Falling For The CEO: BAD BOY ROMANCE

by Anya Palvin

  She could work passed the fact that he was married. She could, no matter how much it hurt that he had shared such a bond with someone who wasn't her. But what she couldn't get passed was that she had spoken to him about marriage and he had said nothing to her about his past. She must have looked so stupid when she had giggled at his mention of wanting to marry her. She took another sip of whiskey, hoping it would settle her embarrassment at the thought. She remembered the strange look on his face when she had run with the idea of marrying him. Was he thinking about his past marriage? That maybe marriage with her would be the same, would be just as bad? Diana could only assume that it had been a bad one – people didn't get divorced because they were happy and things were going well. But she couldn't speculate any more about the state of his past marriage because he hadn't told her about it. Suddenly the hurt transformed into a ball of anger that sat heavy in her stomach. He had lied to her! The irony of it made it so much worse. He had been so upset when she had told him her lie. He hadn't wanted to speak to her, had taken weeks to even get to the point where he was willing to accept her apology. And now she found out he had been doing the very thing that he had been upset with her about?

  A part of her wondered if she had caused him this much pain when she had lied to him. She didn't think so. Things were different between them now. They had passed the stage where a lie – especially one this big – could be forgiven. She was in love with him. And he claimed to love her, too. And to her, that meant honesty and trust. She felt the burn of tears as she thought of the day before, when she had been so excited because she thought that she had found the person she wanted to marry, the person she wanted to start a family with. Suddenly, her stomach dropped, and she had to put down her tea before that dropped, too. Julia had said she had a son. He was four – no, five years old, because she had said that she had worked at Grace four and a half years ago. Diana walked to the couch on shaky legs and sat heavily as she did the math. If Julia was still married to William when she worked at the hotel, she would have pregnant when she left----which meant that...William could be the father!

  She leaned forward and rested her head in her hands. Everything she thought she knew about the man she loved came into question. A little voice asked her if she thought William would hide something this big from her. She wished the answer was no, but she knew for sure that he had lied to her about being married. Was the step to lying about being a father really that big? Yes, the words formed in her head. It was, because it would mean that he didn't think his child was important enough to talk about which meant that he really wasn't the man she believed him to be.2

  The revelations of the day crashed over her, and she felt tired, so incredibly exhausted that she didn't have the energy to stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks.

  16.

  William stopped in front of Diana's house with a feeling of dread in his stomach. His gut has been telling him that something was definitely wrong. There was no way she would have missed out on their lunch if everything was fine. He had tried calling her, but her phone has been turned off. It was possible that she had forgotten to turn it back on after she had come from her interview, and he tried to use this line of reasoning to calm the emotion flooding through him. He wasn't used to the level of concern he felt for her. Of course, he loved his family, but his love for them was one that settled and comforted, and he didn't have to worry with them. But with Diana, the emotion was so much more intense. It was a constant longing and worry – longing for her, to see her, to be with her, and worry when he wasn't. Was she okay? Was she thinking about him? Did she need him? He told himself that that was what was happening to him now when he worried that the interview had gone terribly.

  But he would like to think that if it had, she would have turned to him instead of turning away from him. There was the worry again, he thought as he walked up the short driveway. Maybe she still thought that she was alone, and didn't want to talk to him about it. But he wanted to know. He wanted to be there more than anything. And that's how he knew that spending his life with her was no longer a question – it was a fact---a fact that he wanted to share with her the soonest. There were other things he had to deal with first, he knew. He had kept his past a secret for too long, and he knew that he had to reveal it before he said anything else. It was going to be hard – he wasn't a fool, he knew he had made a mistake. But it was one that he would have to settle soon.

  He knocked at the door, and waited. A million scenarios rumbled through his mind with every passing second, each he attempted to subdue with reason. After a minute, he knocked again, this time calling. He didn't know where else she would be, since he knew for a fact that she was not at the hotel. He was about to knock for a third time, when the door opened, and his heart knocked a frightening rhythm in his chest when he saw her. She was pale, paler than he had ever seen her, and her eyes were puffy, as though she had been crying. The creased blouse she wore over her skirt and her hair that had hung in a loose ponytail on her head made her look unkempt in a way that immediately alerted his senses.

  "Diana, what happened?" He walked inside without waiting for an invitation, and gripped her shoulders lightly.

  She shook her head, but didn't speak, and he couldn't quite reconcile the woman in front of him with the one who had laughed so freely the day before.

  "You can tell me what happened. I promise, it'll be okay." He pulled her into his arms and held her gently. For the first time in his life didn't know what to do about the lack of response. He pulled back in time to see a tear streak from her face, and finally, finally, she looked at him.

  "When were you going to tell me?" The words were soft, hoarse, and his hair immediately stood on end.

  "When was I going to tell you what?" He said it slowly, carefully. She couldn't mean what he thought, could she?

  Her eyes, dull before, sparked. "You know what I'm talking about."

  William's heart dropped to his feet and he knew from the look on her face that he had run out of time to explain his past to her on his own terms as he had wanted to do.

  "I'm sorry. I should have told you."

  The words nudged her out of the catatonic state she'd felt since she got home.

  "Yes, you should have. But you didn't. And instead I had to find out about the fact that you have an ex-wife and child from Julia herself. She's lovely, by the way." And it irked Diana that she meant those words. There was a moment of silence, and she could tell from the look on his face that she had shocked him. "Were you ever going to tell me?" The question slipped past the guard she had been determined the keep. "Were you ever going to tell me you were a father?"

  "What are you talking about?" He stared at her. "I'm not a father."

  She shook her head, and walked to her lounge, fed up of having the conversation in front of her doorway. "I met Julia today." Diana saw William's eyes lift in surprise. "She works for the company I interviewed at. She told me you had a child."

  "She said that? Explicitly?"

  "No, but she might as well have. She used to work at Grace? William, I don't understand how you could keep any of this from me?" Her voice cracked, but she didn't care. She just wanted answers.

  "I know, I'm sorry. I should have told you." William walked to her, and took both of her hands in his. "But before I explain, I want you to know that I don't have a child. I'm not the father of Julia's child." He squeezed her hands and then released them. "And that already gives you half of the story."

  Diana knew that she shouldn't feel relief – not when the principle of what had upset her was still there – but it overcame her anyway. At least the man---whom she had known to loved his family and adore them so much, was still there. She watched the variety of emotion flash across his face as he formulated the words to her about his past. She had seen that expression only once before – the day she had told him that she worked at Grace. She recognised it now as conflict, and her heart yearned to comfort whatever he was in conflict about. But then she
remembered where they were, what they were doing, and remained silent, waiting for him to figure out what he wanted to say to her.

  "I was married. You were right about that. It was a little over seven years ago, and I thought that I had met the person I was going to spend my life with. I was just transitioning in the business – my father ran the hotels back then – and when I was introduced to Julia, I immediately fell for her. She had an energy that bubbled over onto everyone she spoke to, and that attracted me." He ran a hand over his face, and sat heavily on the couch. "So we had a bit of a whirlwind courtship and then we were married, and it was great. For the first year. And then she became incredibly demanding. Looking back now, I suppose she always had been. But that had been part of her charm when we were dating. I thought she wanted to spend more time with me, although, in reality, she wanted someone – not necessarily me – to pay attention to her. She would complain that I was spending too much time at work, and that she wasn't getting what she needed from me."

  William looked at her, maybe to gauge her reaction, but Diana kept her face neutral. She couldn't give away too much of what she was feeling – she already felt raw from her earlier outburst. He nodded when she didn't speak, and then continued.

  "At first, I tried to give her what she wanted. I came home earlier, tried to organise my schedule so that we could have lunch together more often. But it still wasn't enough for her, and I think that was the first time I noticed how selfish and self-involved she could be." He shrugged. "And once I realised that, it became harder for me to give in to her demands. I thought that it was time to throw in the towel, to try separation or to just divorce, but then she told me she was pregnant. I was shocked. We'd spoken about children before, but it had been in the very early stages of our relationship. And she had said she didn't think she could look after another human being then." He stood, and walked to the window. "She reminded me so much of my mother then that I didn't quite know what to do about it. So I ignored it, until she told me about her pregnancy, and that it could be the key to fix our marriage."

  "So you stayed." Diana spoke softly. It wasn't a question, but a statement of what she knew William would do. She was beginning to understand the complexities of his situation, and it made her trust that he was still the person she thought he was. William would never abandon his child like his mother had done to him.

  "Yeah." He turned to look at her now. "I stayed. She had made a doctor's appointment for the 'twelve-week-mark' as she called it. I didn't question it – the last thing on my mind was the possibility that it wasn't mine – but when we got to the doctor, that's exactly what I found out. I had been too accepting, and it turned out that the timeline hadn't worked out. I'd been away for a conference for two weeks during the possible conception time. I didn't say anything until we left the office – it wasn't important for me to embarrass her in front of the doctor who would be spending her entire pregnancy with her." He shrugged. "So I just packed my bags and contacted our lawyer. I haven't seen her since the divorce."

  Diana's heart softened at the brokenness she saw in him, and she felt a wave of understanding at his situation. She saw so many similarities in what he said, what she read from him, that she didn't blame him for lying to her anymore. "How did she take it?"

  "She begged at first. Said she had made a mistake and that she loved me." He came to sit down beside her. "When I wouldn't accept that, she lashed out, and blamed me for not giving her enough attention. It may have been something I believed if I hadn't been trying my hardest to do exactly that for her. And again, I saw the selfish woman that had somehow been hidden from me before we married." He took her hands in his, and she had to steel herself against the raw emotion in his eyes. "I'm so sorry that I didn't tell you. And that you had to find out about this from her. I –" he shook his head. "It wasn't the way I wanted you to find out."

  Diana left her hands in his for a second, and then gently pulled them away. "I'm sorry you had to go through that, William. Truly I am. I know it must have been difficult – especially because of the way she betrayed you. I listened to you now, and I know why this isn't something you easily shared." She stood now, her own legs restless with the thoughts, the anxieties she felt about this. "But I don't know if you can use that as an excuse."

  "I know, I'm sorry about lying to you."

  "No, William." She turned to look at him, standing a few metres from her. Somehow at the back of her mind she thought of the irony of their proximity. He was so close to her and yet she had never felt as far from him. "I can get over the lying. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't try to forgive you. And I think that I have, for that."

  She took a step back to mirror the one he had taken toward her, and he stopped, his face a mass of confusion. "What I'm struggling with is what you lied about. This was such a significant part of your life, and of who you are. But worse, it's such a significant part of why you found it so hard to forgive me when I lied to you." She searched his eyes for acknowledgement, and what she saw there gave her the confirmation she needed. "I'm not making excuses for what I did – I know that lying to you was wrong – but I couldn't understand why you wouldn't even listen to me, and why it took you so long to understand my point of view. And now I find myself wondering if you were really upset with me, or if you were upset with her all over again."

  He didn't answer immediately, and Diana forced herself to remain silent and not give him words that he could cling to.

  "I don't know." William said, and she could see that he meant it. Her heart broke a little, and she took a deep breath to keep the tears at bay.

  "That's a problem for me, William. I need you to know." She felt the warmth of tears escape from her eyes, and she wiped impatiently at them. She cleared her throat. "You said you haven't seen Julia since the divorce. Have you spoken to anyone about what you went through?" He shook his head. "I don't think you've worked through your feelings about it. And we can't be together until you do."

  "What?" He walked towards her again, and this time she didn't step back. "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying that I'm not Julia, but until you work through what she did to you, you may treat me as though I am. And as much as I love you, as much as I don't want to lose you, I can't be with you when that's still a possibility." She kissed him on the forehead, and walked to the door, opening it for him. A gust of wind cooled her flushed face, and she begged her thudding heart to give her just a few moments before breaking completely.

  William stood there for a while, and then he walked to where she was standing. But he didn't leave. Instead he lifted her chin so that she was looking into his eyes. There was a brief moment that she could do something about the kiss she saw coming. But there was a part of her – a big one – that wanted to experience it since she didn't know if it would be for the last time. His lips touched hers before she had finished processing the thought, and before she knew it, she was curled around him, clinging to him so tightly that she was sure some part of her wanted to memorise the feel of him. He deepened the kiss and she moaned in response, her heart crying out for it to be real, to be forever. But it wasn't, a voice reminded her, and she eased back, placing a hand on his chest to give him a slight push away. It didn't move him, but he leaned his forehead against hers for a moment and then walked through the door. He hadn't reached his car when he turned.

  "Will you be waiting for me, Diana?"

  "Yes."

  And with that simple answer, she closed the door and sank to the floor, the tears finally flowing freely from her broken heart.

  17.

  "Do you plan to tell me what’s going on your mind right now?"

  William looked up from the carrots he was slowly, but steadily cutting, and shrugged at Gloria. "Work. Hey, ouch!" He looked up and rubbed at the spot on his head where she nipped him. "What was that for?"

  "For you to be reminded that your lies won’t work for me so you better tell me what’s going on or I try knocking you on the other side of your head."
Gloria narrowed her eyes at him, and William felt the unease slowly creep up his spine. He resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck.

  "I'm just having some relationship troubles. It's fine."

  Gloria didn't respond – perhaps she was giving him the chance to rephrase or perhaps change his answer – and then she shrugged in a way very similar to what he had done earlier. "Good then. I thought there was something more serious going on." She said, and went back to stirring the soup on the stove.

  William watched her, and knew this was a ploy to get him talking. So he resisted. He finished chopping the carrots, and went on to set the table for their Sunday lunch. The day was cool outside, the wind stirring the branches so that the rustling plucked some of the leaves from their stems. Although he had tried to skip lunch at his parents' house, his father had given him an earful about keeping family commitments since William had already skipped the last few. When William agreed, his father sighed with such relief that William knew Gloria had been behind it. He had barely pulled his car into the driveway when Tara sped down the walkway and jumped into his arms. The emotional turmoil had been in during the last two weeks had then shifted to make space for one singular emotion – guilt. And that emotion had carried him straight through to when he had greeted his parents, his father giving him a pat on the back in what William could only assume was gratitude, and Gloria giving him a hug that had nearly squeezed the life from him.