/ Valeri’s POV/
“So…. What’s next?” Vivian breaks the silence after pressing her phone for a while. “What do you mean by what next??” I ask her trying my best to sound curious. “I meant to ask what you have in mind,” she asks, setting her phone aside and looking at me dead in the eyes. “Nothing,” I answer her flatly. “Nothing?” She says with her eyes widening in shock. “Are you kidding me?” She practically screams at the top of her voice making me shudder at the fear of going deaf because of the pitch of her voice. “Of course, not,” I answer her immediately, with my eyes darting back and forth, wondering why she is overreacting all of a sudden. “What happened to the declaration that you won’t be marrying Grey Remington?” She questions. “I still stand on my decision not to marry him, and nothing is going to change that,” I stand my ground. “Then I am guessing you have a plan so……let’s have it,” Vivian says crossing her leg, waiting for me to fill her in with what I have gotten so far. “Well…... I have no plan,” I reply with an unfazed expression, one of unexpected calmness. “Excuse me!!!” She exclaims with her eyes lighting up in shock. “You have no plan?” She questions and I nod. “Are you seriously kidding me right now?” she questions and I nod again because that is the only thing that my brain is telling me to do. “You expect us to sabotage your marriage without a plan?” She questions, blinking back with utter shock and confusion written all over her face. “How the hell is that going to work?” she goes ahead to interrogate me. “I have no idea…….” I answer her briefly. “That is why you are here to help me figure things out for me so…let’s have it,” I urge her. “You have to be kidding me,” she mutters shaking her head frantically. “No, I am not,” I answer her. “My mind is as blank as paper….more so, you are the one that just went back in time, so you should be equipped with some superpower or something that will get you out of this mess, so put that brain to good use okay?” she urges. “Technically, it is just not me that went back in time…. we all went back in time, and Apart from my life being reversed to what it was a year ago, I feel very normal,” I inform her so that she can stop second guessing things. “That’s strange……there must have been something about your time travel and you may require a stimulating event to unlock your powers which may be this marriage so don’t let me stop you,” she says patting my back exaggeratedly. “You are not helping matters at all…...” I sigh in frustration “I guess I have no better option than to run away since that is the only thing that I can think about,” I suggest. “Perfecto!” She exclaims “Turns out that you finally taking my advice…” “Proud bestie moment,” she says proudly. “Where do you want to go?” “How are we getting you out of this hotel?” “Do you have anything in mind or do you need me to provide you with a list of options?” Vivian bombards me with a series of questions that I have no answer to. “I can’t leave my family alone……my mom will be the one to bear my father’s wrath after I run away,” I say with hesitation evident in my tone of voice. “I don’t think your father will take this out on your sick mother…...he is not that heartless,” she tries to convince me. “My father is not so heartless, but his wife will put my mom through hell and I can’t bear the thought of my poor mother getting maltreated in her sick state because of me, so we can't do anything like that,” I answer her. “We can probably annoy the groom’s side or irritate them into calling off the wedding,” she suggests “That is more like my bestie….” “I will have to make them call this wedding without making it obvious that I had a hand in that,” I decide. “Should I sneak into Grey's room and pick up a fight with him for no good reason?” I inquire “No!” she answers sharply. “Should I expose the fact that he is married already to my parents?” I inquire “Married?” “Yeah…. he and his legal wife kinda tried to kill me in my past life,” I inform her. “Do you have evidence?” she asks with her eyes lighting up. “Where am I supposed to get evidence when I just woke up from what my life was a year ago a few minutes ago?” I ask her. “Then you can’t risk exposing something that you don’t have enough evidence to back up because for Grey Remington to barely have an online presence it means he knows what he is doing,” she emphasizes. “How do you know that he has no online presence?” I ask her. “Because he was the one, I was busy checking out earlier when I was on the phone, but he has no I*******m account, no F******k, and everything about him being married before seemed to have vanished without a trace,” she answers. “In that case, should I just tell him that I have a confession to make and then confess to having HIV and then say that I am scared of infecting him so I thought of coming out clean to him,” I suggest. “Hell no!” She exclaims “Is that the best you can do?” she scoffs. “At least……I am trying to get my brain to work unlike you,” I mumble “Chill out mama……. you know my brain doesn’t boot well under pressure so chill so that I can come up with a full-proof plan,” she “This is the time that your brain needs to work under pressure because this is an emergency and my life is so going to be ruined if I marry that man called Grey Remington,” I urge her. “You know what?” she pauses dramatically “I don’t enjoy how you are interrupting my thought process, so get to the bathroom and start your morning routine so that I can have a quiet place to think,” she suggests. “I am not in the mood to do anything so why don’t you just hurry up with your thinking ……I will try my best to remain quiet,” I propose “I won’t be entertaining you in my space while I am doing some critical thinking……so run along,” Vivian says as she drags me off the bed “Run along,” she says again as she practically shoves me into the bathroom and closes the door behind her. “Since my bestie doesn’t want me around her, I should try my best to get my morning routine done so that I can be allowed back in the room,” I mutter as I step into the bathroom“Mission calling off my wedding activated,” I assure the reflection of myself in the oval-shaped acrylic bathroom mirror./Valeri’s POV/ “Riri!!” Vivian screams my name from the room. “I thought you asked me to stay away from you so that you can think well, so why are you screaming my name?” I question her, opening the door of the bathroom slightly so that she can hear me “I need you to come over here to put a leash on your dog that is going rampage,” she screams back, making me furrow my brow in confusion because I don’t remember owning any dog. “I think you fit into the characteristics of the dog on rampage better,” I hear Matilda’s voice coming from the room “Holly shit!” I mutter in realization as I quickly turn on the tap to wash the foamy mess around my mouth away and rinse my mouth so that I can deal with the two people who should not be left alone in the same room. “I have told you times without number that I can’t stand you, so I see no valid reason for you to keep on hovering around me everywhere I go,” I hear Vivian’s voice again. “Bold of you to think that I am okay with seeing your fac
\VALERI’S POV\ ''Hey Mama,'' Vivian speaks up after a very long time of just leaving me to my thoughts which I quite appreciate because it made me feel like she understood where I was coming from a little bit and she is trying her best to respect my decisions and also come to terms with them in the same way that I am, instead of her trying to force what she thinks is the best decision for me on me. ''I know that you are probably still trying to process your emotions after waking up from what your life looked like a year before this, only for you to relive those same events over again, and I promise you that I am trying to see things from your perspective',' she continues and I hold my breath because, from the way my bestie is carefully selecting her choice of words, it is obvious that there is more to the info that she is dishing out. “I know that I must have mentioned earlier that we have all the time in the world to come up with a solid plan, but the truth is that the more I take
/Valeri’s POV/ “I knew it,” I mutter in realization. “Anyways……. Let’s have it,” I urge her. “First of all, you have to send a copy of the document to Caleb via email,” she starts and finally stops pacing around the room like a ragging lion. “Your brother?” I question. “Yes mama,” she answers me drawing the chair from the vanity to sit in front of me. “What has your brother gotten to do with this?” I question her. “Everything,” she answers as a matter of fact. “Let’s have it,” I urge her to explain herself “My brother is a lawyer so it is very understandable that I will want him to check the details of the contract so that we don’t get surprised when anything comes up,” She trails off. “The summary of what I am trying to say is that I want us to be prepared for whatever is going to happen,” she explains and I nod understandingly. “Secondly……?” I proceed “Secondly, you are marrying Grey Remington to get closer to him and beat him against his own game,” she says and I suddenl
\VALERI’S POV\ I did as I was instructed by my bestie, went ahead with my morning routine, and even ended up calling for room service to deliver breakfast to my room because, for some reason, my bestie refused to show up, and there was nothing for me to do to while away the time so I thought getting something to eat was going to relieve me of my boredom, but it didn’t and after eating I ended up sleeping. Thank goodness I didn’t wake up to another nightmare of the things that happened in my past life, but I did wake up with my best friend hovering over me like a helicopter yelling for me to wake up because the clock was ticking closer to the wedding part\get together\whatever the fuck my family members are choosing to call this as if she wasn’t the one that left me unattended to for a very long time. After Vivian gave strict instructions to the nail technician, make-up artist, and hair stylist on what to do and what and not to do with my hair, makeup, and nails, they all got down to
/Valeri’s POV/ “In my case, the head of the Remington family will have friends that have handsome and rich sons that I can get involved with,” she brags and I cackle “In that case don’t let me stop you from pursuing you from pursuing your dreams,” I encourage her. “You don’t have to,” she says. “You……. you……. you” she says pointing at my hairstylist, make-up artist, and nail technician. “I need you guys to follow me because I need you to touch a few things up,” she says as she walks away with her bitchy attitude. “That is unacceptable,” Vivian says in a bit to stop the dress-up team from going with Mathilda but I signal her to just let things go. “What was that all about?” Vivian inquires as soon as everyone steps out of the room, leaving just the both of us. “Mathilda seems to have the wrong impression that Grey Remington is an old man, but that is not the case at all,” I clarify. “Thank goodness,” Vivian sighs in relief. “I was already so terrified at the thought of allowi
\Grey Remington\ I can’t believe that I am putting so much into getting married to that spoilt brat of Donald’s family, and I have had to go ahead plotting and plotting with a series of background checks just to get close enough to her so that at the end of the day she falls so deeply in love with me to the point that only the things that I want are the only things she wants.“Now, all I just have to do is to get this excuse of a party over and done with so that I can be rest assured that I am drawing closer and closer in my revenge plans against the Donald’s,” I mentally prepare myself to step out of the car in the company of the entourage that I brought with me, especially the bodyguards so that none of the Donald’s will dare ask me why my family members are not present at my wedding. “Are you having second thoughts?” my best friend Kyle inquires, getting my attention in his direction. “If you don’t want to go through with this wedding, we can always turn the car around now and I
\VALERI’S POV\ “What the hell is that sly woman doing here?” I question myself, befuddled as I trail her with my eyes till she stops in front of the devil itself, Grey Remington. “What the hell are these two manipulative people up to?” I question myself, tempted to go closer to them but I am still so terrified that the two people that caused my death in my past life are appearing in front of me. “Earth to Riri,” I hear Vivian says as she snaps her finger in front of me. “What’s up, mama?” I ask her “I think I should be asking you that question,” she says “I don’t understand,” I mutter, trying to divide my attention equally among my bestie, then Grey and his scheming wife. “Who the fuck are you observing like a lab rat over there and why do you have the same terrified expression that you had on your face earlier this morning when I woke you up,” she says stepping in front of me. “I am observing my nemesis,” I answer as I slightly brush her aside so that I can get a clearer view
/Valeri’s POV/“These days, I find it hard to understand how ordinary assistants, for example, errand boys clean up nicely and afford expensive things,” she says checking Grey out and dusting his collar slightly even though there is nothing on the collar and my jaw drops in shock because how could my bitch sister refer to an egoistic person like Grey as an errand boy……I am so sure that he is not going to let this slide. “The truth is that I wanted to ask for your hand in marriage without being too obvious about it,” he says, confusing me further because, at this point, I find it hard to understand if I am the one he is talking to since he is looking at Mathilda instead. “It is understandable that your boss has heard a lot about our family and because of that he wants to be related to us, so where is he?” she inquires looking around the room while I follow her eyes to search for who she is looking for with her because at this point I feel that there is something that she is seeing tha
|GREY’S POV|My day started with a series of impromptu meetings and I just had to be on the ground even though Kyle offered to attend the meetings because I have a problem of making sure that I get things done by myself, and towards the end of the meeting, Kyle had to book Valeri and me another flight because we missed our flight already.The flight was quite interesting at first because it was quite interesting to watch Valeri make a fool of herself but she eventually slept and I just ended up going through the magazines that were provided on the plane.When I got bored, I slept for a while and woke up a few minutes before the plane landed, so I woke Valeri up so that we could finish the offboarding formalities.Immediately after we finished our offboarding formalities, I turned on my phone to talk to Kylee who confirmed the dinner reservation that he scheduled in advance with the CEO of Tobias International Holdings, so I dropped Valeri off at the hotel and came all the way here so
|VALERI’S POV|With the help of the PNEUMIA app, I am able to access the important reservations that Grey booked in advance for us via the link he sent, and on checking into the chic hotel in the heart of the city, my heart starts pounding with the thrill of what is to come ahead of me.“Wow, this place is amazing!”“Can’t wait to unpack and call Vee,” I mutter as I drop my things and I start to fish out for my phone in my bag.“Hey, mama…” I speak up as soon as the call connects, but Vee’s end of the call is quiet.“Before you eat my ears out, you need to know that I called you as soon as I got into my room,” I explain almost immediately, only for the phone to start vibrating on my ear.“Hey babes,” Vee says, waiving me as soon as I pick up the video call.“If you are all dressed to go out, we can always talk later,” I suggest.“It’s not a big deal,” she waves.“More so, my date won’t be here until the next ten minutes, so we have enough time to catch up,” she says.“I have only been
|VALERI’S POV|The last few hours have been a roller coaster of stress, with Grey Remington showing up at the Clinton baking company to pick me up for shopping.I was completely taken aback by the fact that he knew where to find me, uncomfortable with his pretentious act of acting like the perfect husband to me, and suffocated with being choked by his attention because I didn’t ask for any of it, but he won’t let me be, and I just had to deal with it because there was no valid excuse I could tender as a valid escape reason.I knew that the whole motive behind the shopping and unnecessary attention was to give the impression that he loved and appreciated me which worked quite well in my past life, but I found it extremely disgusting in this life.I tried to shoo him away from me but he claimed he wanted to keep me company while I packed, so I had no choice but to tolerate him.I eventually got the perfect escape to pretend to be asleep after Grey stepped out of my room to attend a Zoom
|VALERI’S POV|“Having lunch,” she answers.“Lunch?” I question and she nods.“I thought you said that waiting for our enemies to make moves won’t cut it for us, so we need to start taking laws into our hands before we are forced to lay down all our trump cards on the table,” I remind her because I am expecting her to keep the energy that she started with going.“Yea… I know that,” she answers as she ignites the vehicle.“I was just mad that you were avoiding being intimate with Grey Remington and from the little interaction that I have, I know that Grey Remington is a very smart person, so there was no way he wouldn’t start suspecting especially when you avoid something as important as you guys’ honeymoon and he will start paying unnecessary attention to his moves which is not what we want at all,” she explains with her eyes burning with determination while her hand is animated as she talks instead of the hands being on the steering wheel.“We have leverage over Grey with the knowled
|Valeri’s POV| “What the fuck just happened?” I ask as I blink back in shock realizing that Vee just walked out on me when we are in the middle of an argument. “Did Vee and I just fight over this whole revenge thing?” “What did I do wrong to make our misunderstanding escalate in a matter of seconds?” “Was I the problem?” “I stop to ask myself a series of questions as I replay the events that just happened in my head,” “What is the way forward for me now?” “Should I just ignore the fact that my bestie and I are at odds and just focus on the issue at hand?” I bombard myself with a series of questions. “You know what?” I say to myself. “I will just ignore whatever Vee and I have going on between us and focus on the honeymoon shenanigan since she asked me to do what pleases me,” I hiss angrily as I try to go back to my work. I try to focus on my work but I can’t seem to concentrate because that is exactly what happens to me when I am fighting with my bestie, I can’t
|Valeri’s POV| I stay in the same position that I have been since Grey's message came in, reading and re-reading the message over and over again because I can’t seem to wrap my head around why I am getting such a text from him. “Valeri, let’s make unforgettable memories together by going on a honeymoon trip together this Thursday,” he sent. “I have called your secretary to clear your schedule from this afternoon so that you can have enough time to pack your things because you deserve a trip like this and more,” I read again. I have been suppressing the urge to call Vee to get her ass up here since I got the message, but I know that she is busy with her first photo shoot with Donald’s Couture, and if it was just our company that was involved, I would have dragged her out and made her reschedule the shoot for another time, but we are a collaborating with other brands. Also, this first shoot is kind of huge for Vivian because today is just day three of her working in Donald’s
|GREY’S POV| “Hey, I am talking to you,” I suddenly see Kyle in front of me snapping his finger in front of me. “How can I help you?” I question him. “How can you help me?” he scoffs. “Every single time I talked to you, you have been absent-minded, making me repeat myself countless times and you seriously think there is nothing wrong with that?” he argues “What is it this time,” I question him. “It was understandable that you were able to see not motivated to work on Monday because we went through a lot last week, but this is Wednesday and you still had the same attitude you had on Monday,” he complains “What attitude did I have?” I ask Him. “You keep on zoning out,” he complains bitterly. “I have not been zoning out, I have just been critically thinking about something,” I correct him. “What is so important that is making the mighty Grey Remington’s brow take a worried curve?” he inquires, taking his seat in front of me, with worry lacing his voice. “It is not somethi
/Valeri’s POV/ “After an extremely chaotic get-ready with me on a Monday morning, I am finally at work so let's get right into what we have to do today,” I try to motivate myself as I step out of the elevator and make my way to my office. “Hey babes,” Vee sneaks up on me, putting her arms around me. “You are looking really beautiful and radiant this morning,” she complements and I smile. “Thank you babes……you also look very beautiful and radiant,” I compliment her, playing with her cheeks as we both burst out laughing. “So how is everybody on your end, and how did your talk with Grey go?” she inquires, and I look around to be sure that no one heard us. “You completely forgot to give me a heads up,” she grumbles. “Shhhh…..there are eyes and ears everywhere in this office and the last thing I want is for gossip to start flying around just because my spoiled sister and her minions think they know what is going on in my life,” I caution her, as I drag her into my office. “Now that
|GREY’S POV| As if dealing with a drunk wife the whole night was not enough, my first wife came to the room to ally with my ‘little crush’ this morning right in front of me, using the identity of my first cousin and that is rather Unsettling because I have thought of various reason why Maddison will want to be friends with someone like Valeri especially when both of them look so incompatible but the only logical explanation that I can find is that Maddison just wants to make things hard for me even though I already warned her to stay out of my business. “Not today Satan,” I muttered as I walked out of the room because I had a lot of stuff to take care of, especially concerning Maddison’s father who is now on my radar so I couldn’t add Madison’s silly stunt to what I had on my plate. I have been busy with Kyle the whole day trying to figure out how we are going to start putting the people that we bought over at Donald’s Couture to work because I want to take over Donald’s property