The Cursed Pharaoh's Bride

Chapter XXXVII

Carolina

I let out a frustrated sigh. “Okay, why am I here? You seem to know me so well, so please enlighten me,” I snap.

David raises his eyebrows at me. “You’ve gotten feistier,” he says almost warmly. He looks over me as if he’s seeing me for the first time all over again. His eyes linger on places other than my face and it’s making me impatient.

“David,” I say again as I take off my sunglasses and give him a hard look.

He slowly looks back up at me and gives me a lopsided grin. “Carol, I don’t know how you ended up on a date with Elijah Seka of all people but you and I both know it’s not going to last.”

I raise my eyebrows at him in shock. “How dare you say that to me. You don’t know anything about him or how he treats me. Trust me, he’s much better than you ever were,” I snap at him.

David’s grin drops for a minute before a smirk crawls on it and he lets out a sarcastic laugh. “Oh come on, Carol. My boss has gone to many events with that man before and he always has a different arm candy with him. You’re just the newest flavor of the month. And there’s no money in the world that he could spend on you that can actually make you believe that he’s better for you than me.”

I clench my fist. I can feel magic rush through me and it’s taking everything in me not to expose my power to David. I feel my heart pound in my chest as I see the branches in the tree above us slowly start to grow down towards us. I take a few deep breaths until the tree finally stops and the heka surge in me starts to die down.

“Even if what you say is true,” I start as a let out a deep breath, “Not that I’m saying it is, but what does that have to do with me and you.”

David suddenly comes closer to me, and takes my small hands in his large, warm ones. Maybe back when I was a teenager his gesture would have made my heart flutter. But I just feel disgust at his touch and I just want to pull away. But his grip on me is strong and something tells me that resisting him right now will cause a scene. And a scene is the last thing I need right now.

“Carol, seeing you again the other night made me realize how much I miss you,” he starts. I can’t stop myself from rolling my eyes but that doesn’t seem to stop him from giving me his speech. “Believe it or not but I know I messed up. I was immature and I didn’t know what I wanted. But after being without you after all this time, I finally see that we had something good going on between us. We were best friends and we had something better than any fling.”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” I say suddenly. “David, you and I both know the only reason you’re looking at me now is because you can’t handle the fact that I moved on to someone better than you and you haven’t moved onto anyone after you cheated on me.”

David’s grip on my hand tightens and his expression towards me is becoming less and less friendly. “That’s not true. I do miss you. And I know it’s a matter of time before you’re going to be single again. And I just wanted to let you know that I’m open to trying again,” he says, his voice getting an octave louder.

“If you did miss me, why did you wait so long to reach out to me?” I ask as I try to pull away from him but he doesn’t let me budge.

“Like I said, I didn’t realize how much I missed you until I saw you-“

“With another man,” I finish for him. With that statement, I am able to forcefully pull my hand away from his grip and take a step away from him.

David lets out an annoyed huff. “Yeah, Carol, I saw you with another man. Another man who’s not sticking around. And if you honestly think you could get someone like him to stick around when you couldn’t keep me interested, then you’re stupider than I remember,” he states bitterly.

‘You couldn’t keep me interested’.

That phrase stabbed me in the heart just like it did the day we broke up. I can’t stop the tears that are building up in my eyes, threatening to spill down my face.

“You’re the same as you’ve always been,” I sniffle.

David just gives me a pointed look. “And you haven’t stopped playing the victim,” he bites out.

I wipe away a stray tear before swallowing the lump in my throat. “I’m not the victim,” I say, “I’m one of the many women who survived your shitty treatment. You’re the one who’s stupid if you think I’d come crawling back to you. And before you blame Elijah for me not coming back to you, know that I wouldn’t come back to you even if I wasn’t dating someone kinder, sexier, and yes, way richer than you.”

David’s face suddenly becomes almost murderous with rage. I know I wounded his fragile ego. It’s that same ego that made him want to keep me away from his friends because he thought I wasn’t pretty enough or cool enough for him to show me off. It’s that same ego that thought it was okay to indulge another girl he thought was more attractive while still stringing me along. I didn’t realize how much I blamed myself and how much I catered to that stupid ego until it finally showed itself in this moment. Because this is the first time I really stood up to him and told him how horrible he is. And this is the first time David has ever raised a hand towards me for pushing back against him.

I find myself flinching away from him, waiting for to blow to come. But before it can, another strong hand grips onto his wrist, keeping it from coming down on me. I let out a relieved breath at the interference. That relief starts to turn into panic when I see who is the one who interfered.

“Is there a problem here, sir?” Lorenzo asks firmly as he shoots David a glare.

David shakes himself out of his grip and moves away from him before he sends me a dirty look. “No, man, nothing is wrong. Now, can you please let me and my girl get back to our conversation?” He bites out.

“Sorry, but I can’t do that,” Lorenzo replies. “I’m under strict orders to find a Mr. David Torres.”

“Who’s asking?” He asks warily.

“I’m the assistant of Elijah Seka and I was told to let you know that we have agreed to make your boss, Ethan Sinclair, a chairman in our company’s board,” he says.

David’s expression changes from that of anger to surprise and then happiness. “Well, let Mr. Seka know that it’s been great doing business with him.”

“It has been, Mr. Torres. He’s thankful for all that you’ve sacrificed to make this deal come true. Including your resignation,” Lorenzo states coldly.

The smile on David’s face drops and he immediately becomes hostile. “What do you mean resignation?”

“Well, the only way that Mr. Seka was going to merge his company with Sinclair’s and give him a seat at the table was if he not only agreed to the financial requirements but if he also promised you would no longer be working with him. Mr. Seka is also demanding that you never come in contact with his girlfriend, Carolina Mercado, ever again.” Lorenzo then hands David a white envelope before coming towards me, pulling me behind him as if to shield me.

“What the heck is this?!” David exclaims in anger.

“It’s a lawsuit for defaming Mr. Seka and Ms. Mercado with that photo you sent to a tabloid along with some misinformation on Ms. Mercado,” he states as he starts to back us away from my now hysterical looking ex.

“I didn’t do anything! You have no proof!” He yells as he sends Lorenzo a look that could kill.

“I’m sure we can get the tabloid to give you up. And even if they don’t and we have no proof, we will make sure to tie you up in court and bury you with as much paper work as it takes for you to stay away from Mr. Seka and Ms. Mercado.”

With that, Lorenzo takes my hand and leads me away. I’m silent as he leads me to his car. I notice that Tori’s car is gone which means he probably told her to leave once he arrived. I want to ask Lorenzo how he found me and how he even knew I was gone. But I’m so stunned with the way he coldly and fiercely defended me, I can’t bring myself to ask him anything. I know Elijah can be scary, especially with his temper. But this was the first time I saw how scary his second in command can be. And unlike Elijah, he doesn’t have to show any emotion to be terrifying, which I think is almost worse.

I start to slip out of my stunned state when I notice us going over the bridge back into Manhattan. Lorenzo is obviously taking me back to Elijah. And I’m sure Elijah knows all about me being gone. Which means I only have a few minutes to ask Lorenzo about everything that’s been on my mind before I get chewed out by my soulmate.

“How did you know?” I ask vaguely.

“Charles came into the apartment to check in on you and offer Tori a ride back to her apartment after your scheduled lunch. When he didn’t find you there, he told me about it.”

“Does Elijah know?” I ask.

Lorenzo lets out a sigh. “He doesn’t. I was going to tell him but I wanted to cut Charles some slack. He’s doing his best to prove to Elijah that he’s still worthy enough to be your body guard. I don’t think he should be punished for your inability to stay put. Luckily, Elijah still doesn’t get off work for another few hours so as long as we get you back to the apartment, he won’t know about your day out.”

I give him a small nod in agreement to his plan. “And about David…” I trail off.

“Now that, Elijah does know about, well kind of,” he says, “He saw the tabloid and the social media posts with your picture. He tasked me with tracing where it came from and who’s responsible. The name David Torres came up in my investigation. When I found out you were gone without your phone, I called Tori. She tried her best to lie about where you were, but when I asked her if you knew a David, she confessed everything. It couldn’t have been more perfect that you were with the same moron who tried to expose you to the media.”

“Thank you, Lorenzo,” I say softly.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he says nonchalantly. “An attack on you is an attack on El, and an attack on him is an attack on me. I wasn’t going to let that guy hurt you. Besides, it’s better that I handled all this than Elijah. If Elijah was given the opportunity to come after your ex-boyfriend, he would’ve done more than go after him with a law suit. I’m pretty sure he would’ve put him in the hospital.”

“It’s not like he wouldn’t deserve that,” I say as a small smile crawls onto my face at the thought of Elijah defending my honor against someone like David.

“I’m sure he does. But the last thing we need is that kind of scandal to get on TMZ,” he says with a small smirk.

Silence falls upon us once again but it’s comfortable this time. Elijah doesn’t know how lucky he is to have such a loyal and devoted friend like Lorenzo. Granted, he’s going to hide the fact that I ran away for a second. But something tells me it’s not just because Lorenzo just cares about Elijah’s mental well being.

“Lorenzo, can we stop by Elijah’s office?” I ask as I notice the street his office building is located at is coming up.

“Do you want to expose yourself and get me killed?” Lorenzo asks as he gives me a look like I’m crazy.

“I’m not going to tell him I went out to see David. I just want to stop by and say ‘hi’. And he has no problems with me going to visit him because he knows I’m safe at his company headquarters,” I reason.

Lorenzo lets out a sigh. “Okay. We’ll go and say ‘hi’,” he says warily.

Lorenzo leads me into the building, up to Elijah’s office. Elijah is the only thing on my mind the closer I get to him, so much so that I pay no mind to any of the employees we pass by, even his secretary. Lorenzo opens the door for me without even bothering to knock. Someone is clearly in a rush to get me home so we could put this day behind us already.

When we step into the room, Elijah is standing up by his desk, on the phone. The blazer he left in this morning is gone and the sleeves of his white dress shirt are rolled up his strong forearms. He has his top shirt button unbuttoned and his dark tie is loosened. It clearly looks like he’s had a long day that still has yet to end as he’s fighting through these last few hours of the afternoon. He runs his hand through his dark locks in frustration as he talks firmly with whoever is on the other end of that phone line.

Elijah’s body is rigid but it immediately relaxes when his blue eyes make contact with my green ones. His scowl melts away and is quickly replaced with a smile.

“Listen Henderson, get the department to get together their best ideas and present them to me at our next meeting. Yes, I understand that our next meeting is in 48 hours but we have deadlines to meet. Thank you, Henderson,” he says before hanging up the phone.

Elijah then eagerly stalks towards me. His arms snake around my waist and my arms wrap around his neck.

“Hey,” he says gently, a small look of confusion on his face. “What are you doing he-“

I cut off his question with my lips. I can feel a burning fire in my chest and I can’t help but want to pull him closer. I run my hand through his hair as I try my best to mold my lips onto his. I want there to be no difference between where I end and he begins. Elijah makes no objections as he presses himself to me, the warmth of our bodies mixing. His hands go up and down my sides before they firmly rest on my hips and he gives my bum a light squeeze.

After what feels like an eternity, I pull away from him and for the first time since we started dating, I notice I’m the one who has left him breathless.

“Not that I’m mad,” Elijah starts as he attempts to catch his breath, “But what was that for?”

“I just wanted to thank you,” I say softly.

“Thank me for what?” He asks with a light chuckle.

My eyes lock onto his and I can’t help but give him a warm, affectionate smile. “Thank you for being you.”