2

That night Tiara kept crying, and Theodore’s cruel words kept ringing in her ear. At first, she was mad at her sister, then Theodore, but as time passed, she blamed herself.

If he didn’t want her, then why did he even come close to her? Fine! She agreed that she seduced him and threw herself at him like a slut, but he could have controlled himself.

‘But didn’t I miss noticing the red flag too?’ She questioned herself. From day one, she knew that it was his Lycan who was in love with her but not Theodore. Hell, there was no sign of happiness when he had found her as his mate.

‘I should never have forced him into anything that he didn’t want.’ She thought and ridiculed herself for stooping low. Now that there was no mate bond between them. She could see and think about the situation properly, and even her wolf wasn’t disturbing her.

‘God! When did I turn so pathetic and desperate?’ She wondered, and a lone tear escaped from her eyes again. Her eyes were burning because of continuous crying.

Guilt washed over her. How she used mate bond to wrap Theodore around her fingers, and what happened at the end? He left her feeling suffocated and called her selfish. She was so eager to claim him that she ignored all the things that she could sense through his behavior. Only if she would haven’t forced herself on him, only if she would give him to adjust, only if, and many more only if played in her mind, but it was too late to think about these things.

‘Stop blaming others for the mess you created, Tiara.’ Theodore’s words rang in her ears.

‘Theodore was right. I shouldn’t be blaming him or Lee.’

‘True!! If anyone here is to blame, then it’s you, Tiara. Because of you, I lost my mate, and I will never ever talk with you from now onwards.’ Dora growled at her in anger. She was in pain, to be exact but had masked her pain with anger.

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Dora.’ She said, and all of a sudden, she felt her best friend disappear from her mind, leaving Tiara to deal with the pain alone.

First, she lost her mate, then her pup, and now her wolf, who was also her best friend.

Tiara closed her eyes, and more tears rolled out of her eyes. She lost a lot of important things in her life tonight. All she hoped was that one day… everything fall into the right place, and she would have everything that she lost tonight.

‘Theodore fell for Lia by observing her kind behavior and when he would realize that I’m not bad either. He might come back, and that day, Dora will return too.’ She hoped. But one thing was for sure that she wouldn’t beg to love her. NEVER.

*

The next day, Tiara told her family members that it was she who rejected Theodore because she didn’t want her family members to pour their anger on Theodore for bringing so much pain to her. At the same time, she knew her sister, Liara, very well; she would have never accepted Theodore after knowing that their mate was the one who gave so much to her twin’s sister.

And Tiara had observed how Theodore was madly in love with Liara, so she decided to go ahead with a lie instead of telling the truth and ruining Theodore’s happiness. No, she wasn’t acting to be a saint or a kind-hearted girl.

She was still the same selfish girl. And this time, she was selfish for her love. After all, unconditional love was when someone hurt you, but you cared about that person so much that you chose not to hurt them in return.

The part that she lied about the rejection, Tiara couldn’t share her pain and grief with anyone in front of any of her family members. And at the same time, she just couldn’t go around her human friend and cry over her heartache, and the part that Dora had stopped talking to her had made her life more miserable and depressing than she could have ever thought.

As the day passed, things started going downhills as she started losing her focus on herself and her work. The work that she had loved doing since she was in diapers.

Tiara Haysbert was a famous Hollywood Actress who started appearing in front of the camera when she was in diapers for the advertisement of baby products. It wasn’t that her parents wanted her to start working since then, but the smile, the happiness that Tiara used to have while coming in front of the camera could be seen in her photoshoot that her parents used to get done at some intervals of time to cherish those memories.

And also, Logan Haysbert, Tiara’s grandfather, was fond of taking photos, so he used to invest all his time clicking her pictures while Tiara used to give innocent and cute poses.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Tee?” Michelle, Tiara's manager, exclaimed, watching her state. “You have lost around 15 pounds in just seven days, and there is a dark circle formed under your eyes. Are you even taking care of yourself?” She questioned, looking at Tiara’s miserable state.

Tiara, “...”

Michelle sighed and sat beside her, placing her hand on her shoulder. “Tee!! You can talk to me, sweetheart. I have never seen you in this state, and trust me; I’m scared that if you don’t fix yourself soon, then you might start taking drugs or end up killing yourself.” She added.

Michelle Robinson was Tiara’s Manager for the last four years and never, never had any complaints from her. To her, Tiara was a kind-hearted, funny, and loving girl. Even though Tiara was a star, never did she treated people working under her with disrespect.

“Drugs!! It will ease my pain.” She mumbled, on which Michelle’s eyes widened. Now, she regretted even calling its name in front of her. It wasn’t anything new for people like to involve in this type of stuff. In fact, there were a lot of stars who committed suicide at a very young age. “Do you know where I can find it?”

“Repeat those words again, and the next thing I will do is call your parents to inform about your parents about your behavior,” Michelle warned her and grabbed her phone to update her about her situation with her boss at the agency in which she was working.

“I don’t know what to do, sir. She is behaving strangely lately.” Michelle informed.

‘Hmm. Take her out. If she stays locked between four walls, then she will go crazy.’ There came his reply.

“But.. but this is risky. What if any paparazzi saw her in this state? They will create this news as the hype and might end up writing stupid things about Tee. And We can’t risk that.”

‘I’m sending you the address of one place where you both won’t feel this issue. And you better know how to change her look.’ With that, the call got disconnected. After a few seconds, she received a message from a club that she had never heard of before in LA, but then she didn’t question her boss about it.

Michelle never asked her boss, but she always felt that he bore some feelings for Tiara by observing how he was always concerned and kept an eye on her silently. The way, he didn’t want any man to come near Tiara. The way he dealt with the direction of the movie was in case Tiara faced any issues while working with her co-stars and colleague. What surprised her more was that he never came across her, revealing his identity in front of her. He just stayed behind and looked after her like a guardian angel.

At first, she thought maybe he was doing all this because Tiara was a beautiful and successful actress, but now, she started feeling that he was in love with Tee.

*

“Come on, let’s go,” Michelle said. It took approx an hour to convince Tiara to step outside her room. She wanted Michelle to bring drugs home as if Michelle was some kind of agent who worked in this field. Hell, she was a mother of two kids and had a loving husband; she couldn’t think about having these things in her whole life because she had heard that ‘Drugs take you to hell, disguised as heaven.’

“I’m not saying that I will become a drug addict, but I just want to try for once.” Tiara shared her plan. “Just one time, Michi.”

“Fine! One time if you will tell me what the fuck is wrong with you?” With that question, Tiara shut her mouth. “Drugs cancel then.” She added. Michelle’s plan was to make her drink a lot of Alcohol and make her tell the truth. It was clear that Tiara was in pain, and she wanted to help her by talking about her issue instead of letting her do stupid things.

When Michelle and Tiara reached the club that her boss had recommended to her, Michelle was shocked to see that, except for one Bartender, the whole club was empty. It was small and wasn’t a famous club, so Michelle could understand why her boss suggested this place, but she wasn’t expecting only one Bartender in the entire place.

Grabbing Tiara’s hand, she reached near the bar counter, “Excuse me!! We need the strongest drink that you have in stock.” She ordered, and her jaw dropped when she saw the face of the Bartender.

“Sure, Ma’am.”

“Sir?” Michelle exclaimed in shock, unable to believe that the CEO of her agency was working as a bartender there. Hearing this, Tiara looked at the face of the Bartender, who was too busy with her whole. He was looking at Michelle, but he looked familiar, but at the moment, she couldn’t recall where did she see him? After all, she used to meet a lot of people in her day-to-day life.

“Have we met before?” She couldn’t help but ask, and that was when the Bartender looked at her. Tiara studied his face closely. She recognized that face, but he couldn’t be here as a bartender, so she shook her head. “I’m sorry, you seem a little familiar, and your face reminded me of someone.” She spoke, thinking about her best friend, Wylder Miller, whom she kicked out of her life so that he could focus on other things expected from her.

After all these years, he would be anything but not a bartender, right?

While Michelle zipped her mouth, her boss, Wylder Adan Miller, glared at her. She decided to watch everything silently.

“Thank you for bringing me here!! I like staying alone when I’m sad.” Tiara confessed after drinking Alcohol back to back. While Michelle wondered how her boss came to know about this, Wylder prepared drinks for both of them. He passed Apple juice to Michelle and Alcohol to Tiara.

Michelle tried to make Liara speak, but to her disappointment, she didn’t speak a word and fell unconscious after drinking a lot of Alcohol.

Michelle checked her phone when she received a message.

[Wylder: You can leave. Your family must be waiting for you.]

[Michelle: But, sir, I want to help her.]

[Wylder: I appreciate that, but I will take it from here.]

Michelle frowned but didn’t argue with him. The way he was behaving, it looked like he knew a lot more about Tiara than she had thought.

[Michelle: Her father and brothers are protective of her.] She dropped the last message so that Wylder wouldn’t dare to mess with Tiara just because she wasn’t in the right state of her mind. Wylder raised his eyebrow in amusement and replied through message.

[Wylder: Sure! Send this screenshot to them.]

Once Wylder was sure that Michelle had left there, he spoke, “Alakazam.”

With that, the club started turning into a home, and his clothes, like a bartender, turned into a comfortable t-shirt and boxers. His brown hair and brown eyes turned into silver hair and grey eyes. The illusion spell that he had used started coming to an end. He reached Tiara and picked her up in his arms like a bride, studying her face closely before greeting her in her unconscious state, “Hello, Ara!!”

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#TBC

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A/N: You can read this story as a stand-alone. No need to read other books to understand this story.

Thank you for reading :)