AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The look Helios gave her tempted Jaike to smile. The old Helios wouldn’t have been as sensitive. He would have just gone right ahead and asked what he wanted to ask, tact and discretion be damned.MJ had really changed him, Jaike thought wistfully.
Heading back to her half-painted wall, she squatted down and as she dumped the brush into the can of paint, she said, “You can ask me anything about that time. It’s really okay.” Jaike didn’t look at Helios as she spoke, thinking this would make it easier for the President of the Afxisi to bare his soul.
“When it happened...was it like...the greatest betrayal Derek could have done to you?”
She answered simply, “Yes.”
Helios’ fists clenched on the counter as he asked his next question. “If someone had done the same thing to another girl...something as hurtful...someone who wasn’t as...nice as Derek...” He inhaled sharply. “Would you think it’s better for the guy to give up? To simply walk away so that the girl could have the chance to be cherished by a better man?”
Jaike did her best to imagine a life without Derek. The man who loved her the most, and – once upon a time – the man who had also hurt her the most. “I suppose...I could have had a simpler life with another man if Derek hadn’t tried to get me back. A normal life,” she continued, unaware of how her unwitting choice of words made her guest flinch.
“I think...if he had chosen to give me up because he “loves” me, I would probably eventually find some other guy to love. But...” She bit her lip. “There’d always be a part of me that wouldn’t believe him. Because if he really loved me, he should have at least tried to fight for me. He should have given me the chance to say ‘no’.”
She turned to Helios, and for one moment, the poignant smile that had formed on her lips reminded him so much of MJ his heart constricted at the sight of it.
“You see, Helios, I’ve always known I’m an ordinary girl. If Derek had told me he wouldn’t come after me because he loved me too much, a part of me would think it was because I was too ordinary for him. That I’m not worth getting back.” She cocked her head to the side as she dealt him a questioning glance. “Do you want MJ to think the same?”
And with those words, Helios’ life regained direction.
Now, he knew that where MJ was, that was where his life was supposed to lead.
Behind Helios, a doorknob rattled before they heard the door swinging open. There was a second’s pause before someone said in a half-dry, half-irritable tone, “I swear to God, Helios Andreadis, if you are hitting on my girl, you are dead.”
Chapter Four
“Did you see the noteon the board?” MJ’s next-door neighbor in the dorm, Katya Vlahos, asked when MJ entered the common room. Katya was also in her freshmen year, but that was basically the only thing they had in common. It was a well-known fact that Katya was an heiress, had a loving family back home, and hated Greek men with a passion.
MJ shook her head as she threw herself on the vacant space on the couch next to Katya. “Nope. Why? What’s it about?”
“The R.A. wants you.”
She shot up in her seat. “What? Millie? Why?”
Katya looked up from painting her toenails. “I don’t know. It just says so on the board.”
MJ got to her feet with a sigh. “I better check what it’s about.” One of the conditions to getting free boarding in the dorm was playing sidekick to the R.A., a senior Economics student who occupied the sole bedroom on the ground floor. She couldn’t figure out why Millie would post a memo on the board about her when she could have just as easily texted MJ. It boded something ill, and the thought had her hurrying down the stairs.
