Chapter 5
1187 Words
Amara.
“Ah!” I screamed, almost causing the driver to have an accident. I was so shocked to see the face of the man to whom I was married.
“What is the problem, my lady? Are you all right?” Mr. Timothy asked me with concern as he slowed down the car and gazed at me cautiously through the car’s rearview mirror.
“I am sorry, sir. You can continue driving; I was only shocked to see my husband’s face online,” I said to him nervously.
Mr. Timothy smiled understandingly, and I took a mental note not to scream out so foolishly again.
The drive started again, and I continued to look at the face of the man who was now my husband: Darlington Briggs.
I had seen him before when I entered the university. We crossed paths, and I mistakenly stepped on him without realizing, as I was walking with my friend Esther Peters.
Esther was an accountant; she was a seductive person, and she never failed to observe all the handsome and wealthy guys in the university.
I wondered how a rich girl like Esther Peters could be so easily swayed by money when she was not from a poverty-stricken home. Her parents were billionaires, but since we graduated from the university, Esther had traveled to another country farther away, and I lost contact with her.
Esther was not on Facebòok, which would have made it easy for me to search for her online and get her new contact, but she had not contacted me either, despite knowing that I used my real name online.
I marveled inaudibly at the handsome sight that occupied my phone screen. At that time, I had apologized to Darlington—not knowing his name—and told him, “I am sorry.” He had only stared at me in shock, not responding to me, and then he strode away.
Until I finished my schooling there, I never got to see Darlington again. I learned that he might have been a final-year student, and Esther was the one to whom I had told about my secret crush.
Now, looking at the handsome face that had aged and become more mature, I thought Darlington was the only guy I had seen and admired.
I saw some other guys too, who usually admired me, but I did not give them the chance. I had gone out several times with Esther in the hope of crossing paths with Darlington again, at least to know his name and to know him better. But I never got to see him.
I could not stop thinking about him, about how my heart had accelerated when he held me close to prevent me from falling after I mistakenly stepped on his feet.
I felt his firm arms wrapped around my waist, catching me closely before I could drop to the floor like a dummy, as I had gotten lost admiring him.
I thought maybe that was why he did not speak to me.
I learned from Esther that it was not good to drool over a man, and that you should form a classic and stone-cold nature and allow the man to drool over you instead.
Well, that was not intentional. Darlington was tall; he looked so handsome in the casual clothes I saw him wearing.
Even when he walked away without responding to me, I could see some other young ladies in the university cafeteria glaring at me, as if I had intentionally stepped on him to get his attention.
I sighed and asked myself, “So this man is my husband now?”
I could not believe my eyes. How handsome Darlington now looked. I exited his profile picture to look at some of his timeline photos, but then my eyes grew sad as I saw a photo of him and another lady.
“Did My Father not tell me that Darlington was single and would be expecting me?”
My heart broke as I saw a photo of Darlington Briggs and the slim, formidable model to whom he had proposed.
Seeing the smile on their faces and how he went down on one knee and proposed to her broke my heart.
I could hear the shattering sound of my heart, seeing how lovely they looked together and how Darlington had captioned the post, saying, “She said yes to me. I am so happy right now.”
Tears welled up in my blue eyes, and my heartbeat accelerated. I felt the urge to scream out and tell the driver to stop the car and drive me back home to my father’s house.
But I remembered my father telling me to return home with my children and his future grandchildren. Not only that, I remembered asking my mother if Darlington was already in a relationship.
I knew I had not been in a relationship; I was a virgin. But the case would be rare for a man who grew up in the city and whose father was a billionaire, according to how my mother had described them and told me not to pack my clothes too much the previous night. My mother was not pleased with my fashion sense.
I did not know that I was crying; I felt cheated upon seeing the photos of Darlington and his beautiful girlfriend, and I saw him tag her profile along with his own as “my baby.”
Her name was Jenna Colton online, and she had a lot of followers—at least a million. She was a celebrity in Country Z, and I wondered how they would treat me now.
“I am sure that Darlington did not know that he was married to me. I am certain he would not accept me, not when ‘his baby’ was there.
I did not want to continue with the journey of going to the city, but I still wanted to obey my parents, even if it was the last thing they wanted me to do for them before I finally became an independent woman.
I wanted to get to the Briggs family mansion to see Darlington and his family, to know if I was indeed married to him or not—or if my father had been deceived by his friend, who was the one who had settled everything.
I did not want to believe that I was married off to my father’s best friend, with the disguise that I was his son’s wife. Well, when I finally got to the city, I would find out.
I felt sad after seeing many photos of Darlington and that pretty, fair-skinned lady. I did not look pretty and sophisticated like her, and I knew that I would be cast away and labeled as a wicked person for coming into another woman’s relationship. But I wanted to confirm the whole truth before finally taking a concrete decision.
I relaxed my back against the car seat as the driver drove ahead, continuing to drive for hours to the city. Soon, I fell asleep in the back.
- Writer
