he was only holding himself on nothing not to drown but he had already drowned, getting to the levels where she needed him.
Walking around the room with the phone on her ear, a smile quirking the corners of her mouth, as though she was delighted that she had finally done this, that she had made him land on her trap so easily.
"I will be here at my place waiting for your punishment, anytime any day," indirectly telling him that her body was available for him.
Bob Lee, still captured in a moment, thinking of a suitable response, intentionally Nadia disconnected her phone immediately after manipulating him with her soft charming voice. Slowly, he took the arm down, phone off his ear, thinking.
Nadia gave him a very harmful distraction.
The ball was now in his coat, the choice was his to make; to either score with it in net or give it away. Once again, he was left hanging in a situation where he had to make a manly decision.
However, hearing from Nadia was a big rescue that his soul unknowingly began to heal, amending heart broken walls.
'Nothing, I just don't need this relationship any more!' He remembered the carelessness in Nadia's words a month ago. "Impossible, you're evil Nadia!" He dumped the phone on his bedroom couch and walked out.
Down the stairs, he walked back to the dining table. Went to his fiancée Ishtar and stamped a peck on her cheek, carrying a cheerful face. Back in his plate position, he sat comfortably.
With eagerness, from when he was walking down stairs, his mother and fiancée Ishtar are looking at him. He stretches a hand, fetches the wine bottle and pours another half for himself, for a new beginning.
Last but not least, he serves more food on his plate beyond his usual gauge to satisfy his suddenly raised appetite.
He eats totally differently when he returns, full of high appetite.