The Bridal Candidate 1 (Heart Connections)

by Linda Verji

  Damián closed his eyes and ran a frustrated hand over his face. " Mamá, ya ni están casados." Mum, the two of you aren't even married anymore.

  "Y eso?" So? His mother retorted. "Tell him to get rid of that girl and I will come back."

  Damián didn't even know why he was being dragged into the drama between her and his father. She was the one who'd married Archie despite knowing that he'd cheated on his first wife with her. She was the one who'd tolerated his womanizing ways through the whole length of their sixteen-year marriage and even taken lovers of her own. She was the one who'd asked for a divorce because she wanted to start a relationship with one of her fellow Telenovela stars. Now that that relationship had failed, she was trying to reconcile with Archie and putting Damián smack in the middle of it all.

  God, he hated this.

  But he said, "I'll try."

  A few more complaints later, his mother finally ended the call. His eyes still on Aiko, he exited the car.

  "Hi," she greeted.

  "Hi." He propped his arms on the roof of his car and stared across at her. "Going somewhere?"

  "Yeah." She folded her arms over her breasts. "To get your daughter."

  Ugh! Here we go again.

  When he made no comment, Aiko added, "She left for Shelley's house hours ago and still isn't back."

  Groaning internally, Damián offered, "I'll ask Virgil to go and get her."

  "Don't bother. I'm going myself. Gertie gave me the directions." She paused then added, "Do you want to come with me."

  Hell. No. And deal with an irate Zoe? He'd rather have slit his wrist with a rusty, tetanus infested razor blade. Straightening from his car, he excused, "I can't. I'm waiting for an important call from Vienna."

  What? It was the truth. He was expecting a call from an Austrian subsidiary of his company. The fact that the call was supposed to happen in two hours was just details. Nevertheless, guilt pricked at him, and he found himself offering, "You don't need to go either. Zoe will turn up eventually and even if she doesn't come home tonight, she's safe at Shelley's house."

  Aiko observed him for a long silent moment then she said, "You're scared of her."

  He blinked. "What?"

  Her voice was surer this time. "You're scared of Zoe."

  "I'm not scared." Why would he be scared of a twelve year-old? He was a grown man; the CEO of a company. He spent his days ordering around over three hundred adults. Of course he wasn't scared of his daughter. Anger tingeing his voice, he repeated, "I'm not scared. I'm just not interested in cleaning up your mistake."

  Propping a fist on her waist, she glared at him. "I'm sorry?"

  "I'm paying you - a lot of money by the way - to be a mother to Zoe. So far you've done a horrible job of it," he berated. "I heard all about how she didn't get to school today. And now here we are again, with her having left the house right under your nose."

  Anger dripping from Aiko's voice and stiff-backed posture as she asked, "So this is my fault?"

  "Yes, it is." Damián nodded curtly. "And I'd appreciate it if you took your job more seriously."

  With those words, he marched away from the car and toward the house. But even as he went, he heard her mutter, "Okay, you want me to get serious? Fine. Let's get serious."

  He almost turned back to ask her what she meant, but his sense of self-preservation won out and he kept walking. Was he being unfair to Aiko? He didn't think so. She was the one who'd signed up for this job, and it was up to her to figure out a way to handle Zoe.

  He headed straight for his study, intent on avoiding Aiko and his daughter, if she decided to turn up.

  THE NERVE OF that man! Blaming her for his daughter's mischief.

  He wanted her to take control of Zoe? Well, she was about to do just that. Anger in her long strides, Aiko stomped into the house and turned into the kitchen. She found Gertie, Emily and Major there.

  "Are you busy right now?" she asked them.

  "Not really," Gertie answered on behalf of the other staff. "Did you need something?"

  "I need some help in Zoe's room."

  It was a good thing that Seraphina was a heavy sleeper because if she wasn't all the commotion in the room next to hers would've woken her. It took a lot of hard work and heavy lifting but two hours later, Aiko finally had Zoe's room exactly as she wanted.

  And that's when Zoe came home.

  "What the hell have you done with my stuff," the girl screamed when she saw her stripped room. "Where's my TV, my laptop, my makeup?"

  "I took them all," Aiko said evenly as she bent to pick the purse Zoe had dropped on the floor on her entrance.

  "Why did you-" Zoe turned angry eyes to Aiko only to find her unzipping her purse. "What are you doing?"

  "Taking your phone."Aiko turned when the girl lunged for her trying to snatch the purse away from her. She plucked the phone from the purse's interior, along with a platinum credit card.

  "Give me back my phone," Zoe shrieked, trying to make a grab for it.

  "No." Aiko held the phone and card up. With their differences in height, Zoe would need a ladder if she wanted the phone back. She added, "You'll have to earn it ba-"

  "Give me back my phone," Zoe interrupted with a piercing scream and an upward jump. "Give me back my phone. Give me back my phone."

  Aiko simply watched the girl's shenanigans with a jaundiced eye, the phone and card still held up high above her head. When Zoe saw that the screaming and jumping was having no effect, she kicked Aiko in the shin.

  "Ow." Immediate pain seared through Aiko's leg and she doubled over to rub her ankle. Zoe took the opportunity to make a grab for her phone. But Aiko was just as determined to keep it. In the struggle, the phone somehow slipped from both their grasps. It fell to the hardwood floor with a sickening clang.

  "You broke it," Zoe screeched as she picked up the phone. Indeed it was broken. Though the screen still showed all the appropriate icons, the glass now had long crack lines starting from the middle and extending toward the outer edges. "You broke my phone. You broke my phone."

  Oh, please. It was just a phone.

  Unmoved, Aiko plucked the gadget from the girl's limp fingers. "As I was saying, I've taken your stuff because you've been misbehaving. You'll have to earn-"

  "You broke my phone," Zoe wailed. She plopped on the floor, covered her face with her hands and started bawling.

  Seriously? Over a phone? For a while, Aiko didn't even know what to do. Any other kid and the crack lines wouldn't have been a deal breaker, after all the phone wasn't dead. But Zoe was acting like the sky had fallen.

  "Zoe it's just a phone."

  The crying got even louder.

  Shaking her head, Aiko made her way to Zoe. Settling on the edge of the bed, she waited for the girl to quit her crying. It took a while but finally the bawling tapered into sniffles.

  "I'm sorry about your phone," Aiko apologized, her eyes on the girl still seated on the floor. "I'll ask your dad if you can have a new one, but only if your earn it back by following the rules."

  Zoe swiped a hand over her eyes but didn't say anything.

  "I haven't made the rules yet because I was waiting for you so we could make the rules together." Aiko bent forward slightly to look into Zoe's teary face. "Do you want us to do it now?"

  Zoe brought her knees up, folded her arms over them and tucked her face into her arms.

  "Let me get us something to write them on." Aiko stood and walked to Zoe's desk. After picking up a pen and paper, she came back and slipped to the floor beside the girl. "Okay, so I think the first rule we should have is how to talk to people. What do you think?"

  Zoe sniffled and shuffled a few inches away from Aiko.

  That set the tone for the whole conversation. Aiko listed the rules; Zoe sniffed and pretended to ignore her. But Aiko knew she was listening.

  The rules were common sense rules, nothing difficult to obey. They were the same codes of conduct that her parents had brought her up with.
Respect everyone around you and speak to them appropriately, don't skip school, do your homework, the weeknight curfew was six and the weekend curfew was nine, keep your room neat, eat what's on your plate, your allowance depends on your chores… etc.

  Zoe was lucky that Aiko had written them down for her. Back in her day, they were supposed to know the rules by osmosis and go a paddling for disobeying even rules they didn't know existed.

  "I'm not going to keep your stuff forever." Aiko set her hand on Zoe's shoulder, but the girl jerked forward as if she'd been tasered. Letting her hand fall back to her lap, Aiko added, "If I see that you're trying your best to follow the rules, I promise I'll give them back. Okay?"

  She waited for some kind of response from Zoe - and got nothing. For a long moment, she stared at the back of the girl's bent head. Finally when it was obvious Zoe wasn't going to answer, Aiko stood. "I'm going to put our rules right here on your desk." She walked toward said desk and set the sheet of paper on its top. "You can go through them when you like. If you have any questions or need something changed let me know and we'll discuss it."

  After a final glance at her charge, Aiko left the room headed for her own bedroom. Just as she closed her door, she heard Zoe scurrying from her room and rushing down the stairs. The girl was probably going to tell her father what Aiko had done. Sighing tiredly, Aiko sat on her bed and rubbed her still throbbing ankle.

  She was not being paid enough for this crap.

  As for Damián… If he dared to come into her room tonight - after blaming her for his miscreant of a daughter's misdeeds, after leaving her flapping in the wind - he was going to be in for a hard time, no pun intended.

  Fortunately, he didn't turn up.

  CHAPTER 12

  It turned out that the reason Damián didn't turn up in Aiko's room was because he was busy sabotaging her.

  She came back from her morning run the next morning to find Damián already gone and, surprisingly, Zoe already awake though still in bed. Even more surprising was that everything she'd removed from the girl's room the previous night was back in place.

  The TV, the laptop, the makeup… all back.

  "My dad said that I could have it all back," Zoe informed her with a snooty smile. "He also said that I don't have to obey your rules if I don't feel like it. And-" Grinning victoriously, she waved the platinum credit card between her fingers. "- I can get any phone I want."

  You've got to be kidding me. If this wasn't the definition of sabotage, Aiko didn't know what was. Without saying a word to the girl and anger pulsing in her every step, she left the room, headed to her own. Zoe's giggles followed her out, further stoking her ire.

  How was she supposed to be a mother to Zoe if Damián kept throwing roadblocks in her path like this? If he didn't respect her enough to back up the rules she gave his daughter how was Zoe supposed to respect her? And if he had objections, was it so hard for him to let her know upfront instead of embarrassing her like this?

  Aiko was a lethal cocktail of emotions when she got to work later the same morning; anger, disappointment and frustration battled within her making her restless and highly irritable.

  Even Cara noticed her mood. "Auntie, I can postpone the meeting with Dylan if you want."

  "Why would I want you to postpone it?" Aiko snapped as she signed the checks for a couple of bills that needed paying.

  Cara hesitated for a moment before carefully saying, "You just don’t seem like yourself."

  "I'm not one of those test subject in your psychology class," Aiko berated as she shoved the checks towards her niece. "Stop trying to psycho-analyze me."

  Cara's eyes immediately clouded in hurt. Picking up the checks, she said, "My bad. I'm sorry I said anything," before she scurried out of the office.

  Once she was gone, Aiko closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. An image of Cara's hurt expression crossed her thoughts, immediately pricking at her conscience. She was turning into one of those people who took out their personal problems on employees or anyone who dared cross their paths. No. Zoe and her dastardly father weren't going to turn her into that woman. She needed to rein in her anger.

  After taking a few more minutes to calm herself down, Aiko made her way to the reception. She found Cara talking on the phone to one of their clients.

  "Actually she's here. Why don't you speak to her?" Cara mimed 'Charles Portney' as she handed Aiko the phone.

  Schooling her expression into a smile, Aiko greeted, "Charles, how are you?"

  "Hi, Aiko." Charles was interested in finding out whether they could organize a private screening for him because he wasn’t satisfied with the quality of women he'd picked during his mixer. After reminding him that the mixer hadn't worked because he'd picked women she'd specifically warned him against, she agreed to host a private screening.

  Aiko said, "Cara will call you as soon as we've organized everything with the ladies."

  "Thank you, Aiko. You always come through for me." Charles ended the call.

  Handing the receiver back to Cara, Aiko apologized, "I'm sorry I spoke to you like that earlier. I shouldn't have taken my anger out on you."

  "It’s okay." Her niece smiled. "We all have bad days."

  Aiko sighed. "Ain't that the truth."

  Cara's expression turned somber as she asked, "Is it the new job?"

  "Something like that." Aiko was glad when her niece didn't ask for further details.

  Even though she'd calmed down, Damián's betrayal still stung. On her lunch break, she headed to Coltech Consult. There was no hustle from the security guards as they recognized her from her previous visit. However, Damián kept her waiting at the reception for close to an hour. It was fortunate that she had no meetings set up for the afternoon otherwise she would've been forced to leave. Or maybe that's what he wanted.

  Hmph! Aiko snorted as she crossed one leg over the other. She wasn't going anywhere until they spoke.

  Finally, at around two thirty, the receptionist told her that Mr. Colter was ready to see her. He must've been watching for her, because as soon as she entered the main floor and trained her gaze toward his office, their gazes locked. Despite the distance and glass wall separating them, she could see the wariness in his gaze. Good. She wanted him afraid.

  As soon as she stepped into his office, he greeted, "Yes, Aiko. What can I do for you?"

  Her response was cold silence and a glare as she closed the door behind her then took a seat directly across him.

  His voice heavy with sarcasm, he offered, "By all means, have a seat."

  That was it for her; after all the nonsense he'd put her through, he was being sarcastic? The anger she'd held leashed for most of the day reared up and she snapped, "I can't believe you, Damián. Sabotage. Really?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about," he said evenly as he reached for the remote control on his desk and fogged up the office's walls.

  "Don't you?" She scowled. "From the moment I stepped into your house you've been telling me that I have free license to deal with Zoe as I see fit and that she's my responsibility. But the moment I do that, there you are putting back her TV, buying her with your credit card-"

  "I was not buying her," Damián interrupted curtly.

  Then what do you call what you did last night? Aiko slapped her hand on the table. "We agree on a set of rules for her to follow, I try to enforce them, but the moment she come running to you, you fold like a house of cards."

  "No, the house of cards was those stupid rules of yours." Damián threw up his hand. "What do you think my house is? Army barracks? You can't just strip my daughter of everything she owns."

  "That's where you're wrong. She doesn't own any of those things." Aiko pointed at him. "You do. And the sooner she understands that you giving them to her is a privilege, the sooner she'll stop acting like a spoiled brat."

  Damián's eyes glittered with anger. "Don't call my daughter a spoiled brat."

  "I didn't say she
was a spoiled brat," Aiko retorted. "I said she was acting like one. And if you don't break her of the habit, she'll eventually become one - if she isn't already. Stop coddling Zoe and let her deal with the consequences of her bad behavior."

  "So now I'm a problem too?" he gritted between his teeth.

  She guffawed. "That's what you got from everything I said?"

  "Careful. Aiko." His eyes narrowed. "Remember who pays your bills."

  Aiko opened her mouth to tell him to shove his money where the sun don't shine, but then it hit her. He was right; he was paying her bills. What was berating him going to do other than get her fired?

  Suddenly, she felt exhausted; like she was in between a rock and hard place and had no strength to push her way out. The rock was her family who couldn't get by unless she honored this contract, and the hard place was Damián who wouldn't let her honor the contract. He'd come to her because he claimed to be tired of the status quo with his daughter, yet he was doing everything to keep her from upending it. He was like a drug addict who kept saying he wanted to quit but still had his pusher's number on speed dial.

  How did you deal with a man like that?

  Her voice was significantly softer when she explained, "Damián, I can't do my job if you're not supporting me."

  His anger still going strong, Damián rejoined, "I would support you if you were more sensible with Zoe."

  "What does that mean? More sensible?" she asked. As far as she was concerned, she'd been extremely level-headed and patient with his daughter. "You agreed to all these rules when we spoke on Sunday. Was there one of them that seemed unreasonable? Because I'm willing to discuss it."

  "I don't know." Damián shrugged then leapt to his feet. "Look, I've got a meeting in five minutes and I can't deal with you - with this right now. We'll talk when I get home."

  Avoidance. Ah! His go-to tactic for dealing with anything concerning Zoe. Something told her that when he got home, he'd still find a way to avoid having a conversation about Zoe. It might be sex, locking himself in his study, or maybe even leaving the house - but he'd find a way.