“Why is Dalton’s wife in your pool?!” Hailey demanded shockingly from the half-naked man in the pool, who was directly in front of another person’s wife.


    Aria was still wondering how on earth Hailey was able to enter into a house that was locked, and how closely she knew Collin to talk to him like that. She had never heard him talk about Hailey to her ever, and it was quite a shock.


    “What are you doing here, Hailey? After all this while?” Collin shot a cold look at thedy ranting before them, and it was quite a side of Collin that Aria had never seen before. She spected immediately that there must be some bad blood between them, because Collin was not the kind of guy to give such cold wees.


    “Does Dalton know about this? That you are cheating on him?” She asked Aria who was stepping out of the pool in a very disregarding tone with a smirk, and turned to Collin, “You are messing with Dalton’s property? Are you ready to give up your life?!” She yelled at him.


    Aria just moved to the pool chair to sit and allow her clothes to dry, while she watched Collin grab Hailey by the arm and take her to a corner. She began to wonder how much Hailey had seen, and what would happen after their unlikely coincidental meeting.


    “What are you doing here?! I cannot believe you have the guts toe back here,” Collin uttered calmly but painfully, even if his entirety was wanting to scream at her to get out. Hailey obviously missed his tenderness.


    “Are you having an affair with thatdy? Do you even know who she is?” Hailey continued in her usual way of replying questions with questions, because she needed answers to her own curiosity immediately.


    She hade to the vacation house knowing that Collin was usually there on specific days, and she was d to know that he had not changed his usual routine even after so long. Dalton was not easy predictable, and she wondered how she kept wanting him regardless.


    “We are just friends. From a very long time actually. So get those stupid ideas out of your head,” he warned. She was never that kind ofdy and he knew that.


    With what had happened in the pool minutes ago, he was probably thankful somewhere in his heart that Hailey came just in time to causemotion.


    He would not have figured out the way to break the awkwardness he would have set up, because she didn’t even seem bothered that something intense had taken ce between them.N?vel/Dr(a)ma.Org - Content owner.


    “Thest time I checked, Aria was a very lonely and low-life person who was allowed to meet no one in the past. And is that how all friends get so close andpromising in the pool?” Hailey fired at him again, and he shook his head in pity.


    “How do you know that?” He questioned her, wondering how she was well versed with exactly how Aria’s marriage had been in the past.


    “Information and media,” she replied concisely.


    She was still a questioning maniac who didn’t always know the right way to ask questions, or the right things to suspect. He paused for a while as he thought of what to say to her, and his mind whispered some kind of realization to him instantly.


    “And for you to be like this, Hailey. I am sure you have something up to your sleeves. You can never let go of your old habits. Come on spill it,” Collin urged Hailey with a suspicious look in his eyes, as he scratched his hair in frustration when he saw pretentious she was acting.


    “What are you talking about?” She frowned at him and stood akimbo, with her left feet tapping on the ground nonstop.


    The urge to wack Aria across the face for always constantly humiliating her, was running through every of her veins in her blood towards her heart. She hated Aria so much ever since the day she had deeply degraded her in everyone’s presence, and she was going to make sure to make her pay in a ten fold.


    “Delete whatever pictures or videos you must have taken. I am sure you did not enter this house and came to the back where the pool was located, to see us together in that pool and shout immediately.”


    “And why would you assume that? What do you take me for?!” She raged in her defense.


    “Perhaps the cameras will tell us?” He countered.


    “Why are you being so overprotective? Do you like her? And that is why you are being like this?” She instantly chickened out, as her eyes widened at the question that suddenly urred to her.


    “It doesn’t matter. Just do the right thing,” he pressed, already tired of talking to Hailey. She had juste back to his life and space in less than an hour after years, and he hated to know he ever met her in the first ce. She was just too much and unrepentant.


    “Does she know? No, does Dalton know? Do you realize the person you are ying games with?”


    “Just shut up, and delete them!” he ordered angrily, and it scared her to know that Collin’s voice could yell at her in that manner. She was so shocked.


    “Fine! I will delete them,”She answered almost fearfully, and hurriedly did what he asked her to do.


    After he had gotten her to delete the pictures she took, she left almost immediately in anger when he told her that they had nothing to talk about. It was time for Collin to face Aria.


    “How did you and Hailey know one another? That seemed pretty intense,” Aria broke the ice and asked the first question, melting away the awkwardness that was still radiating Collin’s heart. He was really d.


    “She is my ex. We dated for a short while,” he answered truthfully. “We were secretly in an engagement rtionship in the past, and her ownpany fell into crisis. She broke up when we both returned to California, after she got the financial buoyancy she needed from me, without her family’s knowledge.”


    “What?!” Aria yelled in disbelief. She had actually insinuated the slim possibility of it in her heart, but had never expected it to be the straight answer to the rtionship they had. It was even a disgusting act of separation at that.


    It was hard to stomach that Hailey, who acted all ssy and sophisticated, was also a person who used people for her own selfish desires.


    “Yeah. And she actually broke my heart too deeply. Needed someone to lean on, and she was there at the right time. Gave her my all and she tossed it for someone else,” he exined.


    “I thought she and Dalton had always been that long termpanion. How was she able to date you?” Aria looked confused.


    “Dalton? Does she know him that personally and closely?” Collin sounded clueless. What she told him minutes ago was different.


    “Your rtionship must have been a really closeted one then. She is supposed to be married to Dalton ording to what the family wants and their long history, and she is also Ellen’s best friend. Treated Aria like trash for years with everyone,” she gritted her teeth.


    “Wow, that is… really hard to contain, that I didn’t even know Hailey that much. Our rtionship was built on lies and deceit that it is so painful to realize this things now,” he said solemnly and gloomy. He had really dated the wrong person.


    “Sorry, that happened. It was an experience you would learnt a lot from. We are not perfect, so we can make mistakes and be vulnerable,” Aria encouraged him with her kind words.


    ‘There was no way he would not stop loving her.’


    “Thank you, Aria,” Collin smiled to her,  “So she is the samedy that Eleanor always favored?”


    “Yup. You got that right. And I am going to pay everyone back ordingly,” Aria promised.


    ~|???|~


    “Get up, Ellen. The preparations for your birthday party has started already. It is in two days and you are here brooding over some guy, that doesn’t even give a damn about you. Your dress has arrived, and mum ising back today,” Emma tried to drag her sister who had been sleeping all day by the arm off the bed.


    “I am tired and stressed. Had to do a live session overnight. Hailey said that she ising today, and I have to be in my best state,” Ellen groaned.


    “It is better you tell your friend to give up on Dalton, and just move on with a new person. He is so interested in his wife now, and the attention cannot be divided,” Emma adviced, as she picked the remote to the air conditioner and increased the temperature.


    “I don’t know, but she said something over the phone. Says she has some kind of cards against Aria or something,” Ellen suddenly remembered her friend calling in the afternoon, to tell her something that sounded like gibberish to her ears because she was sleeping.


    “Cards? What kind of cards can she have to pull again? I think she should give up,” Emma stated again.


    “She sounded really confident,” Ellen uttered.


    “I’m sure it is nothing,” her younger sister countered.