My boss's obsession

7

The dawn of my twenty birthday was a beautiful day. I woke to the sunshine streaming through my curtains and a gentle touch to my cheek. Koray was there sitting on my bed, his smile so big that you could see almost all of his teeth; and there were a lot of teeth in his bear-like mouth. I reached up and put my hand on top of his. Mmm. His warmth was so…refreshing.

“Happy Birthday, Canzu!” he said in a sing-song voice without losing one little bit of his gigantic smile.

I inhaled his smell and closed my eyes. “I like mornings like this. Can you wake me up that sweetly more often?” I somewhat teased him.

“If that’s what you want. Anything for my Canzu, my future princess.”

I sat up on that note. Now that I was twenty, I only had two years until my…wedding. To Koray. Did I even wanted to be married that soon? my mind wondered that how things happened between us. But then I looked up at his bright, deep blue eyes and every doubt vanished.

This day also meant that he had less than two years before he would change back. The day of his twenty sixth birthday, which was always exactly two months before mine, the enchantress would come back to see the one who truly loved him. Me. I would have to convince her Koray was the one who knew my heart, and I was the one who knew his. But looking up at him again and I knew one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Convincing her wouldn’t be a problem.

“Get up and get dressed!” he told me. “It’s your twentyth birthday, and I have a ton of surprises for you.” He swept out the door before I could inquire further, but not before I could laugh at how hyper and excited he was acting. It was almost like it was his birthday instead of mine. Which, I guess he had every right to throw my birthday celebrations out of proportion, because he would never let me do anything for his.

The first thing I did after I got out of bed was decide which dress to wear. My birthday was in the beginning of fall, and it had started to get a little chilly in the castle. I definitely decided to go for a long sClayve dress. When I opened the door to my wardrobe, a little piece of paper floated silently to the floor. I picked it up and smiled as I read it.

Happy Birthday, Canzu!

This is surprise number one. (Of five. Be prepared.)

I was trying to make this day all about the important times that we’ve spent together in the past two years. What day is more important than the day we met and the most strange day ?

As you obviously know, you’ve…changed some. Physically. Not in a bad way! I’m just saying, uhm… You’re more of a woman now than you were at fourteen.

And that is why I decided to have your dressed altered. The beautiful lavender one that you were wearing when I first saw your beautiful face and knew you’d be the one who saved me.

I hope you like it.

With love,

Koray.

I wiped away a few stray tears those words had brought to my eyes. This Koray, the one who wrote me this note and did this thoughtful thing for me, was the one that I had fallen for.

Wait. Did I just admit that? I had fallen for him? Well…

Yes, I guess I did. I am married to him, wasn’t I? I might as well embrace the fact that I loved him. Well, I don't know why everytime I forgets that I've married him. That's literally hell sucking. 

A knock at the door made me jump. I rushed to get into the dress. “Canzu?” Clay was asking. “Koray is really excited. I think you need to hurry up.”

“Clay! Come in here, please. I wanted to talk to you.”

I heard the door get pushed open and my friend sat down on the edge of my bed, smiling at me. “That dress makes you look stunning.” I twirled in front of my mirror, at first unwilling to accept that compliment. But I saw the way that the dress was now able to accent my curvy body, and how my now longer red hair stood out up against the deep sage lavender. My blue eyes were sparkling with life and love. Where had this girl come from?

“Thank you, Clay,” I replied enthusiastically, and then sat down beside her. “So… You’ve been gone for a few weeks, ” I carefully started.

Her green eyes wouldn’t meet my gaze, and she let her light brown shoulder-length hair cover her face so I couldn’t see her expression. She didn’t realize her actions made her even easier to read. She’d been gone since I came back from riding horses with Koray, and I feared that she wasn’t going to come back. Koray hadn’t taken it well either, even though he never admitted it. But every time I would mention her, his eyes would start to look like flames: the way they always did when he was angry.

“I’m sorry, Canzu,” she finally said. “I didn’t mean to leave you alone. I was just upset, and confused, and I…” She stopped for a second, and so I put my arms around her shoulders, hugging her tight.

“I understand,” I whispered to her.

She jumped away from me, and she looked as if her period of silence was over. “He’s scary, Canzu! A man shouldn’t look like that! And you’ve Married him ? Please, Canzu, you have to leave. Surely he wouldn't let you leave! How can you even consider marrying something like that?” She fell down to the floor in front of me, placing her hands on my knees and looking pleadingly into my eyes. “Canzu, you can’t honestly be thinking about going through with this.”

“I am,” I snapped at her. “Koray is the nicest man I’ve ever met. He cares about me. And if I am alive here today, then the reason for that is also the same, otherwise long ago I would have surrendered my life to those devils ! There’s not a day that goes by where he doesn’t show me that I’m the biggest blessing in his life, and I’m not going to give that up for some local boy who will just get mad that I didn’t cook him breakfast on time and end up hitting me!”

“I wasn’t saying that you had to marry someone bad. I was saying just the opposite, actually,” she argued back coldly.

I pushed her off of me and started pacing the room. “If you couldn’t accept him like he is, why did you bother coming back?”

“I came back for you. This whole marriage thing scares me.”

“It shouldn’t! I can make my own decisions, and I’ve decided to stay with him and help him break the curse!” I clamped my hand over my mouth. Oh, no. Koray didn’t like for people to know about the curse. Had he told her that’s why he was the way he was, or had he given a different excuse?

Her hand was low. “So it’s true,” she muttered. “It’s a curse.”

“Yes. And I’m the only one who can break it.”

She walked up to me, both of our anger extinguished, and grabbed my face, making me look her in the eyes. She was exactly my height. “By loving him?”

“Yes,” I whispered again, unable to nod.

Her sigh went all the way down her body. I could see her whole petite body shiver. “So do you, then? Love him?”

I didn’t even think about what to say. I just blurted it out. “I do. I’m going to break the curse, and I've married him. Koray. I’was going to marry him because I love him for what he is, and not for what people see him as and not because of his wealth.”

She walked away from me after that, and just studied herself in the mirror. But I knew she wasn’t really looking at herself, she was trying to make sure her face was composed.

Clay turned around to me and said, “Alright. If you love him, and he loves you, and the curse will be broken and everything will turn out fine…”

I took a step towards her to prod her into finishing her answer.

“Then I’m definitely not leaving you. Besides, you’ had only got two years to plan a royal wedding, and there’ was no way I wasletting some fat broad sneak in and be your maid of honor.” I run up to her and hugged her tight, overjoyed that she wasn’t going to leave me. She was my only friend, next to Koray and Rose.

“You’ll see,” I told her triumphantly. “Today, you’ll see he loves me. And then you’ll be like me; without any doubts. Koray and I were meant to be together.”

“Well then,” she replied picking up the note Koray had left me. “Let’s get down there and find your other four surprises!”