SEVENTEEN

Lila could feel the change in the atmosphere. Levi, who always had his head high and a smirk on his face, seemed rattled to know his father was calling. He seemed to hesitate, but he picked up the phone and put it in his ear.

"Hello, sir?" Levi said. Lila wished she could hear what was going on on the other side of the phone but somehow, looking at his face, she could tell what this was about.

"What are you doing about this?" Daniel's voice was sharp. He did not want to waste time with planetaries.

"I am just getting to know about it and I have yet to think of a solution."

"That is always the issue with you; you are always the last to know when something concerns you." Danile's tone was accusing. Levi would have retorted but this was not the first time something like this occurred. "You have to do something about this since both of you were foolish enough to think that it would be okay for you both to go out when the press thinks you are away on your honeymoon."

"We made a mistake but we think that this would blow over sooner than we think," Levi wished he did not have to do anything.

"Was Lila in on this too? Did the two of you join heads to make such a horrible mistake?" Daniel's words could be worse so Levi took it in good faith. He was also glad that he had ignored the thought of putting the call on loudspeaker so she could listen in. He knew that if she was listening to what he was saying, then she would not have been able to hold herself down from responding to him.

"No, sir, it was all me."

"Who was that wo... You know what? Never mind, I don't need to know the details; all I want to know is what you plan to do. You know that rumours like this can hurt the Skyline project. We have barely convinced them to hand it over to us and you want to ruin it already?"

"Of course not."

"Then stop sitting on your hands and do the right thing," Daniel said and before Levi could say anything in response, the call beeped in his ears.

"Well, I guess we must do something about this," he said, turning to her, and she threw him a questioning glance; after all, that was all she had been saying since she got into the room. She stood in the middle of the room while he stood by the bed silently. Both of them threw themselves into thinking; they had to be able to come up with something to save them from this mess. They were both good minds and they were young; it would not take much from them to be able to figure out what to do.

"I think I got it," Levi said, suddenly causing Lila to rush to him.

"You have a plan that might work?" She asked, eager to hear what he had come up with.

"Yes, you might not like it though but I am pretty sure it might be our best shot at making all of this go away.

"It is not a matter of what I like; this is a matter of saving our names and faces from shame."

"Okay then," he took a deep breath and pushed the lock of hair that had fallen to his face away before speaking. "I think we should go on our honeymoon for real."

Lila looked at him; if this were any other kind of situation, she would have laughed in his face and thought he was trying to pull her legs but she knew there was no way he was doing that. This was serious so she shook her head. "We can't do that; you know we can't do that," she muttered. She thought of it and it made sense but just because it made sense did not mean that they had to do it.

"Do you have a better idea?" he asked. His face would call back in a few minutes and he knew that he would be expecting to hear what kind of plan he had.

"Not yet but I am sure we can think of something better."

"We? I already thought of something and you shot it down," he said and she opened her mouth to speak but he raised his hand to signify that he was not done talking yet. "You can take your time thinking about what we can do while I finish up with my shower," he said.

She raised her eyes to him and it was then she noticed his well-sculpted chest exposed in front of her and only a towel hanging from his waist; his hair was wet as well. She could not believe that the same chest she had spent time admiring yesterday had gone unnoticed just because of the matter at hand. "You should have said something earlier," she said, clearing her throat as she was now greatly embarrassed by it all.

"I was going to but you kept going on and on about..."

"I will wait downstairs in the living room so take your time to do whatever you want to do and I will..." She did not know what to say so she stopped abruptly and walked out of the room. With each step she took, she felt shyness overtake her but she tried to ignore it.