Four Week Fiance 2 (20 page)

"Whatever, TJ." I rolled my eyes at him. "You're an idiot for even saying that."

"I'm an idiot for you." He smiled at me with an adorable puppy face and I just shook my head.

"I have dishes to do." I sighed and ignored his cutesy words. He was drunk and I didn't want to take anything he said right now too seriously. He'd been loving and attentive all evening and my body still felt high from our lovemaking, but I didn't want to read anything into it. I already knew that he was weird with his feelings and as far as I knew it was the alcohol putting him out of character.

"Leave the dishes until the morning and we'll do them together," he said and put his arm around my waist. "Let's go to bed and have some lovemaking."

"TJ." I leaned my head against his shoulder. "You look like you're way too drunk for any lovemaking to me."

"I'm never too drunk for lurvemaking," he said and he slurred his words.

"Uh huh," I said as we walked towards the bedroom. "We'll see." We walked in companionable silence in the room and I watched as he pulled off all of his clothes and jumped into bed. He lay flat on his back, looked up at me and grinned as he closed his eyes and stretched.

“You’re so tired,” I said, smiling down at him, a feeling of affection sweeping through me as I gazed at him.

“I wouldn’t say so tired,” he mumbled, his eyes still closed.

“Oh, wouldn’t you?” I said softly, smiling to myself as I took my dress off and put on a nightgown. I walked out of the bedroom and went to the bathroom so I could take my makeup off. That was something Sally had instilled in me. Always try and remove makeup at night; especially eye makeup, because it did terrors to your skin if you left it on when you went to sleep. I cleaned my face and then walked back to the bedroom feeling happy, but still slightly anxious. Everything was going so well, but it was all really a facade. Nothing had really changed between us. I sighed to myself as I wondered if I was doing the right thing staying here and playing this game. Was I only prolonging the pain I was going to feel in just a few weeks? I crawled into bed and snuggled next to TJ. He rolled over, pulled me towards him and held me against his chest and moaned slightly. I snuggled next to him and listened to the sound of his heartbeat as I lay there.

“If I ever wanted to get married, it would be to someone like you,” he mumbled next to my ear and I froze and looked up at him. His eyes, though still sleepy, were open now.

“Why don’t you want to get married?” I looked at TJ, truly curious as to why he was so opposed to a union I couldn’t wait to enter.

“Because a marriage is meant to last forever,” he said without pause, his eyes finding mine as he tried to focus on me.

“And that freaks you out? Being with the same person forever?”

“No.” He shook his head and frowned, sleepiness making me confused. “What freaks me out is the possibility that the marriage could end. What freaks me out is that I could have the one person I love more than anything in the world and I could lose her. Marriages aren’t infallible. People change, fall out of love. It happens every day. My heart would break, my world would end. I would cease to be the person I am if that were to happen.” He shook his head. “I will not let myself become a statistic.”

“Your marriage might not end,” I said, but I felt weird saying the words. I wanted to say
our
marriage would not end, but I knew that would be putting all my cards on the table and I wasn’t willing to do that.

“But the love might,” he said with a yawn and I watched as his eyes fluttered closed again and he drifted back to sleep.

“W
hen I meet the man of my dreams,  I want him to woo me with flowers and chocolates and poems.” Mila laughed as she spoke to Sally in the living room.

“Poems?” I spoke up and sat on the couch next to them. “What sort of pansy is going to be writing you poems?”

“A man full of romance.” Mila rolled her eyes at me. “A man who loves me more than life itself.”

“You’ve been reading too many of those romance books, Mila.” I shook my head. “I don’t know any guy who’s writing love poetry.”

“I know plenty of guys that do,” Sally said with an encouraging smile. “Don’t listen to TJ. He’s just jaded because he doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body.”

“I know. He doesn’t.” Mila stuck her tongue out at me and laughed. “When I fall in love and meet my soulmate, I want to be so special to him that he’d give up his life for me.”

“Give up his life, huh?”

“Yup.” She grinned. “He would give up his life, his happiness, his everything just to be with me.”

“Would he give up his dog?” I asked with a grin.

“If he had to,” she said, not even blinking.

“Would he give up his car?”

“That’s not even a question.”

“Would he give up his job?” I continued, grinning.

“He’d give up everything because he loves me so much.”

“Would you really want a guy who would give up everything just to be with you? He sounds like a bit of a loser. Have some self-respect, man.”

“He does have self-respect.” Mila frowned at me. “He’ll just love me so much that nothing else matters but making me happy.”

‘Good luck with that,” I said and reached for the remote control. “You might be waiting a long time.”

“I know you don’t believe in soulmates, but I do,” she said wistfully, her expression changing. “I just want to meet that one guy who will think of me first. I want to meet that one guy who truly cares about my feelings, my wants, my life. I want that guy who wakes up and smiles thinking about me and falls asleep listening to my voice. I want that one guy who loves me so much that all he cares about is putting a smile on my face and will do anything to make me laugh because seeing me happy would make him happy.”

“Yeah,” Sally agreed. “I’d love to meet a guy like that as well.”

“You girls are living in fantasy land.” I laughed at them. “Those guys do not exist.”

“Just because you’re not like that doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” Mila said and hit me in the arm. “Stop trying to burst our bubbles.”

“I’m not trying to burst your bubbles, but guys aren’t like that. We do what we want to get what we want. First thing on our minds is sex, then maybe food, then work, then sex again.” I laughed at their open mouths. “I’m just being honest. I’ve never done anything for love. Most guys are not going to put themselves out of their comfort zone for no reward. It just doesn’t work like that.”

“When a guy is in true love, he will do anything and everything for the woman he loves,” Mila said softly. “Just to make her happy. If even for one day. Even if it meant he would lose her. A man in true love cares only about doing everything he can to protect and cherish his woman. And that will be the only thing in his mind.” She just stared at me then and I stared back at her silently. Who was I to argue with her? I sat back and I could feel my heart pounding and I could feel myself starting to feel sad. What would it feel like to be a man in love like that? What would it feel like to be the man in love with Mila like that? I wasn’t sure that I’d ever want to find out. It seemed like it would be way more than I’d want to deal with.

“How much do I love you?” I looked at Mila’s profile photo on Facebook for what seemed like the tenth time in the last couple of hours. I stared into her wide-eyed gaze and smiled at the cute cheeky smile in the photo as she stuck her tongue out. “Oh, my Mila.” I sighed and closed the tab and shut my laptop down. I couldn’t spend the day staring at her photos again. I didn’t even use Facebook or other social media much. I didn’t care about it. I liked to live my life in private, but that hadn’t stopped me from spending hours on the site in the last few days, trying to figure out what she was doing, where she was going, how she was feeling. She hadn’t made it easy for me, though. She hadn’t updated her page in over a month, so to placate myself I’d spent my hours looking at her old posts and old photos. I wasn’t sure why I’d become this obsessed person. I knew I could get the answers I wanted just by talking to her, but then what would that accomplish? I knew I couldn’t give her any of the answers that she wanted.

I looked down at the files on my desk and grimaced. D-day was nearly here. I had to sign the paperwork within 24 hours and that would mean that my father would officially own Mila’s parents’ company and legally there would be nothing that anyone could do about it.

Knock knock
.

“Come in,” I said as I looked up at the door, hoping it wasn’t my father about to walk in and pressure me into signing the papers right now. I’d throw them in his face if it was him.

“Why, hey, stud.” Barbie sauntered into the room and my stomach dropped.

“Hi.” I nodded, not smiling. “How can I help you, Barbie?”

“Is that any way for you to treat your ex-lover?” She sashayed over to my desk and leaned forward, her breasts sticking out towards me.

“We were never lovers.” I glared at her. “What do you want?”

“To change that.” She grinned and she moved around to the side of my desk. “We can become lovers now.”

“Barbie, what do you want?” I said, annoyed, as I felt her hand on my shoulder.

“I just told you.” She leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I want you to fuck me deep and hard.”

“I’m going to give you ten seconds to get out of my office,” I said and pursed my lips. What the hell did my father see in this woman? She was nothing but an opportunistic slut.

“Really, TJ? Is that how you’re going to speak to me?” She stood up straight and laughed, then I felt her hand on my thigh, running up my leg. “I guess now you’re getting some from your little friend, Mila. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say little, she’s not exactly a size zero is she?” She laughed loudly and my body grew still. “But I guess now that your plus-size friend is giving it up to you, you’re too good for me.”

“Barbie, I’m only going to ask you this one more time, what do you want?”

“You know what I wonder,” she said and sat on the side of my desk. “I wonder why you’re leading this girl on. I mean, I get it, men want sex, but really, anyone can see that idiot is in love with you. And she has no idea who you are or what you’re doing, does she?” She laughed as she gazed at me. “You think you’re better than me and your father, but are you really? Leading her on, fucking her, making it hard for her to ever forget you. Is that what a good guy does, TJ?”

“What’s it to you?” I stared at her, my heart pounding as I realized some of what she was saying was true. How was I any better than her or my dad? Mila had no idea what was going on, really, and that was because of me. And yes, I knew she loved me and yes, I wanted her to love me, but I didn’t have anything else to offer in return. Nothing, but heartache and heartbreak and I wasn’t going to pretend to myself that I had anything more.

“Your dad and I want this deal to happen.” Her eyes narrowed and it was then that I knew my dad had sent her in to take care of the situation. He was probably worried that I was going to back out of the deal. Little did he know, I was 100% in at this point.

“I know that,” I said and stood up. “That’s why you’re here?”

“We worked hard to make this happen.” She slid off the desk and stared at me. “I put up with that bimbo for a whole weekend and slept with her brother just to make sure that he was occupied. Don’t make it be for nothing.”

“You slept with Cody because you’re easy.” I didn’t hold back my distaste for her.

“That and because I loved to see the look on that bitch Sally’s face the morning after.” She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, the jealousy in her eyes. I would have loved to have seen that look in Mila’s eyes as well. Could you imagine if she caught us fucking in the shower? She’d still be bawling her eyes out.”

“Get out.” I pointed towards the door.

“Aww, seems like you’ve actually got some feelings left in you still.” She stared at me, her eyes cold. “It’s a pity that you became weak and let yourself fall for her. It will make it harder on you when she walks away for good.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know she’ll never talk to you again, right?” She laughed gleefully. “You can’t seriously think you guys will go back to how it was before? Don’t be an idiot, TJ.”

“This is none of your business.”

“Oh, it is very much my business.” The smile left her face and she looked at me coldly. “And I’m going to make sure everything goes according to plan. No matter what I have to do or say...” Her voice trailed off. “Capiche?”

“Leave my office.” I turned away from her, my whole body cold. It had suddenly hit me that Barbie was correct about something I’d never considered. What if Mila never spoke to me again? That wasn’t something I’d been prepared for. I knew that I’d lose our physical relationship and possibly her love, but losing her from my life forever? That was unthinkable. Unimaginable. How could I live without her in my life forever? What sort of life would that be? I heard Barbie finally leaving my office, but I didn’t even look back. I had greater concerns on my mind now. I picked up the phone and made a call, my heart in my throat.

“TJ?” Nonno’s voice was subdued.

“We need to talk.”

“I’ve been waiting for this call.” He sighed.

“Can I come over?”

“Okay,” he said stiffly. “I’ll be here.”

“I’ll be there in about thirty minutes,” I said and then hung up, picking up the file from my desk, my briefcase and jacket and leaving the office. I needed to speak to Nonno and I needed to see if I could somehow make this right.

***

“T
J, would you like anything to drink?” Nonno asked me softly as I sat down on the couch.

“Some water, thanks.” I nodded and watched as he walked slowly to the kitchen. I looked around his familiar living room and stared at the photos of Mila as a kid, smiling at her happy face.

“Here we go,” he said as he handed me a glass and sat down next to me. “So how can I help you?”

“I don’t know that Mila is very happy right now,” I said stiffly, not sure what to say.