Chapter 99 - Clash of the titans (2)

"What pastries do you want?" Loren asked the women, sweetly, in his soft voice when they reached the dessert stall. 

The beautifule cakes and confectionaries were lined up elegantly, each a masterpiece. 

There were opera cakes, neatly layered, domes that were glazed to perfection with the daintiest decorations of tempered chocolate, tarts with meringue and the most mouthwatering short crust pastry shells...there was an endless choice! 

The line was long, but Loren had a word with the young girl standing at the counter, and she let them come through before everyone else waiting without hesitation. 

She was clearly mesermized by the beautiful man who had so politely asked if he could bring his friends forward.

Even though everyone else waiting was annoyed, they couldn't help but remain silent and stare at the god of a man who was escorting two ladies to the front of the line. 

Lina kept looking away from the crowd in embarrassment. 

'Does he have no shame!' she thought to herself, angrily. 

Mana didn't care. For once, she was loving the attention she never seemed to get, even though most of the stares her way were questioning and envious. 

"What do you recommend that I pick?" she asked Loren sweetly, her eyes shining in excitement. 

Mana wondered what he would say. She wanted to know what he wanted to pick so she could get the same. 

"Hmm...I think you would enjoy the lemon meringue tart. The flavours are assuring and traditional, they compliment each other well. You will like it!" he gave Mana a cheeky thumbs up, after his little speech about the tart. 

She giggled cutely. 

"Okay, I'll get that one, then!" 

Loren nodded at the sales girl. She immediately packed up one of the lemon meringue tarts. 

"What would you like, Lina?" he asked her next, his eyes playful. 

She scowled at him even harder. 

"I'm not hungry, and I hate desserts!" she told him, with finality. 

She had no intention to accept cakes from a man who wasn't her husband. 

"Nevermind, I'll pick for you!" he said with a casual shrug. 

He turned around and observed all the little pastries again. 

His eyes stopped at one, and his lips curled up into a smile.

He pointed at a small, delicately cut little cake slice. The square slice had two colours of cake making a checkerboard pattern, like a chessboard. 

"I'm picking the Battenberg cake for you," he said, looking at Lina with a calm, unbothered expression, "It was created to comemorate the marriage of two royal houses in Europe."

Lina scoffed. 

"So? I won't eat it." 

"You shouldn't reject a gift when someone presents it to you so wholeheartedly. Mana will accept it, won't you?" he looked at Mana, deliberately wearing a softer expression. 

"Yes! Yes, of course!" she said. Mana immediately walked over to the girl at the counter who was wrapping the cakes up. 

Lina was left alone with Loren for a moment. 

He looked up at her, his expression entirely different from the soft one he used to convince Mana. 

His eyes were icy and taunting. 

"Do you like playing chess?" 

"No." Lina said, sharply. 

"That's a pity...a king needs protection, after all." 

Lina's eyes flashed as she looked up at him. Why did this sound so familiar!

The checkerboard Battenberg cake, comemorating a marriage, a chessboard...a king needing protection. 

Who was this man, Loren? 

Before she could question him, Mana was back. 

Loren's face turned sweetly soft again. 

He handed the girl at the counter money for the cakes, and thanked her. 

"It was lovely to meet you ladies, please enjoy the cakes." he said politely, as he bowed and left them as suddenly as he met them. 

"Wait--!" Mana was about to ask him if he wanted a cake too. 

But Loren had already disappeared into the crowd. 

Mana sighed longingly. 

"What a nuisance!" Lina commented angrily, staring at the place where Loren had disappeared to. 

"Nuisance?! Li, he was so charming! I wanted to talk to him longer! You could have been nicer!" Mana whined, irritably. 

"Nicer?! There was something off about him! You would have picked up on it, if you weren't too busy drooling over his looks!" Lina shot back. 

"Easy for you to say! I'm 26, never had a serious boyfriend, slaving away 16 hours a day at work, no chance at a real life! You hit the jackpot, waking up with Shen as your husband!" 

Mana was losing her temper. 

Lina had been absent from her life the last three months. 

She had been struggling with work and stress, had no social life or free time and her parents kept pressuring her to quit her job and marry a boy they had selected. 

Lina was angry now, too. 

Mana had dragged her into this crowded place, without informing her beforehand. Then she had dragged her along with an unknown man, who seemed very suspcious, without regard for her feelings about it, and now she felt entitled to screaming at her?! 

"You know what, Mana? Earlier, before I almost fainted, I regained all my memories of you. I didn't have a chance to tell you then, because that suspicious man Loren turned up. But, even though I remember you now, I didn't think you could be so inconsiderate to mine and my husband's safety." 

"What safetly, Li?! You're a consultant! You're an important person, I get it! So is your great husband -- I get that too! But you're acting like someone's going to assassinate you at any point! When did you get so paranoid?!" 

Mana was right about this. Before her coma, Lina wasn't so reclusive, or protective or panicky. 

But how was Lina to explain to her, her identity seemed to be the cause of so much trouble? She herself didn't know the secrets of her own past that were causing her to watch her back constantly. 

"All I know is that two people tried to kill me. If I'm not careful, next time, they'll succeed."

Lina turned her back on her best friend, as she said this, and walked away. 

What would Mana know about guns and assassins? It was better to keep her out of it. She'd be safe that way too. 

Mana's hands clenched in anger as she watched Lina walk away. 

'Does she think she can give herself so much importance! She probably just met with an accident, and now she thinks the whole world is seeking her out?!' Mana thought to herself. 

As Mana wallowed in her angry thoughts, she felt a delicate hand tap her shoulder. 

"Fight with your friend?"