Chapter 463: Long Awaited Confrontation
The cafe was empty. Though, it wasn’t the natural emptiness of a slow business day, or the temporary lull between the breakfast rush and the lunch crowd. Nope, someone rented out an entire establishment simply because one could.
Arzhen Vasiliev sat alone at a table on the second floor, positioned perfectly by the window where the morning light caught the white marble tabletop and made it gleam.
The chair he had chosen was upholstered in soft gray velvet, ergonomically designed. He leaned back in it with ease.
A small wooden box sat on the table in front of him.
His tail, sleek and striped, swished lazily behind him, the only visible sign of movement in an otherwise perfectly still figure. His ears, perched atop his head and covered in the same orange-and-black fur, swiveled occasionally toward the soft jazz playing from the cafe’s hidden speakers.
He had dismissed the staff after they’d brought his coffee. He didn’t need them hovering.
His lawyer had been clear. Now that the divorce had been finalized and the decree signed by all parties, there was exactly one way to have any kind of connection with that woman again. Remarriage. That was it. That was the only door left open.
Cecilia Araceli was a scientist first. Before she was his wife, she was a woman who lived and breathed her work.
The inventions she had created, the shielding technology she had built from scratch, the prototypes she had refined day after obsessive day, those weren’t just projects. They were pieces of her.
She had poured years into them. And the divorce had made her lose all that.
The Vasiliev name had opened doors for her. But it had also closed them. When the marriage ended, so did the access to everything. All the privileges that came with being attached to one of the wealthiest families in the country, gone.
She had walked away from the divorce with nothing, Arzhen sure, because she had been too proud to ask for anything. And now she had nothing. No lab. No team. No shield. No work.
As pathetic as it was, she wouldn’t just leave it behind. She couldn’t. That wasn’t who she was. So why was she still staying away? Why was she still refusing to come back?
This jewelry box was just bait. He was giving her a reason for her to come out of hiding and face him. So what? He’d extend the olive branch first.
Making a tantrum like this, disappearing, ignoring his messages, forcing him to track down what leverage he had over her just to get a response... heh.
And even bonding with a dragon, of all things. Standing on the edge of annihilation with a white dragon at her back like some kind of fairy tale princess. How far was she going to take this?
Parading around with mythical creatures and making headlines and pretending she had moved on, pretending she had built some new life that had nothing to do with him?
Please. It was obvious what she was doing. It was all just to get his attention. It had to be. What other explanation was there?
Arzhen’s tail flicked with irritation. He reached for his coffee, took a slow sip, and glanced out the window.
He froze.
A small truck had pulled up across the street.
It was boxy and diminutive. The kind of vehicle that belonged on a farm, or anywhere other than the immaculate streets of this district. It pulled up across the road with a putter that Arzhen could almost hear through the glass, its engine working far too hard to achieve very little.
And sitting on the truck bed, surrounded by shovels, was a man.
Arzhen narrowed his eyes. The man on the truck bed was... a very handsome man. Tall, even sitting down, with shoulders so broad they seemed to strain against the seams of his plain white t-shirt.
His hair was short and neat, white as fresh snow, and it caught the morning light in a way that made it look almost luminous.
He held a shovel loosely in one hand, its blade resting against the truck bed, and his posture was relaxed. He looked like someone who had nowhere important to be and no one important to impress.
Arzhen’s tiger ears swiveled forward. His tail stopped mid-swish.
The truck’s passenger door opened, and a woman stepped out.
She was wearing a soft cream blouse, tasteful and well-fitted, the fabric draping elegantly over the gentle curve of her belly. Her blonde hair was styled with simple care, falling in waves over her shoulders.
She slung her purse over her right arm, then turned back toward the truck.
She waved.
The man on the truck bed raised his shovel-free hand and waved back. It was a casual wave.
And she smiled, brightly and warmly. It genuinely transformed her entire face, softened her eyes, made her look younger and lighter and happier than Arzhen had ever seen her during the entirety of their marriage.
That was unmistakably his ex-wife.
Arzhen’s coffee cup hovered halfway to his lips and stopped there, forgotten. His reflection stared back at him from the window glass, dark eyes narrowed, jaw tight, the faintest furrow beginning to crease his brow.
Who was that man?
The kei truck pulled away, merging back into traffic with all the urgency of a sleepy beetle. The white-haired man adjusted his grip on his shovel, settled back against the cab, and disappeared around the corner.
Cecilia stood on the curb for a moment, watching them go, that smile still lingering at the corners of her mouth. Then she turned and began walking toward the cafe.
A kei truck?
How far had she fallen?
He had truly half-expected her to bring the dragon. The white dragon he had seen on the news footage. That would have made sense.
Arrive on the back of a mythical beast, make a scene, remind everyone that she had somehow bonded with a creature worth more than most nations. That was the kind of entrance Arzhen had prepared himself to dismiss.
But a small truck? And not even her own truck? She had been dropped off, brought along by some people who clearly had another destination in mind, who hadn’t even bothered to park. They just let her out on the curb like a passenger on a shared errand.
No. That man. The one on the truck bed.
Even on first glance, he didn’t seem normal. The white hair, the breadth of his shoulders, even the way he had held that shovel like someone who could have used it for something other than digging.
Was he... the white dragon? The one from the news? In human form?
But again, a kei truck?
A dragon, ancient and powerful, someone who should’ve been worth more than the GDP of a small country, was riding in the back of a miniature flatbed with a pile of gardening equipment?
Cecilia crossed the street below. Her stride was unhurried and her cream blouse catching the breeze. She paused at the crosswalk, waited for the signal, and proceeded.
Arzhen scoffed, his breath fogging the glass.
He leaned back in his seat, the soft gray velvet sighing under his weight and pulled out his phone.
She even dared to be late.
He would wait. He would let her climb the stairs, let her explain the kei truck, the white-haired man, the smile, the lateness, all of it. And then he would find out exactly what game she was playing.
He would break her. He would remind her of everything she had lost. Everything she had thrown away. Everything she could never get back without him. And then, when she was desperate enough, when she was humble enough, he would let her beg.
The footsteps reached the top of the stairs.
Arzhen straightened in his chair. He adjusted the cuffs of his shirt. He arranged his features coldly.
Cecilia walked in.
She walked directly to his table, her cream blouse catching the light, her blonde hair swaying with each step, and without a word of greeting, without a single glance at his face, she reached forward and opened the jewelry box.
Her fingers moved through the contents, past the bracelets, past the rings, past the earrings, until they found the cloud necklace.
She lifted it out and held it in her palm for a moment, then she nodded.
"Thanks."
She closed the box, turned on her heel, and started walking away.
Huh?
Arzhen’s brain stuttered. His tail froze mid-swish. His ears swiveled forward as though they had misheard. As though the word "thanks" had been some kind of auditory hallucination.
Did... his ex-wife just walked into his carefully orchestrated confrontation, took what she wanted, and immediately walked away from it?
Not just ready to leave. She was actually leaving. Her footsteps were already carrying her toward the staircase, unhurried and unbothered, her purse swinging lightly from her shoulder, while her fingers still curled protectively around the cloud pendant.
"CECILIA ARACELI!!!"
The roar tore out of him before he could stop it.
He was on his feet. The velvet chair toppled backward and hit the marble floor with a crack that echoed through the empty cafe.
His claws had broken through, four inches of curved tiger keratin shredding through the upholstery of the chair he wasn’t sitting in anymore.
His fangs had lengthened too, pressing against his lower lip, and his breathing—
It was suddenly ragged. Heavy.
What... this woman—
The entire room seemed to warp around his fury. The soft jazz still playing from the hidden speakers suddenly sounded mocking.
The morning light that had seemed so sophisticated a moment ago now felt harsh and exposing. His tail lashed behind him like a whip.
"Come back here!"
Cecilia stopped.
She turned back, one hand resting on the stairway railing, and faced him.
Her expression wasn’t angry. Or afraid. It wasn’t even annoyed.
It was curious.
As though his roar, his claws, his fangs, his barely contained violence, all of it was simply a puzzle she was mildly interested in solving.
"What do you want?"
She asked.
But she might as well be slapping him across the face.
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