If I had thought that the night was over, I couldn’t be so wrong. After he saw that I had rested enough and was able to catch my breath, Brandon was all over me again. “No more…please. I can’t take anymore…” I pleaded breathlessly. Stone-grey eyes just narrowed at me before his handsome face bent down and captured my lips in his. The heat of his lips seeped into mine before I felt the wet tip of his tongue wedging itself in between my lips, forcing it open. I moaned softly when his wet tongue slipped between my lips into the depths of my mouth. I sighed at the pleasure of his tongue mingling with mine. His kiss quickly became more demanding as our tongues grinding against each other passionately. His arms tightened around my body as he carried me princess-styled in his arms. With long and determined strides, I knew that he was taking me to the bedroom of this luxurious presidential hotel suite. My whole body felt weak, devoid of the energy and the will to resist him anymore. “How
**Back to the Present**Morning arrived along with loud knocking sounds on my bedroom door. That was what woke me up from my restless sleep. I didn’t mind much because I wasn’t able to go to sleep anyways. This was the first time in a long while that I welcomed the arrival of the morning. I knew right away that it was my mother on the other side of the door and the fact that she was hammering on my door and screaming at the top of her lungs can only mean one thing: the news program beat me to it. They have probably seen, along with the other citizens of this nation, the news regarding my husband’s suicide. I reached for my phone and saw that I had almost a hundred missed calls from my late husband’s lawyer. That didn’t surprise me. I felt bad for the old man, but I had to wait for a while before returning his call. First, I have to deal with my hysterical mother who was still banging her fists against my bedroom door. “Good morning…” I said as I opened the door. “This isn’t the ti
Thankfully, I didn’t have high expectations from them anyways and so I wasn’t really disappointed. Avoiding their gazes, I sat down on the sofa while I waited for Lawrence to arrive. “So? What really happened?” my mother asked. “I don’t know either, mum. Our lawyer is on the way. You remember Lawrence, right? He’ll be here in less than half an hour. So please, save whatever questions that you may have for him…” I said emotionlessly. I felt cold and lost inside. If I could choose, I would choose to simply disintegrate and disappear from here. Their questions made me feel sick. Their lack of sympathy or feelings made me feel disgusted. It was obvious that all they were worried about was how much money I would walk away with from George’s death. …Lawrence was true to his word and arrived before the half hour mark. After politely reintroducing himself to my parents, he got down to business immediately. For his line of work, I knew that time was money. George paid Lawrence a lot and t
My mother continued to yell nonsense at Lawrence as she refuses to accept what he had just said. All the while, my father was silent, and he seemed to be deep in thought. I was grateful that he didn’t say anything to make the situation worst for me. There was no way that I could pay back 700 million dollars of debt. I mean, I didn’t even have a job. I was just a housewife that lived the high life as I acted out the role of George’s perfect wife. While my mother bombarded Lawrence with her tantrum, my father pulled out his phone and started calling someone. I glanced over at him and wondered what he was doing at a time like this. Perhaps he was calling someone that could potentially help us turn the situation around. Maybe if we can negotiate the debt down, we could pay the debt off slowly. As far as I was aware, my father’s company was doing well and so he should have some money. “I need your help. Yes, it’s regarding my daughter. I want to disown her immediately. I would appreciate
I gasped in shock as my mouth hung open at the inconsiderate attitude of the man. Staring at his back as he walked away from me, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. Everything that I own is being taken away from me. My branded bags, shoes, clothes, jewelry, art pieces and everything else. The staff started shooing me out of the penthouse. It was such an embarrassing and depressing situation that I just couldn’t bear staying in there any longer. Without getting my hands on anything, I called my driver so that he could drive me to a hotel. I didn’t know back that that from that point on, my life was about to fall into ruins bit by bit. The car arrived and I got in before sighing loudly. I leaned my head into my hand as I watched the scenery outside go by. The ride was peacefully quiet as we headed to one of the most luxurious hotels in the city. I remembered that George likes this hotel a lot for their oriental oil massage. Not that he could enjoy any of that anymore. “Madame…
My eye rested on the name of a friend from my days in university. We had known each other since the first day of university and had gotten immediately close. He, or she as he would prefer to be referred to, was against the idea of me marrying so early in life and we lost touch since I married George. It’s so ironic that the failure of my marriage is the reason why I’m going to give him a call now. “Hi…it’s me. I know that it’s been a very long while but…” I said timidly through the phone. “Oh girl! I thought you would never call. I was going to call you, but I didn’t know how things were on your end. Anyways, I’m so happy that you called!” the voice replied. “Thank you…honestly…I…” I said before my voice broke and I started crying. “Where are you? I’ll head there right now to pick you up, ok?” Justin said comfortingly. “Yeah…ok…” I mumbled through my sobs. “Hang in there, girl. I’m here for you, ok? Just hang in there…” Justin said. “Ok…” I whispered softly before hanging up.
“Why don’t you work for my agency? You know that I run an agency for high-profile contract girlfriends or wives, right?” Justin asked. I guess I heard something about it before, but I didn’t know the details. Frankly, I wasn’t interested in these sorts of things and isn’t it sort of like a shady business? I was also finding it hard to believe that Justin was suggesting for me to work as a ‘contract wife’ or whatever it was called. “You mean like…become an escort? Or like a…prostitute?” I asked, unable to find a better word to use. Don’t get me wrong, I had no issues with the profession per se, but I was quite certain that I didn’t want to get into that whole business, no matter how desperate or dire my current situation is. “No! Not like that. I mean, you can sleep with the guys if you want but that’s not the main objective here. Plus, they’re asking for a contract relationship. If you haven’t realized it yet, the key is the word relationship,” Justin said before rolling his eyes
“You may not believe it, but many have found true love or something or the sort and have gotten married. Some even got married even before the contract expired. I was there at their wedding, and I cried of joy…” Justin said as he pretended to wipe tears away from his eyes. “Really?” I asked dubiously. “Who knows maybe you’ll end up falling in love again…” Justin said wistfully. Falling in love…what kind of sick joke is that? “Love? What is that…exactly?” I whispered as if I was talking to myself. I thought I was in love more than once before in my life but was I really in love? Even if that was love, does it even matter? If this is where love would lead me then, I’d prefer not to know or feel it at all. Before I knew it, I had started laughing. “Haha…I don’t believe in love…” I said while laughing. “Well, you don’t look very convinced at all. You might not realize this, and I didn’t want to say this to you like this but…there’s not a lot of jobs out there that’s going to make
“What are you sorry about, Elena? Are you sorry for turning me down?” he asked.His cold and very calm tone made my body tremble, and I could feel myself sweating from my own nervousness. I wanted to answer him but then I realized that I didn’t know what I was sorry for. “Please let me go home. I’ll make it up to you another day,” I said to excuse myself for the day. I turned to reach for the car door and once again I felt his grip on my arm pulling me back. It was rare for Brandon to act persistent like this, and it just made me want to scream at him out of frustration. I whirled around to face him ready to do just that.“What is it that you really want?” I spat. “To have sex with you,” he replied smoothly.“You know well that that isn’t want I’m talking about…” I said through clenched teeth as my frustration quickly turned to anger. “What’s wrong, Elena? If you can do it with him in the hospital, surely, you can do it with me here in the car…” he said as he stared at me with a v
The lights turned green, and we were on our way again. Our brief yet intense conversation came to a pause. We were getting close to the intersection where Brandon would usually let me off so that I could walk back to my place. The night felt darker than normal, and I wasn’t sure if that was because of my mood or not. Not a lot of cars were on the road which thankfully made the traffic lighter than normal. “Should we go to your room? It’s supposed to be really close by, isn’t it?” he suggested seductively. I turned to give him a curious look. His sudden question came out of nowhere and it surprised me even more to find that he seemed quite serious about it. My lips curved into a smile before I automatically began laughing it off as a passing comment that didn’t mean anything. “Thanks for driving me back,” I said as I reached for the door. There was no point in delaying my departure any further. We had arrived at the spot where I was supposed to get off and so I should do exactly th
“Yes, and I like it that way as long as I’m the only one buying,” he replied without missing a heartbeat. I bit hard on my lower lip when I had to admit to myself that I had asked him the wrong question and had invited this misfortune upon myself. His hand around mine felt warm and his grip was firm as he pulled me after him toward his car. Something told me that he wasn’t kidding when he said that. I let out a sigh when I resigned myself to following him silently to his car. Fortunately, there weren’t many cars on the road and traffic was extremely light. That meant that it wouldn’t take too long for him to drop me off so that I could walk back to my place. It wasn’t like I was scared of him, but I did feel uncomfortable being in the enclosed space of the car with him alone. The revealing and brightly colored dress that I had on did not make me feel better and I wondered why I wasn’t smart enough to opt for a pair of pants and matching blazer instead. Everything might have been in
The desire that I sensed in his intense gaze made my heartbeat quicken despite the many times that I told myself silently in my head to remain calm. My lips felt dry, and my tongue instinctively moved to lick my lower lip. “Thanks for the advice, I guess. If there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave so you can get back to whatever it was you were working on,” I muttered softly as I tried my best to excuse myself. “One more thing before you go,” he said to halt my departure.This time it was Brandon who got out of his seat. I turned my head around as he walked toward the worktable in the room. To my surprise, he returned with a box. Brandon came to stand right in front of me before shoving the box toward me. “What is this?” I asked with a hint of suspicion. “Open it and you’ll see,” he said without answering my question. “Ok…” I murmured while feeling slightly confused. It was so like Brandon to be mysterious about everything. With what had just happened between us, I didn’t think
Maybe, just maybe, things would have turned out differently if he hadn’t left me. If we never broke up, my life might have been better or more normal. I was very tempted to think that it was his fault that I ended up the way I was. If I had been younger and less experienced, I would have thought exactly that. That it was all because he dumped me that I was forced to marry George to save my family’s face. Back then, I was too heartbroken to think straight or resist my parent’s proposal. The man that I chose out of my own free will had betrayed me and suddenly left. I was too shocked to even face reality and the mistake that I made. It made me lose all self-confidence that I could make any correct decisions in my life and that perhaps, my parents were the ones who knew better. If I had been younger, I would have pinned everything on Brandon as his fault. However, I was no longer that young, fresh, and green. I looked up and I couldn’t hold in my giggle and ended up laughing softly at
There were many things that I needed to apologize for, and I was certain that he knew that already. It was unfortunate, but I wasn’t in a position with a whole lot of bargaining power, and he absolutely knew that as well. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he wanted to hear me say it, then I had no other choice but to say it. “That day at the hospital, I was unprofessional. Although I was supposed to be working for you, I ended up serving another client when we happened to run into each other…” I said before I pressed my lips tightly into a thin line. My throat and my lips felt dry, and I had to run my tongue along my lower lip. Brandon did not say anything, and he did not seem at all impressed at my attempt to do things his way. His eyes stared coldly at me, and I knew that he was waiting for me to go on. “This is all still kind of new for me, and yes, I know that it’s not a great excuse, but I didn’t know how to handle running into two of my clients at the same time. I panicked…” I
Just as I had expected, within the already very private space was another level of privacy when he led me to a private room. Once again, I began to wonder what exactly Brandon had planned. Although he appeared the way that he always did, I couldn’t deny that the atmosphere between us was unusually tense. I wondered if he also felt the way that I did or if I was the only one who felt unusually stiff while we were together. “Sit anywhere you like,” he instructed casually as he gestured to the large set of white sofas in the middle of the room. My eyes scanned the pristinely white and modern interior of the private room that we were in. Apart from the large sofa set that was in the middle of the room, there was a very large shiny white work desk with a matching white leather chair. Brandon must have been working in this room before my arrival because his laptop still had its lid open on the table. “I didn’t know that you liked working in shared working spaces nowadays…” I said to make
Brandon was definitely the heir to the largest chain of casinos on top of hotels for sure. Brandon never played any game unless he was the gamemaster. I have never seen him lose a bet before either in my life. George was seriously a fool to think that he could win against Brandon and at his own casino at that. So now, what game is he going to make me play?The only way to find out was to ask him. I thought that that was ironic in and of itself. If I had to pick, then I would say that I would prefer not to see Brandon. Although what happened was more my fault than his, my desire to hide away from him outweighed my rational sense and reason to want to meet him. Before I would chicken out and change my mind, I took out my phone and sent a simple text to Brandon. ‘Where and when do you want to meet me?’ I counted silently in my mind to around twenty as I stared at my phone screen. Just as I had anticipated, Brandon sent me back a reply within that timeframe. Had he been expecting for m
“About that trip to the orphanage that we were talking about…” he began before looking at me as if to gauge my reaction. “I’d still love to go if you still want me to,” I replied almost immediately. “Really?” Adrian asked with such an excited look on his face. Suddenly, he appeared much younger and a lot more innocent. Just like an excited little boy who had successfully invited his friend on a trip, he beamed a smile at me. With what had happened between us, maybe he thought that I would have changed my mind about going on a trip with him. If he was someone else, that might have turned out to be the case. However, if I was being honest, I really looked forward to going on that trip with him. It wasn’t just because it was a chance to spend more time with Adrian, but the idea of visiting orphanages felt like the right thing to do for me. Getting in contact with my past life might do me some good and help me figure out something about my sense of self and who I was. After being adop