You see, it's difficult to avoid gossips and having the feeling of some colleagues' eyes darting my back isn't something I would fancy in particular. Neither it must be for him.
So when Deacon wants to be with me and for him to walk that extra mile, it must mean that he's prepared to deal with the repercussions of his actions.
Things like that swirl inside my head throughout the day. I barely managed to fit any work between seeing him and thinking about him. The worst part, however, is that I'm also thinking about all these things now that I'm heading back to the office. I was at the reception hall when I realized that I have forgotten my purse on my desk. You see, my card was in there and I couldn't leave the building without presenting it at the security terminal.
Any other day I would be happy seeing Deacon again, but today I'm wasting minutes from my precious preparation time. And if our last meal in that Chinese restaurant is any indication of the lengths Deacon can go to if he wants to impress a girl, then I want to be ready for any possible outcome.
When I finally arrive at the office again, almost all desks are empty. The place is mostly dark except a light lamp shining down in the hall. It's Friday and people don't usually work overtime on Fridays. It strikes me as weird but I decide not to take it into consideration. It's not like I have the time to further investigate the incident.
It's only after I've walked to my desk that I hear that distinctive, bitchy giggle of Linda. What I didn't expect to hear, though, was Deacon's voice together with hers.
He was too far away for me to hear what he said, but just the thought of him staying alone with Linda on the deserted floor makes me feel jealous. What are they doing? Deacon made it very clear to me that he isn't busy today and will leave work early.
Like a moth drawn to the fire, I wander to the lit desk on the other side of the floor. The moment I'm able to see their figures, I stop. I don't want to bother them if they're working, and also don't want to seem like an insecure young woman that doesn't trust her man.
I stand there for a moment, looking at them, trying to understand what's going on until things start to get warm between them. Her head leans closer to him but Deacon doesn't pull back. Instead, he keeps talking, his body shaking from all the words coming out of his mouth. I feel like I'm witnessing a crime. I can't move, my feet have rooted in the floor and I'm barely breathing.
What's going on here? Why Deacon doesn't pull back? Why does Linda continue to get closer to him? Why is her hand resting on his?
WHY ARE THEY KISSING???
***
I don't know what's gotten into me. I don't know when I started believing the lies I kept telling myself. A billionaire falling in love with me? Have I gone mental?
Linda and Deacon had an affair. Full stop. He was playing me for a fool and needed me, the poor, sympathetic girl to be his front while he was chasing God-knows-how-many women behind my back, making me look like a total and utter fool.
Not only that, but he has even the courage to keep calling me since that incident, trying to apologize to me. He even got Rachel to call me to try and explain things to me, but when she started talking about Deacon, I hung up on her too.
There is nothing left to say; Deacon was cheating on me with Linda. I can't get their kiss out of my head. I'm thinking about it all the time, every passing moment. I've skipped work for a week now, not answering any call from any of my friends, and have holed up in my room, refusing to leave before watching every possible movie with blond, skinny girls getting murdered.
But who am I kidding? It’s not her fault. She’s pretty, single, smart; Deacon knew all that when he hired her. It was Deacon who should have pulled back. It was him that betrayed me, not her.
My mother keeps bothering me, trying to learn the details of what happened. But I don't have the guts to tell her. I spend enough hours every day replaying that scene in my head, seeing them kissing, Deacon crossing his hands around her waist and pulling her in.
God, I want to kill them. Both of them!
Today, when I woke up, I found the usual pair of missed calls from the company and a handful of calls from Deacon's cell phone as well. I ignore them all and head straight to a text message from Nadia. She's the only one I've talked about what happened between us.
The text message says: “Get on your feet, put on some clothes and come take a walk with me. If you don’t, I swear I’ll call your mother and tell her everything about Deacon.”
She can be pretty manipulative if she wants to, but Nadia means well. I know because I would have done the same if she were in my shoes. Still, for the first time since the incident, I don't find her proposition a bad idea. I've grown tired of waiting when will Deacon stop calling me. I need to break away from this room. I need to take in some fresh air.
I take a shower and put on a casual outfit. I don’t plan on staying out for long. We meet at the local park. It’s Friday, exactly one week since all shit happened. To my surprise, the world hasn’t stopped turning. People don’t stare me in the eyes like I’m a poor, heartbroken curvy girl. No. They don’t give a damn about me...and somehow it feels reassuring.
Life does go on, time can mend any injury, and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That’s it.
Only that it hurts. It hurts like nothing before in my life. It fucking hurts so much that I don't know how long I've been looking at the flavors selection of that ice-cream cart Nadia dragged me to in the park. She has to nudge me to make me snap out.
"Come on, Chloe. I don't have all day," she says in an annoyed manner.
“I...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...” but I don’t have the strength to complete my sentence.
"I know you didn't mean to, but pick something. You might get surprised by how much eating the ice-cream can help you," she insists.
I sigh and go with the safe choice of chocolate and vanilla. You can’t go wrong with chocolate. The ice-cream man quickly pours a hefty ball and passes the bowl to me.
“How much?” I mumble.
“It’s my treat,” he says.
His words make my head jolt in surprise. “What? Why?”
And then I see him. Dressed in the all-white uniform of an ice-cream man, there is Deacon Stamford, the man that can afford ten, no, a thousand ice-cream carts like this.
"One of your friends told me that there's nothing time and a lot of ice-cream can't mend. Since I can't afford to spend more time away from you, I thought of going for a lot of ice-cream."
I can't help but grin at his reply. But that feeling of warm intimacy only lasts for a second. Linda's lips touching his make me feel sick again.
The lines of his face tense after seeing me get mad at him. He's perceptive; he knows that if he doesn't leave now, all the ice-cream of the world can't stop me from slapping him.
I take out my wallet and leave a five-dollar bill on the cart. "This is for the ice-cream. Keep the change and please pass my congratulations to your girlfriend, Linda. She finally got what she wanted from you.”
I turn my back and get ready to leave when a hand pulls me to a stop; it's Deacon. "There's nothing between me and that woman. Linda was delusional. Just because we dated once, she thought she owned me," he says.
"Let me go. I don't want to hear your excuses. I'm not as beautiful and confident as her. But I don't care. You know why? Because beauty comes with the price of a broken heart, and I'm not one to do the same thing that others did to me."
Without ever letting go, Deacon makes a step closer and looks me in the eyes. His glance is steady, honest. How can it be? Isn’t he ashamed of what he did? Am I the only one hurt by this relationship?
But then I see it. The black circles under his eyes, the red corners of his irises, and a growing stubble on his face. He must have had trouble sleeping.
"I'm sorry for hurting you, Chloe. I never meant to do something like that. What you saw was Linda trying one last time to win my love with cheap tricks. When I told her that you and I are dating, Linda tr
ied to kiss me. She took me by surprise and I couldn't stop her in time, but when I pulled away, I fired her on the spot. I had to call the security to take her away from the building. That woman was crazy."
“And why should I believe you?” I say.
Time slows down when I see him getting on one knee in front of me. My free hand caps my open mouth. Is this what I think it is?
"Because I am madly in love with you, Chloe Ashbourne. I've been in love with you for some time now, but after losing you, even just for a week, I figured out that I have deeper feelings for you than I thought. You're smart, handsome, and you like me for who I am and not for my wealth. I love you, Chloe, and I want to ask you something:
Will you marry me?”
Am I dreaming? Is this real? Is Deacon proposing to me? Me? Busty Muddy? That disastrous girl that couldn't keep a job at a coffee shop even for a day? I can't believe it. My feelings go rampant inside me; I want to scream from happiness and burst into tears after everything I went through. I want to kiss him and slap him and kiss him again.
But most of all, I want to yell, at the top of my lungs:
“Yes! Yes, I will!”
THE END
A Chance Meeting
Chapter 1
The line to the airline booth is scarcely crowded. My trip to New York is close. In about three hours, I’ll be walking on the boulevards of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. However, for now, a family of four is waiting in the front for a senior couple to book their tickets last minute; behind them, a group of men laughing and teasing each other seems properly excited for their imminent trip; and then there is me. Lonely, miserable, Georgia, the one taking a trip to New York all by herself because the asshole of a boyfriend she had cheated on her two days before their trip.
Yeah, I know. Too cheesy; I should be feeling glad that Ray won’t be following me around all day, asking his stupid questions with his cellphone glued in his hands, always texting with a “friend” of his.
God, I must have been truly blind not to see that he was fooling around since the beginning of our relationship. No, not just blind; desperate. Back then, the world seemed to spin around him; what will Ray do? When will he do it? Am I worthy of his time, of the happiness he provided to me?
Well, I guess not. But, and that’s a big but, there’s one good thing that came out of my destroyed relationship, and that’s the trip to New York. We’ve been planning to visit for six months now, but with me working in the magazine and Ray having scheduled countless photo shoots, we couldn’t go away like that. We had to plan ahead and make sure our three-day trip would coincide with our time off.
But that fucktard Ray had different plans after all. To think he had the balls to cheat on me in my own apartment with one of my neighbors; I mean, who the hell he thinks he is?
I’m starting to breathe fast after remembering how everything turned out. Him not even apologizing for his mistake, sayings that he’s a free spirit and he couldn’t resist the beauty of another woman so easily.
“I should have killed him,” I hiss while the dad of the two cute children is trying to change the number of their seats so that the young ones can seat by the window.
The men in front of me turn and look at me discreetly. One of them, an African-American stud with biceps to kill for, smiles at me. “He cheated on you?” he asks me out of the sudden.
I feel my face redden from the embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to come out loud,” I mutter.
His grin turns to a full-blown smile now; he’s pretty cute.
“No worries. It has happened to all of us,” he says. His friends nod sharing impish grins at one another. It’s pretty easy to guess who were on the recipient side who on the giving one of the deal.
“Yeah. Well, I hope you hadn’t planned a trip to New York when it did because airplane tickets can’t get refunded, and we had already paid for the hotel too.” I can’t control what I say anymore. Talking about him after everything that happened makes me unable to hold back. Rage has filled my mind; I mean, he fucking cheated on me!
“No, it hasn’t happened to me. In my case, he cheated me with my best friend, who always went around being this macho man,” he says. “I caught them banging on our bed, my best friend being the bottom. The only thing straight about him was his hair.”
He? Straight? Of course. Four men teasing each other in the airport, traveling to New York together? They’re gay. Still, he was right; his case was far worse than mine.
“Geez. How heartless you have to be to do that?” I ask, this time without flirtatious tone in my voice.
“You tell me, sister,” he says and shrugs. That moment, what seemed to be his boyfriend nudged him. It was their turn. “Nice meeting you...”
“Georgia. Yeah, nice meeting you, too. I hope you have a great trip.” I smile at him in the end and bring out my phone from my purse to kill some time.
I don’t know why, but talking to this guy made me feel better. Okay, he wasn’t flirting with me as I’ve thought at the beginning, but knowing that other people have had it worse makes the pain a little easier to bare. It doesn’t banish it, but it sure feels like I’ve applied a BandAid and I’m waiting for the wound to close.
However, I’m not sure that a BandAid will be able to do much healing, not when everything around me keeps reminding me of him. For example, the last time we were at the airport together, Ray brought me a chocolate and promised me that next time we’ll be here together, we’ll be flying to New York. It seems he was just toying with my feelings all this time, that he was using me to fulfill his ego.
That bastard. I really should have tossed that hideous vase his sister bought me on his face.
I clutch the handle of my luggage tightly and turn my face away from the guys in front of me. You won’t cry, Georgia. He doesn’t deserve any of your tears. It was his loss; he couldn’t handle your sensual, busty body, and your divine curves. I’ll go on and show him that my trip to New York, even if I’m all alone, will be great. I don’t need him to be happy. I’ll show the world that I need no man to be a satisfied woman, dammit!
“Excuse me, miss? Is there something I can do for you?” Her sweet voice and the elegant way she addressed me caught me off guard. I stand there, gawping at her, unable to make a move other than look around me.
“Sorry, you mean me?” I reply.
“Of course. There’s no else in the line.”
The couples from before have left already and I’m the only one around, lost in my thoughts of self-pity. When I start to realize what’s going on, I notice the nice woman in front of me smiling at me full of empathy. Gosh, did she hear my speech about my boyfriend cheating on me?
Well, it’s not like I was hiding it or any way.
“I’m so sorry for that. I was lost in my thoughts. Yeah, so I would like to cancel a ticket for New York.”
“Of course. I would like to warn you, though, that our company doesn’t refund the full price of the tickets purchased online or by any other format. Are you sure you’d like me to cancel it for you?” she says.
I nod hastily. Honestly, if I had opened my mouth just then, the story of my miserable life would pour out roaring. Instead, I occupy myself with observing the woman in front of me and the crowds moving around the airport. She has started the process of deleting the last part connecting me to Ray, and as always, she pushes random keys with a faucet of polite apathy on her face.
As far as I’m concerned, she might be hating her life right now or hating me for making her work more during her shift. I don’t know, and truth be told, I don’t really care.
I check everywhere around me while waiting.
People come and people go. A young woman is hugging a young man in the distance, tears running down her face; a family gets reunited when the mother returns from servicing in the army; a man is walking his dog carrying one of the little cages made for the trip. The world keeps going on around me, and I’m still here, stuc
k in the past, waiting for a miracle to happen.
Well, the only thing life has taught me up to now is that no matter how hard you try, there will always be something messing with you. For me, that something was 6 feet tall, handsome guy that thinks too much of himself. Screw him.
Enough of destiny and love and trusting the wrong people. It’s my time to shine now and I’ll do it solo.
“Thank you for your patience,” the young woman behind the booth says. “The ticket has been canceled and the refund of the booking fee has been sent to your account. I hope you have a great trip,” she says as she’s passing my credit card back to me.
Big Bad Billionaires [Volume 2] Page 17