Chapter 398
“Who else?” Anathea glanced at the fish slices in the bowl. They’d been thoroughly cleaned beforehand and sliced into even, thin pieces; it was obvious the chef had put a lot of thought and effort into preparing the dish.
But the next second, she sensed Gregory’s aggrieved stare on her, as if accusing her of being a heartless, ignorant woman.
She paused and turned to him, surprised. “What, you made this?”
When did Gregory learn how to slice fish?
“That’s not the point.” Gregory cleared his throat and asked stiffly “Is it good?”
Anathea took in his stoic stance as he stood like a grade–schooler waiting to get his test back from his teacher.
A faint smile curved her lips, and she took another mouthful of the fish stew before delivering a fitting response. “It tastes alright.”
Gregory had been so anxious to hear Anathea’s judgment that his lips were pressed into a tight line. Now that he had her answer, he sighed in relief and said, “Have some more then.”
Anathea dipped her head to continue her meal, but her hair kept falling past her shoulders, troubling her. She was about to pull it back with a hair tie when, the next second, a pair of large, slender hands raked her hair back and secured it.
Anathea slowed down in the middle of chewing.
She kept her gaze down to avoid looking at Gregory. She stared at the fish stew with newfound fascination, keeping her attention on it as she willed her mind to space out. It was the only way to keep her heartbeat from thundering.
However, Gregory seemed intent on making her heart race. After pulling her hair back into a ponytail, he whispered in her ear, his voice gentle but firm, “The person I talked about earlier is very important to me. Very.”
He also wanted to tell her that he might not have thought of them as important under normal circumstances if the person in question wasn’t her.
Anathea nearly dropped the spoon, shock and other emotions rippling through her gaze.
She tried her hardest to quell them, but Gregory gripped her wrist and asked her seriously, “You were that person, right?”
He phrased it like a question, but it came out more like a statement Even though he already had the answer, he still wanted to hear Anathea admit it herself.
Anathea’s breath hitched. Under Gregory’s expectant and urgent gaze, she pressed her lips into a thin line and didn’t answer. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” Gregory suddenly recalled what Louie had told him earlier. His brows knitted together. “Is it because you think I’m irrelevant, so you don’t even want to admit to having saved me all those years ago?”
His arms were braced on either side of her, his towering figure casting a shadow over her. He leaned forward, inching so close to her that his warm breath tickled her face.
Anathea’s fingers intertwined as she bit her bottom lip, her heart tightening. Memories that she had locked up out of fear began playing in her mind, and an icy feeling overcame her like a tidal wave.
A pair of hands clenched around her neck in a vise–like grip, holding her head under the lake’s surface. She wanted to scream for help, but the freezing lakewater gushed into her throat, drowning ber in a prickling, suffocating sensation.
She could hear a woman’s menacing voice ringing in her ears. “If you so much as breathe a word about what happened today, I’ll drown you.”
Anathea felt her airway close up for a second. At that moment, it was as if she’d spiraled into the nightmare from years ago, and she became mute with fear.
