Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 122: An attempt to make amends

Chapter 122: An attempt to make amends

Neil lifted his brows and regarded her in impassive silence, but inwardly he was stunned and reluctantly impressed by her unexpected show of courage. She was scared of him and yet she was trying her best not to show her weakness. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but at this point in his life, there was no right or wrong in his book.

He didn’t want to terrify her, but if he didn’t do it this way, there was no way she would drive him to his destination. And if he chose to let her go after she had seen where he was going to, then he would be giving himself away.

Turning his head, he looked at the traffic opening up ahead of them and at the thick, falling snow that had seemed like a curse a few hours ago but had actually diverted the attention of the policemen who had to deal with stranded drivers before they could begin to search for him.

Last, he considered the stroke of luck that had put him not in the car arranged for him, but in a fancy BMW 7 that could easily navigate in the snow without getting stuck down on the less traveled route he intended to take up into the mountains. With her car, it would be easier for them to reach the mountains in time.

All of the complications that had infuriated him for the last few hours had now turned out to be bonuses, he realized. He was going to make it to the mountains__ all thanks to his beautiful Mia Harrison. Ms. Harrison, he corrected himself with an inner smirk as he relaxed back in his seat. She had warned him not to address her by her name again, and he would do anything she wanted as long as she wouldn’t jeopardize his escape plans.

Neil’s flash of amusement suddenly vanished as quickly as it had come, because there was something about the news of his escape he’d heard earlier that was beginning to worry him now. Kai Martinez had been referred to as "another escaped prisoner" who "was caught and taken into custody."

If Kai had stuck to the plan, then Jason should have been crowing to the media about the loyalty of one of the prisoners rather than referring to Kai as another escape prisoner.

He hoped as hell the boy hadn’t messed up and tried to escape as well. He had seen the excitement in his blue eyes at the thought of escaping prison. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if Kai were to remain in prison for longer than he should because of his escape plans.

Neil told himself that the information on the podcast had simply been jumbled, which accounted for the mistake about Kai, and he forced himself to concentrate on the irate young woman beside him instead.

Although he desperately needed her and her car right now, she was also a serious complication to his plans. She knew he was heading for the mountains. Moreover, she might have seen enough of that map and the directions with it to be able to tell the authorities the vicinity of his hideaway. If he left her at the state border or a little further north, she’d be able to tell the authorities where he was going and exactly what kind of car he was driving as well.

By now, his face was already plastered all over every television screen in the country, so he couldn’t possibly hope to rent or buy another car without being recognized. Furthermore, he wanted the military to believe he’d managed to fly out of the country.

Mia seemed to be both a heavensent and a disastrous kink in his plans. She hated him to the core, and he couldn’t think of any way to make her trust him at this point. Thus, rather than curse fate for saddling him with her and the deadly threat to his freedom that she represented, he decided to give fate an opportunity to work out this problem and to try to help them both relax.

Reaching beside him, he took out the flask of coffee he had seen her keep before they started their journey at the restaurant, the flask felt warm in his hand. And he thought back to her last remarks and came up with what seemed like a good conversational opening to make her relax in his company. In a carefully offhand, nonthreatening tone, he inquired, "What’s wrong with my clothes?"

She gaped at him in blank confusion. "W-what?"

"You said something about my ’clothes’ being the only reason you offered me a ride," he explained, pouring the coffee in the flask into a small straw cup he found in the bottle holder of her car. "What’s wrong with the clothes?"

Mia swallowed a hysterical surge of angry laughter. She was concerned about her life, and he was concerned about making a fashion statement! Was he out of his mind or was he just trying to get on her nerves by starting a pointless conversation with her?! He was the last person on earth she wanted to see or even talk to, but he was here trying to act like everything was fine.

"What," he repeated determined to make her speak to him, "did you mean?" He didn’t like the hate he saw in her eyes everytime she glanced at him, nor did he like that she was ignoring his presence.

Mia was on the verge of an angry retort when two things occurred to her at once; it was insane to deliberately antagonize an armed man and if she could make him relax his guard by indulging in small talk with him, her chances to either escape or get out of this alive would be vastly improved!

Trying to inject a polite, neutral tone into her voice, she drew a long breath and said without taking her eyes from the road, "I noticed your clothes were brand new." She muttered softly while fighting down her hatred.

Neil raised an eyebrow, "What did that have to do with your deciding to offer me a ride?" He asked.

Bitterness at her own gullibility filled Mia’s voice. "Since you didn’t have a car and you implied you didn’t have a job, I assumed you must be having a hard time financially. Then you said you were hoping to get a new job, and I noticed the crease in your trouser..." Her voice trailed off when she realized with a disgusted jolt that instead of the nearly destitute man she’d thought him to be he was actually one of the richest men in their country, and was also the man she had hated to the bones for killing the only family she had in the world.

"Go on," he prodded, his voice tinged with puzzlement and curiousity.

"I jumped to the obvious conclusion, for heaven’s sake! I figured you had bought new clothes so you could make a good impression on your employer, and I imagined how important that must have been to you while you were buying them in the store and how much hope you must have been feeling when you bought them, and I-I couldn’t bear the thought that your hope was going to be trashed if I didn’t offer you a ride. So even though I’ve never picked up a hitchhiker in my life, I couldn’t stand to see you miss having your chance in life!"

Neil was not only stunned, he was unwillingly touched. Kindness like hers, a kindness that also required some kind of personal risk or sacrifice, had been absent from his existence for all the years he’d spent in prison. And even before that, he realized. Pushing the unsettling thought aside, he said, "You envisioned all that from a crease in my trouser? You’ve got one hell of an imagination, Ms. Harrison." he added with a sardonic shake of his head.

"I’m obviously a bad judge of character, too," Mia said bitterly as she remembered how much she’d trusted him in the past and how he’d broken not just her heart but soul.

From the corner of her eye, she saw his left arm swing toward her and she instinctively jumped, muffling a scream as she thought he was going to hit her before she realized he was only holding out a cup of coffee from her flasks.

Neil, who noticed her actions, frowned his brows at the realization that Mia still had her trauma of being frightened whenever he raised his hands. Just like in the past.

In a quiet tone that almost seemed to carry an apology for adding to her fright, Neil said, "I thought this might help you relax."

Mia glared heatedly at him then said, "I’m not interested in having anything go through my stomach, thanks to you."

"Drink a little anyway," Neil ordered, determined to ease her terror even while he knew his presence was the source of it. "It will..." he hesitated, feeling at a loss for words on how to make her feel at ease in his presence like she used to in the past, and added, "It will make things seem more normal between us."

Mia turned her head and gaped at him, her expression making it clear she found his concern for her not only completely revolting, but insane. She was on the verge of telling him that, but she remembered the gun in his pocket, so she took the coffee in a shaking hand and turned away from him, sipping it and staring at the road ahead while trying her best to ignore him.

Beside her, Neil watched the telltale trembling of the coffee cup as she raised it to her lips, and he felt a ridiculous urge to apologize for terrifying her like this.

She had a lovely profile he thought, studying her face in the light of the road lamps that split inside the car as they drove under them. Though she had changed from the Mia he knew before he was sent to prison, she still looked the same in some ways. With her small nose and stubborn little chin.

She still had her magnificent eyes, he thought, thinking of the way they’d shot sparks at him a few minutes ago. Spectacular eyes. He felt a sharp stab of guilty shame for using and frightening this innocent girl who’d been trying to help a man in need_and because he had every intention of continuing to use her, he felt like the monster everybody believed he was.

To silence his conscience, he resolved to make things as easy on her as he possibly could, which led him to decide to engage her in further conversation rather than sit in the heated silence of her hatred.

He noticed the ring she wore on her finger, and felt another jab to his chest. But he ignored it and tried to remember what people__normal people on the "outside"__talked about for idle conversation, and he finally said,

"How’ve you been doing for the past five years?"

She turned again, her incredible eyes wide with suppressed hatred. "Do you expect me," she uttered in disbelief, "to engage in polite small talk with you about my life?"

"Yes!" he snapped, irrationally angry at her reluctance to let him make amends. "I do. So start talking!"

"Fine. My life has been nothing but miserable, all thanks to you for killing the only family I had in my life!" Mia shot back shakily, hating how easily he could intimidate her. She looked away from him, missing the expression of shocked disbelief in his eyes at her words.

"I didn’t_" He began to speak, but Mia cut him off as she didn’t want to hear anything from him about her mother’s death.

"How far do you intend for me to drive you?" she demanded as they passed a sign that said Avalora border, the mountains he was headed, was thirty miles away.

"Avalora," Neil said, half-truthfully, as he had no intentions of ever letting her go until she would trust him again.