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Confrontation
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2022-03-12 22:23:40The days passed in pretty much the same fashion for Carol. Sebastian left the hotel most times before she woke up and came back after she had gone to bed. As such, they hardly ever saw each other, not to talk of talking to each other. Carol did not mind though. Since that night that she had called him to check up on him and he had yelled at her for no reason, she had begun to dislike him even more than she had before. It was such a pity that she still had such a long time to spend with him. She spent her days painting the different places that she had visited, deciding that when she got back home, she would send them to some of the homeless shelters in which she volunteered while she was still single.
It was the evening before she and Sebastian were scheduled to leave Paris, and she had packed up all her things and was now seated and painting the Eiffel tower. As usual, Sebastian was not around and
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Carol’s mouth remained open in shock as she processed Sebastian’s words. The almighty Sebastian had just apologized to her? Perhaps she was dreaming and was not lucid because it was too surprising for words. Sebastian took her silence to be that she was not satisfied with his apology and tried again. “Look, I know that you do not believe me, but that’s the truth. You called at the wrong time, that was why I answered the way I did.” “It’s fine. It’s fine.” Carol said hurriedly. She disliked it when people thought she was mad at them and since Sebastian had already apologized, then it was cool. "Alright. From what just transpired, I’ll take a wide guess and say that you’ll rather not have come on this trip with me.” Sebastian said, moving away and starting to pack his stuff. “Well, I did get to see Paris for the first time and I’ve always wanted to do so, so there’s that.” “You’ve never been to Paris before?” Sebastian asked incredulously.
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The fleeting camaraderie that Sebastian and Carol shared the night before they left Paris disappeared as though it had never been when they got back home. Carol never saw much of Sebastian in the months that followed that time, and when she did see him, he acted as though they were strangers. The only time that there was a semblance of normalcy between them was whenever his uncle called and they had to talk to the man together. As time passed, Carol began to hate this arrangement with a passion. If he wanted to act like she did not exist, then it was better that he did so all the time, and not just when it suited his purposes. He made sure that she got her monthly allowance at the end of every month, and even doubled it, making it a hundred thousand dollars from the fifty thousand that it was when she first started to live with him. When Carol asked him about it, he told her that it was a reward that he thought that she should have for playing her part in trying to convince his uncle
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That night, Carol sat up past her bedtime, waiting for Sebastian to come home. He entered the living room where she was sitting at eleven on the dot, looking so weary that her heart went out to him immediately. “Hey. Good evening.” She called to him, wondering to herself why he always looked so tired. He looked surprised to see her, and she realized that he did not see her there at first. “Carol. How are you doing?” “I’m good, and you?” “I’m fine. What are you doing up so late?” he asked, moving over to the minibar and pouring himself a glass of whiskey. He downed the contents of the glass in one go before pouring another drink and sinking heavily into the closest chair to him. “I wanted to talk to you,” Carol told him hesitantly. She was alway
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“Oopsie,” Carol said, her entire body tingling at the touch of Sebastian’s body against her and the strong hold that he had on her as he tried to keep them steady. “Here, I’ll help you to your room,” Sebastian said, looking down at her and then immediately wishing that he hadn’t. She was putting on a white singlet and wasn’t wearing any bra, and he could see the creamy top of her full breast where they were pressed into his chest. To his horror, he felt himself begin to respond, so he pulled away immediately, taking care not to do it too suddenly so that he will not end up swaying himself. Luckily enough, Carol did not seem to notice. “Aww.” She protested. “I was enjoying your body warmth and your hard, masculine chest.” She protested, stretching out her right hand so that he could take it and lead her to her room. She knew that she sh
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The days before Carol and Sebastian were set to go on their trip were very awkward ones, especially for Carol. She did not know what it was that she had done the night when she and Sebastian had drunk together, but she knew that it was most likely not good. It wasn’t as though Sebastian said anything, but she could see it in his eyes. Carol was horrified and hoped that she had not tried to seduce him or something like that, but she could not bring herself to ask him. He talked to her normally anytime they had reason to talk to each other, but there was something different about him.Right now, she was sitting with her legs in the swimming pool, just swinging it in the water and enjoying its coolness against her legs. She wasn’t going to swim, but she was just sunning and trying to get a tan or something. Suddenly, she heard footsteps and turned around to smile at whoever was coming, thinking that it was one of the maids or gardeners, only to see that it was Sebastian. The smi
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Carol gasped and her face turned an alarming shade of white at this news. She sprang up immediately, and then wrung her hands worriedly, not knowing what on earth to do. Her parents were here? That was bound to be a major disaster. They had not even informed her that they were coming. She knew immediately that her mother was the mastermind of the whole thing. Carol could just imagine her saying, “Let us pay a surprise visit to Carol and her husband and make sure that she is following our instructions to the letter.” Oh, God! This was bad, and to worsen matters, they had come along with one of her aunties. Carol would bet her bottom dollar that it was that troublesome Aunt Alice, who couldn’t be bothered to ever mind her business and loved to poke her nose where it did not belong. What were her parents thinking bringing that woman here? Oh, God! This was going to be such a disaster. She could feel it in her bones. “Ma’am? Are you coming to see if they a
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The drive down to the house was a very noisy one, with Belinda bawling her lungs out far louder than was necessary and cursing her ill-luck in having birthed such a wicked and disrespectful child. The others, including Carol, tried to placate her all to no avail as she continued to wail.“Just say you’re embarrassed by your family. Just say that and stop beating around the bush. After all, that was how you refused to allow your sister to come to visit you. Your own blood sister! I know that is exactly what you would have done to us if we told you we were coming. Can you see that I was right about us taking her unawares with our visit? Can you see?” Belinda asked Aunt Alice tearfully, getting a hold of herself as they approached the house and saw Sebastian waiting for them in front of it. She sniffed, wiped her eyes, and applied some powder to her face before getting out of the car after the others.Sebastian smiled warmly at them in greeting, shaking her father’s hand an
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Dinner that evening was a noisy affair, with Belinda telling numerous stories about Carol and Victoria to everyone at the table, the same way that Mr. James had done when he came to visit Carol. For most of the time, Carol’s face was red from embarrassment, but Sebastian seemed to find the stories entertaining and funny. “This isn’t as bad as I had thought.”Carol thought to herself in relief. For the first time since she came here, there was a lot of laughter and noise. It was the first time she had seen Sebastian laugh out loud many times. Looking at him now, she was once again struck by just how handsome he was. The man really had it all. Carol knew how easy it would be for her to fall in love with him if he kept being nice to her and she saw him regularly. In a way, she understood why he kept her at arm’s length as he had explained while th
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“Carol.” It was just one word, but that one word was enough to break the stupor she had been in as soon as she saw him.“Sebastian.” She said in turn, standing up to go bring another chair for him to sit down, but in essence, she was trying to buy herself some time to get her breathing under control. He looked so good and smelled so nice that it was all she could do not to throw herself straight into his arms and breathe in his essence as though her very life depended on it. She saw Sebastian’s eyes widen at the small bump under her loose gown, and her hand went to hold it selfconsciously.“It’s growing.” She told him needlessly and then slammed her mouth shut. She sort of felt nervous being in Sebastian’s presence and wished that she had worn a more flattering dress than the one that she had on now, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Sebastian collected the chair from her and brought it over to place it i
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“I don’t think that what you are doing makes any sense at all, Carol,” Donald said worriedly, looking at his daughter, who averted her gaze and tried in vain to stop the tears welling up in her expressive blue eyes.“Why do you say that, dad?” Carol asked him, wiping away her tears.“Well, maybe because you’re pregnant and you choose to slave away at doing a regular job instead of taking proper care of yourself.”“A lot of pregnant women work at regular jobs, dad.”“I know that, but not a lot of them have huge lumps of money lying in their bank accounts untouched while they look malnourished. Why are you punishing yourself this way, my dear? I mean, it’s only been one month since you left Sebastian. In that one month, you’ve become almost as thin as that girl Jessica., whom we do not like at all.”At this, Carol burst out laughing despite herself. Her father was acting like a
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It was with a growing sense of urgency that Sebastian drove away from the hospital, Jessica's insults and curses trailing after him until he could no longer hear them. It was a sad thing indeed that she was now the way she was, but there was nothing that he could do about it. He had offered to help her, but she kept turning down his help at every turn, so there was nothing he could do for her anymore. He could not do the very thing that she wanted, which was to be with her, as he did not love her anymore. He stopped by a flower shop on his way back to the house to get some flowers for Carol, knowing that women loved things like that. Hopefully, she would forgive him, and even if she did not, he would keep trying until she did. He still did not know how she managed to wind up pregnant, if she was taking her pills like she had claimed, but he knew that sometimes, those things were not foolproof, especially if the lady who was taking them fell sick during the period. He remembered that C
