CHAPTER 7: DINNER AND CONFESSIONS

XANDER’S P.O.V

“Mmmm, this is absolutely delicious” she moaned after taking a bite of the pasta which I have prepared for us. “I guess you aren’t the only good cook between us, hey,” I said with a smirk. “Yes, seems like I have competition” she joked. “Wine?” I asked, holding up the bottle, waiting for her permission to pour it into her glass. “Er…actually… I have…I have never tasted wine before” she said, leaving me in a statue-shocked state for a few seconds until I found my voice again. “You never had wine before?” I asked thinking that I might have heard her incorrectly or simply misinterpreted, maybe what she was trying to say is that she has never tasted this specific brand of wine before. “Nope, I’ve never had wine before” she repeated the words that she had said earlier. “How old are you?” I asked, the bottled still in my hands. “24” she answered. “And during your 24 years of living, you have never had wine?” I asked, still not believing what I am hearing. “Xander, I come from a very poor background. We weren’t fortunate enough to have some extra cash to spend on wine. My father worked hard to provide us with everything that we needed. We were just able to make ends meet and his income was just enough to keep us above the poverty line while getting us educated. We had hope for a better future. However, after my father’s death, we were unable to float any longer. So, here I am trying my best to keep my family from drowning” she explained. “Wow…I never knew and I wouldn’t have guessed if you didn’t tell me. You are always so full of life with that big, bright smile on your face who would have guessed that you have faced such hardships,” I said. “Hmmm” was the only word or may I say sound that I got out of her as she concentrated on her meal. “How did it happen?” I asked, I wanted to know everything about her, all her pain and all her joy. I wanted to know it all. “How did what happen?” she asked. “How did you lose your dad?” I asked, her attention tore away from her food and once again focused on me. “If you are okay with talking about it” I quickly added. “All I know is that he was murdered,” she said and I couldn’t help but feel like I am making this conversation go from bad to worse. “Well, there is a first time for everything, right?” I said, gesturing to the wine bottle. “That’s true,” she said with a smile. “Tell me if you like it and if you do then we can finish this bottle together” I poured her a sip. Taking the sip, her face twisted, making me laugh. “You will start to enjoy it as you drink more,” I said to her as I filled her glass and then mine.

“So tell me about your new terms,” she said. “Eh…okay,” I said and gulped down a big sip of my wine to help me with my nerves. I have board meetings almost every day, being the owner of 6 successful businesses, during those board meetings I am confident and powerful. Yet here I am nervous just to express my thoughts to one person…maybe because it is not just thoughts that I want to express but my feelings as well and maybe it’s because she is no ordinary person to me but someone who is very special. “Okay so here goes…Cara, I have developed feelings for you,” I started with the most difficult words. She left her fork down to give me her undivided attention. I waited a few seconds and after, she said nothing, so I continued. “Cara, there are things that you don’t know about me. There are things that no one knows, some of them know a bit and others may know more, but no one knows everything except for me. Even my dear sister, Emma doesn’t know about everything that had happened. I have been through a very dark phase of my life. It was torturously painful. I grew cold and guarded my emotions with unnecessary anger and hatred. This mansion went from being one filled with light, happiness, love and peace to a cold and dead place. Hearing laughter or seeing a smile irritated me. So I made rules, my servants that working in this household as well as my employees that worked in my 6 companies were not allowed to laugh, converse with each other or even smile during their working hours. I turned all of them from being human into machines. I never said please or thank you. One slip up from any one of them, no matter how good they were at their jobs or how long how they worked for me, they would have got fired. But I didn’t stop there…my anger, coldness and hatred spread much further from just my employees. It spread fast like a deadly disease, infecting everyone and anyone that knew me…but the ones that it infected and affected the most were those that loved me, cared about me, and tried to help me! I shut everyone out! Broke contact with friends whom I knew and who stood by my side from childhood! I haven’t spoken to my brothers for 2 years now and as for my parents…I’ve done the worst to them! The only person that stayed ‘by force’ was my little sister Emma, when she heard about what happened, she left her studies in New York to come and stay with me. We were really close as we grew, you see. However, my poor little sister was unaware of the monster that I have become as the bordered that flight. As soon as she arrived, she found my doors being shut on her face, but she refused to give up on her brother. She found her way into the mansion, even chose herself a room. Each time I threw her out she would somehow just appear back inside my mansion the next day. Eventually, I got tired of trying to get rid of Emma so I let her stay, but you see that was my biggest sin because the longer she stayed with me the joyfulness that radiated off her died each day as she too was being infected by my darkness. We were both miserable… me drowning in the sorrow of my past…she drowning with me. Cara, do you know that some nights…some nights when I held a loaded gun under my neck, the only thing that kept me from pulling the trigger was the thought of my little sister finding me with my brains splatted all over the place…” I explained. Her face held sadness, hearing my story. “But Cara…You somehow made that person who was consumed with anger and hatred…Who was toxic and heartless…who was changed due to pain…disappear. You brought me back. You are so full of light that it illuminated my darkness. Cara you are like the Rainbow after a storm.” I told her and her face lit up once again. “Cara I need you in my life. Not as a servant, but as a friend, as an advisor, as a supporter and as a lover” I got down on my knee. “Cara will live here not as a servant? Cara will you be with me not as a friend? Cara will you continue to illuminate the darkness not as a candle…but as my wife?” I asked and heard her gasp in shock. “I’m in love with you too. Alexander La’Vardo I love you a lot in fact but there is a lot that I need to know before I say ‘Yes’,” she explained. “Okay… what do you need to know?” I asked, hoping that I can give her the answers that she seeks and remove the obstacles that are keeping her from saying ‘Yes’. “Who is Eva?” her question shocked me. “How do you know about Eva?” I asked. “That doesn’t matter,” she said making me angry…I really needed to know about how she found out about Eva. “It does matter. Now tell me…how do you know about Eva?” I asked. “Know about her? All I know is her name and that you loved her a lot” her words took me back to my dark past. “All of that is over now…it’s in the past. You don’t have to know about it” I said. “We need to make peace with the past before we move forward. I need to know your past because I will not be at peace from the little that I already know. I need to know everything” she said. “What do you mean? Why won’t be at peace with my past?” I asked in confusion. “Because I feel inferior to her. Why would you want me after you had a woman like that?” she asked…there was slight evidence of jealousy and pain in her voice. “A woman like that? That woman was a b****! And you are not! That is why I want you, Cara! I want you, Cara!!!” I said in a loud and powerful voice, not to scare or threaten her but so that she believes me and hears the seriousness in my voice. “I want you to be my wife and that is all that matters” I explained, in a much softer voice, my eyebrows furrowed as I pleaded. “That’s all that matters to you but not to me! You past matters to me and you need to tell me about it” she stubbornly demanded. “I’m not ready to talk about it,” I said. “Then I will not give you my answer until you are,” she said before leaving the table.

……

I laid restlessly on my bed, tossing and turning, I could not find my sleep. ‘So much happened tonight during such a small space of time. I found out that Cara’s father was murdered which would have brought some sort of tragedy in her life, I admire her so much more now that I’ve learned how brave and strong she is to keep the demons of the past at bay, unlike me. I’ve confessed my love to her and learnt that she loves me too. With it all, I’ve also learnt that she knows about Eva. But what do I do now? How do I move forward? How do I tell her about Eva? It’s in my past. Locked away far and deep inside the deepest part of memories! Do I really need to dig it up?’ I got off my bed and paced back and forth in my room…thinking of an answer…seeking a solution…

I’m not willing to loose Cara due to the demons that Eva has created inside of me. The question is, am I strong enough…Does she make me strong enough to fight those demons and once again revisit my past just to tell her about it all? I will have to do something. Tomorrow morning on our morning jog, while we take our break to watch the sun rise I will tell her everything that she wants to know.