0 I Prelude
"I WAS TOLD you put too much resistance, liabilities were thrown..."
I stated. My eyebrow raised at the man's reflection standing across the queen - sized bed. His green irises glinted between annoyance and frustration. His Armani tux almost creased from the commotion awhile ago against his family's own armed men.
"You know there's no chance of escaping this engagement." I continued, shifting my line of sight from him to my ocean-like eyes in front of the mirror as I bring in closer one of my favorite lipsticks from Guerlain, the 'Insolence de Rouge’.
As he drank a glass of champagne from the table, I heard him heave a sigh. "I need a stronger drink. This won’t do."
"I'm sorry dear but I believe you can't." I replied, now placing my Swarovski crystal earrings on each of my ear. "Not now anyway, you need to sober up for tonight."
Making his way towards the bed, he sat down and pinched the bridge of his nose. His fingers, then, brushed through his - now - disheveled blonde hair.
With a sigh of my own, I turn around and moved closer to where he was. I can sympathize with him. But then, I need him to deceive our audience of people for this whole fiasco right now. "The sooner this is over, the faster you can win her back."
"Why can't she just..." he mumbled, helplessly. "Why can't my parents just f*****g understand I don't want to tie down the knot with you."
Rolling my eyes, I took a seat beside him. "Touché you bastard."
"f**k. Why are you calm about this?”
"I can talk to her if you'd like.” I offered. “Matthew understands our situation, the reason why this doesn't bother me at all."
His cold, piercing eyes glared at me. "Don't. Don't you dare go near Olive."
Raising an eyebrow at how his statement sounded like a direct threat, I barked an incredulous laugh. How bold of this man to assume I’d get my knees shaking.
"I've heard she doesn't want to see you anymore. It’s a pity, Mr. Washington. But between the two of us, it’s you who can't go near proximity around her. Well, of course we can’t ignore the fact that there's a compromise from your parents destroying her life that is." His knuckles whitened as his hands formed into fists. "If you want to retaliate against your family, then do it surreptitiously. This marriage offers a lot more than you can imagine. They only want us to get married. They don't want us to sign a prenup, means as soon as we divorce, you can give me the power that I want and of course, I'll give you the freedom that you want. We'll get our own happy endings; we'll just postpone it for a little while."
"And Matthew is f*****g okay with all of this?"
"Can you stop saying the f word every time you open your mouth?" I cringed. "And to answer your question, yes. As I said, Matthew’s okay with it."
"Does he even love you?"
The audacity of this man questioning someone else's feelings without their presence to defend their name.
"He loves me enough to wait and go through all of this circus." I smirked mockingly. "If Olivia truly loves you, she'll understand. You and I, definitely, don’t have feelings for each other. I won’t waste all my years living life in a lie... a few spare amount of time, maybe. If needed. We can push for few months. As I said, we can compromise.”
"I would kill the man she's going to marry if the situation is in reverse. I will never accept it." He said with utmost conviction.
It's admirable but I was clearly getting bored of this whole ordeal. I sighed. "For a lawyer – to - be, you take everything to heart."
“And for an heiress, you’re too sly for your own good.”
“Isn’t that a good thing? You need to know what cards you’re only left to deal with. We may not control how they gave it to us but we can definitely make things turn our way by how we act on it.”
"If I deceive people for a convenience, then what does that say about what I stand for?" He replied in rigour. I could feel a vein pop out of my system because of his stubbornness.
“You don’t always have to fight with your heart. You have a brain for a reason.”
His dark eyebrows furrowed deeply as he, once again, took a swig of champagne. “You talk as if you don’t know the word love.”
I tried to maintain a straight face. "Ah well, we all love differently." Taking the flute away from his grasp, I ordered. "Clean yourself. I won't go down that hall with a drunk fiancé."
He scoffed. "f*****g fiancé."
