Chapter 2: Marriage's Not My Thing

Eric's POV

"I heard you sold your app, Tinzel and recently acquired the D'Writers company, is it true?" Elizabeth asked as she took a sip of her wine, batting her fake eyelashes at me.

She had her legs crossed as she sat right across me. She wore a skimpy black dress that outlined her firm boobs and left her nipples protruding. Rumour had it that she'd spent a fortune getting boob implants and a whole lot of other plastic surgeries.

We were having dinner at some fancy restaurant mother dearest booked for us. And trust me, I'd rather be anywhere else than there. My mother practically forced me to go on a date with our business partner's daughter, Elizabeth.

Did I say force? Oh no, I meant blackmail. She was blackmailing me to go on these stupid dates, hoping that I'd agree to marry one of these billionaire's pompous daughters.

Not that I had anything against them, no. Marriage just wasn't my thing, it wasn't for me. I mean, what's the point of getting married if you're going to divorce in the end.

Look at my parents! They divorced shortly before my father passed away a few years ago. Even my maternal grandfather divorced four times and would be tying the knot once again with a woman younger than my mother.

Marriage is nothing but a shackle. It rids you of your peace of mind and sanity. I don't even know why people keep on trying. They fail at sustaining their marriages and then go on to get married again, repeating the same bullshit wedding vows. Till death do us part my foot!

For years I watched my parents constantly fight over everything. They attacked each other emotionally, mentally and physically. My father even had an affair with another woman and she gave him a son, my younger brother.

My parents' marriage was a shithole. But in public they were the golden couple; all smiles, perfect loved-up poses and fooling the world with their acting during interviews. It was sickening.

Dad eventually got fed up. He couldn't take it anymore. My mum was a beast sometimes, no doubt. One day, my dad moved out of the house and sent her divorce papers. Two weeks after their separation, he was found dead in his home. The autopsy conducted, revealed that he died of an allergic reaction to a drug he took.

That incident birthed a chain reaction of misfortunes for our family, particularly for me and my younger half brother. One of which was the tool that I was being blackmailed with by my mother and why I was on a date against my will.

Elizabeth stared at me with one of her brows arched. I guess she was awaiting my response to her question while I was lost in my trip to memory lane as if in a trance. "Are you okay?" She asked.

"Not sure, Elizabeth. I'm kind of feeling a little bit under the weather today."

"It's Isabelle," she corrected me.

"Oh, my apologies," I replied and added, "My mother must have told you a lot about me."

"Not quite. I was hoping you'd tell me yourself," she smiled, her lips covered in cherry red lipstick.

"Are you sure about that?" I asked and when she nodded I smirked and said to her in one go, "Okay, where do I start? I'm 29. I love basketball and soccer but there's no sport I love more than sex. My friends call me the firefighter 'cause I find hot girls like you and leave them wet. I'm an atheist, I don't believe in God and I also don't believe in marriage so don't get any wrong ideas. But I'm always down for a good humping. So how about we cut this crap and get you laid tonight? I can't promise I'll be there when you wake up though. I'm not one to fuck a girl twice but what I do know is I'll make you savour every moment of it."

Elizabeth, I mean, Isobel stood up abruptly and splashed her red wine on my face. "You disgusting prick! What do you think of yourself? I'll make you pay for insulting me this way!" She stomped out of the place after causing a scene.

I could've sworn I saw a few people filming and taking pictures. So much for being a part of the Donovan family. You can never have a moment of peace or privacy. Everyone's always prying into your life. There's my mother, the paparazzi, the media and internet users. It was suffocating.

I got home that night thinking about how my dinner with Isabella went. My mother was furious when she found out. Isobel must've phoned her. She marched to my house enraged by what she was told.

"Eric Pierre Donovan!" She yelled as she came face to face with me. "I have had it up to here with you! Don't push me to do something you'll regret!"

She was threatening me with that again. I was sick of the woman I called mother. She drove me insane.

"Don't you get tired? You're so bitter and vile, you're like a disease that won't stop spreading until I finally drop dead! You want me to get married so bad because of some damn will! How greedier can you get?" I spit back.

"You ungrateful bastard! Everything I've done is for you, for our family. But you'd never accept that. You're as ungrateful as your father!"

"Is that so?" I ask in disbelief.

"Yes! All I ask is for you to get married. How difficult is that? I even gave you the liberty of bringing a girl of your choice or choosing a bride out of a number of girls from good backgrounds but you... You just keep pushing my buttons! Now listen to me, Eric. You'll get married whether you like it or not within a month or else I'll be forced to reveal to everyone what happened 5 years ago. The choice is yours."

She turned to leave but halted when I said, "You just keep reminding me how horrible of a person you are. I'm not surprised dad left you for another woman."

Right then, she came close to me and slapped me. We glared at each other for a while before she got out of my house and drove off. In anger, I threw a vase at my TV, causing both things to smash. I was so furious. I always felt this way after speaking to her.

I needed a distraction, anything that would help me forget about my so-called mother at the moment. As if he'd heard me, my friend Theo texted me the address of some nightclub and asked me to come if I was free.

Almost immediately, I got into my Bugatti La Voiture Noire and sped off. It didn't take me long to locate the place. It was packed with people. Megan's song "Body" blasted through the speakers, girls swayed their hips and twerked on the dance floor and booze was all over the place.

I searched for Theo in the crowd and found him hungrily kissing some blonde. I walked over and tapped him.

"Eric my man!" He yelled. "Glad you could make it! I'd love to hang out with you bro but I'd rather be hanging someone's leg on my shoulders tonight. You gotta get laid too, you look like shit. See ya!" He said and disappeared with the blonde.

I was in no mood to get laid now. All I wanted to do was booze till I was dead drunk. So I paid for a bottle of Tequila Ley and Diva Vodka which I gulped down glass after glass. I had a high tolerance for alcohol so I was nowhere near dead drunk but I started feeling tipsy.

As I carried on drinking, a slightly dark slender figure approached me. She had beautiful bright eyes and a perfectly symmetrical face. Before I could say anything, she grabbed my shirt and shoved her mouth in mine.

To say I was utterly confused was an understatement but did I pull back? Hell no! Instead I deepened the kiss and wrapped my arms around her. Her body fitted right in my arms like it was moulded for me.

We kissed so passionately that I held on tightly and she went on to straddle me on the chair where I sat, not minding the stares we were now getting. As she adjusted on my...well..area, it sent a tingly sensation through my body and I knew I was going to have one hell of night.