"How is her condition?" Raka asked with worry.

"Looks like she's fine. My aunt said she was going to enter a perfume competition and had to get ready so she went straight back to her office," Nico said.

​​

"Anya has indeed planned her future well. Finally, she wanted to enter a perfume competition. I'm sure she will win," Raka said with a faint smile on his face.

Nico frowned at his best friend's reaction. "Can't you forget her?"

Raka couldn't answer that question. He pretended to comb his hair as if he didn't hear Nico's question.

Nico also didn't intend to ask again because Raka's silence was enough of an answer for him. He immediately went upstairs to take a shower and change clothes.

Raka sat at the dining table quietly. He opened each package and looked at all the food on the table.

Were these the same food that Anya had today?

He tasted them one by one while his mind was filled with Anya.

Anya had warned him that Natali was not as innocent as she seemed.

Actually, Raka already knew. But he had no other choice.

He knew that Natali was the one who used his sister. But he decided to hide all this from his family and bear it all alone.

He didn't want to disappoint Raisa. After all, Raisa trusted Natali a lot and considered Natali her best friend.

He also did not want Aiden to continue to suspect his relationship with Anya because he could see that Anya really cared about Aiden.

As long as Raisa didn't feel sad, as long as Anya was happy, that's enough for Raka. Plus, the Mahendra family could get some land from Deny. It didn't matter even if he had to be with Natali for everyone's good.

He made everyone happy, but why did his heart feel empty?

Raka tried to feed himself a few more spoons of food, but he didn't have any appetite.

After taking a shower, Nico changed into his casual home clothes and went downstairs. His hair was still wet, dripping with water. A towel was draped around his neck as he pulled a chair at the dining table and sat across from Raka.

"Is it bad?" Nico looked at the remaining food on the dining table.

Raka just shook his head. "I drank too much wine last night. My stomach doesn't feel good,"

"Don't you intend to go home today?" Nico thought that after he took a shower, Raka must have come home. But it turned out that he was still casually eating downstairs, in no rush to leave his house.

"Why did you kick me out?" Raka chuckled.

"I can't accompany you to dinner today," Nico got up and took two bottles of yogurt from the refrigerator. Then he gave one to Raka. "What is your plan?"

"I intend to stay at your house for a few days. I don't wanna go home. Once I figure things out, I'll go home," Raka said casually.

Nico didn't tell him everything, but he felt that Aiden would do something to Natali.

Even though Raka was engaged to Natali and was part of the Mahendra Family, it seemed that he still wasn't ready to run a future with Natali.

Only Nico knew that Raka never touched Natali.

"Raka, you are innocent. Why do you have to sacrifice like this?" Nico was worried about Raka.

Things could turn ugly if Aiden decided to imprison Natali. He was afraid that Raka would not understand what he meant. However, Raka thought that Nico was talking about his engagement.

"Nico, my situation is different from yours. You and Lisa can work together, plan your engagement and separation. But Natali is different. She wants to marry and live with me. You can cancel the engagement peacefully, but I might get married and have children with her," that was the future Raka imagined and he was really reluctant to live it.

"I always complain to my uncle. But when I saw your situation, I felt luckier than you," Nico said with a smile. "I know an escape for a while. How about it?"

"Maybe I really need a vacation. Once I come back, I will probably get an answer for what I should do with my life," Raka needed time to think about his life as well as accept and face the current reality.

At least, he didn't want to see Natali and his family for a while.

Raka knew that Natali trapped him. When he was in a bad mood, he got drunk and ended up in bed with Natali.

Even though he didn't do anything, all of his family thought that what he did was wrong.

He knew that he really didn't touch Natali. But they were caught on the bed together in messy clothes. It was a fact that he could no longer escape.

"Go on and cool your head off. Better to leave your cellphone or just turn it off so no one can bother you. If someone asks about you, I'll say you're staying at my house," Nico said with a smile.

Raka just remembered about his cellphone. He looked at the screen and found hundreds of missed calls, including those from his company, clients, his house as well as Natali.

He decided to turn off his cell phone so that no one could reach him.

In the evening, Raka took Nico's advice and went to a hot spring.

If it weren't for Anya's accident, Nico would have spent the weekend with Anya and Aiden in the hot springs.

But this accident made Nico unable to leave so he offered it to Raka.

…

When he returned home, Aiden saw Nico sitting on the sofa eating fruit, while his wife was holding scissors, cleaning thorns from roses and making a bouquet.

Aiden immediately took advantage of the opportunity to trap Nico. Since he loved Anya so much, he would help her to sell the flowers. "Nico, are you that poor so you can't buy flowers?"

"This flower has just been moved to a new place. But it looks like they can't bloom anymore because it's too weak so my mother just cut them off for sale," Anya combined roses and white lilies. The bouquet she made looked very elegant in bright colors.

Nico glanced at the flower bouquet Anya was holding and said sweetly, "Auntie is the best florist, giving me the best flowers at a low price. Unlike someone who can only set me up,"

Aiden was too lazy to reply to Nico and said in a cold voice, "When you're done with the flowers, get out of this house!"

Nico got up from the sofa and walked toward the door with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Before leaving, he asked, "Uncle, are we still going to the hot springs?"

"Tomorrow morning, Anya wants to go to her apple orchard first and at night, we can have a barbecue," Aiden said casually.

"I'll ask Lisa then. If she doesn't want to go, I'll take Tara," Nico said excitedly.

He thought his vacation would be canceled. But it looked like they'd have a lot of fun anyway!

"Are you hoping Lisa won't come?" Anya cracked a joke.