Chapter 4

Shantala shuddered at Klauss' claim but she would never want to show that she was still afraid of him. It was for this reason that she knew he would be glad to see that she could still be under his full control. If he sees that, he would make use of her again and history repeats itself. It would be another nightmarish experience for her.

Thus, she squared her shoulders and held her head high.

"You do not own me, Klauss. What we had back then was nothing but a relationship in vain. I do not want to stay here any longer so just tell me what you want and let us get this over with."

Klauss simply snickered as he leaned back on his seat without breaking eye contact with her. He must admit that he still liked how hard she tried to act tough when in fact, he knew that sooner or later, that façade she was building around her would collapse. It would only take a few tries of sweet-talking and he would make her surrender to him like how he did it in the past.

"I am going to look for your sister. In return, let her take her place back as the rightful wife of Hyperion. Become Luna again and we will both go back to the way we used to be."

She scoffed as she rolled her eyes to the sides. She was right. The audacity of this man was indeed deeply engraved in his bones that up until now seemed to have grown thicker than

before. He did not change into someone better, that was for sure.

"To the way we used to be? You abandoned me before, Klauss. You abandoned me after I did all those things for you. You left me all by myself when I needed you the most and now that I am doing fine, you suddenly show up and say that you want to go back to the past? For what? So you can repeat what you did? Klauss, after that night you left me soaking wet in rain and blood, you ended our relationship. It was you who left, not me."

Shantala wanted to say a lot more things. Her memories way back then with him were running wild in her mind but her eyes grew teary and at any second, her voice would break so she chose to keep quiet. She did not want to cry in front of her jerk ex-lover.

Klauss, on the other hand, was rendered speechless as he stared at Shantala who was on the verge of breaking down. It reminded him that she almost looked like the way she did years ago—confused and helpless. He did leave her alone that night to save himself from the trouble that brought about the plan he devised against one of his rivals. However, he returned to save her but the moment he did, Shantala was no longer around.

He could not find her until just yesterday. He wanted to apologize but the words did not dare come out from his mouth as he felt like his throat would become drier if he ever spouted a single word of apology.

Not wanting to prolong their discussion that only brought her back to the past she wanted to forget, Shantala stood from her seat. She clutched at the sling of her bag to keep her courage together and gather some strength to let her feet walk her away from that nasty place reeking of her ugly past.

"Instead of coming to me acting all proud and high, you should apologize first. And you do not have to find my sister. I will look for her myself."

Without saying anything else, she turned her back and strutted her way out of the café. As she walked down the stairs, she wiped off the tears that finally fell on her cheeks. To make sure that Klauss would not run after her, she ran three blocks away from the apartment where she left him. Upon making a sharp turn behind a huge building, she let out a guttural sound as she bumped into something quite solid.

The tip of her nose seemed to have received the most damage as she held it in place, afraid that it could go crooked on the other side. Looking ahead ready to curse on whatever she bumped into, but her tongue went numb upon seeing a man wearing a royal blue three-piece suit. He was holding a phone in one hand where she could see his wristwatch, the thing that her nose probably met when they bumped into each other.

She gulped at the sight of him because even with the black mask trimmed with silver on the sides that covered almost all of his face with only half of his lips visible, Shantala felt like he was making an angry face.

She could feel the man's stare seemingly boring deep into her that she croaked, "I-I'm so sorry."

The man remained quiet and simply turned on his heels and went inside the building. Shantala, on the other hand, kept her eyes on him trying to remember where she had seen such a familiar man. Holding her temple that suddenly started to ache, she suddenly saw a glimpse in her memories of the same man wearing such a mask on a certain occasion. But that was it. She must have met him before personally that even her brain tried to make her remember it but because of some reason she could not tell, the whole memory of that time just won't unravel.

However, even if she did meet him or not in person, she knew who that man was. Just like Klauss, he was also a man whose name was known but this time, it was not in the field of medicine but in the business industry.

Helios Ranford. It would be of great mystery if no one in their city, Estermouth, would not know of such a name. His family was the founder and largest shareholder of the Ranford Corporate group whose business did not only bloom in their country but also in other foreign lands. But other than his family background, Helios was also well-known as the Masked CEO.

Others say that he was hiding his ugly face so that no one was able to look at him directly if he were to show his real appearance. Though, the others say that it was the opposite, saying that his beauty could make any woman fall and in order to avoid being flocked by them, he decided to wear a mask. Other rumors would say that he was hiding the scar that he got from a fire when he was younger. Whatever the truth was, Shantala was really not that interested.

She knew better than anyone that getting caught up with men like him would be a lot of trouble. She had once experienced such hellish life before when she was head over heels towards Klauss and it would not be something she wanted to go through all over again. And not to mention, she also had to deal with Hyperion... a mafia boss this time. Sometimes, she could not just help but think that she was simply a magnet of bad luck.

Since she came across the café she always liked, she decided to drop by and clear her mind first. And now that Klauss had once again tried to get back with her, she had to find a way to get away from him without having him expose her secret. Looking at the people passing by the café, she could only heave, wishing that she was one of those women working in a private company wearing a blouse and a skirt as their uniform. It had always been her dream to work in a company as an accountant but such a dream was nothing but a fleeting one.

After the death of her mother, that dream had gone along with the sea foams since she had to look after her younger siblings as the eldest daughter. Upon finishing her cup of coffee, she was about to cross the street to head back to their apartment. But when a car honked after passing by her, her eyes caught a glimpse of her watch, her eyes widened.

Cursing under her breath, she hailed a cab and told the driver to bring her to the private beach house. She did leave a note saying that she would be out for a while but a part of her was whispering that Hyperion might track her down if he could not contact her. The worse part? He would find out that she was seeing a bachelor behind his back. Knowing how bad-tempered he was according to the clients she spoke to, she did not want to face such a predicament.

Upon reaching the beach house, she ran inside and almost tripped on her foot upon seeing Hyperion wearing a casual shirt and a pair of dark pants. She just did not expect that he would return before her.

"I tried to call you but it seemed like you turned off your phone," he said as he set aside his phone.

Shantala took a deep breath before flashing him a smile. "Ah, yes. I had an urgent student council meeting a while back so I turned it off."

Hyperion knitted his eyebrows as he walked towards her with a bit of probably confusion or suspicion growing inside him. He just could not help but feel a bit weirded out by his wife's actions lately since he noticed that she had changed quite a bit ever since they got married.

"No, she is probably still new about our new arrangement," he thought, shaking away his previous thoughts before giving Shantala a kiss on the forehead.

"Your graduation is just six months away from now. You only need that much time before you can finally be freed from your student responsibilities," he whispered.

That news, even though it would be a relief for Hyperion, somehow felt like a ticking bomb for her. A deadline she had to meet to find Stacey. Her thoughts, however, got back to Hyperion when she heard him heave out a rather heavy sigh.

"Is something bothering you?" she asked.

She felt him shake his head over her shoulder as his hands snaked around her hips.

"Just the thought of you finally graduating somehow makes me excited but at the same time, frustrated."

"Why is that?"

Hyperion backed for a bit before leaning his forehead onto hers as he looked deep into her eyes which seemed to draw him deeper into her own world.

"You said back then that you wanted to take an engineering course since you did not really want to be an architect," he replied, his lips pouting like a little kid throwing a bit of a tantrum.

Shantala smiled, hoping that it was not obvious in her expression that she was quite taken aback upon hearing such words from him.

"Ah, don't worry," she said, trying her best to be composed, "I will try my best to be the best wife you could ever have."

Hyperion hugged her again which she returned, caressing his back like a child. Though, her expression was filled with confusion and surprise since Stacey never told her about wanting to be an engineer instead of an architect. All along, she thought that the course she chose for her younger sister was the course she ever wanted but it seemed like she was wrong.

"Stacey," Hyperion called out but Shantala did not respond. "Stacey."

He let her go and held both of her shoulders. He then noticed that the woman in front of him seemed to be in a daze.

"Shantala," he said in a low tone of voice.

His sight narrowed on her as she looked up to him as if she just got back to herself after a trance.