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<Whining and Complaining
Whining and Complaining
Sliding into the bed, she got a whiff of the cologne Cruz wore on his pillow and grimaced, shoving it away from her. She wasn’t angry at him, per se, but rather this catastrophic mess she was getting deeper and deeper pulled into. Moreover, in a true trope of a romantic story she herself couldn’t have written any better, this wedding force was a smack to her own face and sensibilities. She was literally doing a fake wedding, to a bossy, jealous CEO billionaire, to appease the father of the groom. If nothing screamed romance novel like her current situation, then she was in the wrong damn profession.
She glowered at his scented pillow as if it was the cause of her current angst. She was self aware enough to know the reason she was out of sorts was because she was worse than the heroines in her books. She wanted the marriage to be real. She wanted to get a happily ever after with the man of her dreams and have the red–haired, big–headed babies he mentioned.
“***” she grumbled punching her own pillow and rolling over onto her belly.
The latch catching in the door as the key card swiped made her look up but then quickly drop her head back down. Burying her face in her pillow she hated how foolish she was feeling. Why couldn’t she be one of those women who could act like she didn’t care instead of one who always wore their emotions all over their face?
Cruz sat on the side of the bed and gently pushed her hair off her cheek onto her shoulder, “Ladybird, what is going on? You look like you’re on the verge of tears.”
“I wish I could go back in time and none of this happened,” she whispered truthfully.
“How come?” He gently kept playing with her hair, smoothing it over her shoulder and caressing her softly.
“Because it’s a nightmare.”
“What is a nightmare? Talk to me.” He lifted her gently of the pillow, prying it from her face when she tried to hide into it. “Come on, Presley,” he finally extricated the pillow from her clenched fingers a smile tugging his
lips.
“This whole thing. Everything! It’s awful, Cruz. My brother has always hated me but he’s never gone so far as to plot to break my heart into a million pieces. Distract me during a driving test? Sure. Make a scene at my
by heart. If I’d not graduation, why not? This though? He believes I’m in love with you and wanted to destr *****d with you, my entire family wouldn’t be coming to deal with him.”
“Except they would,” he said seriously pulling her so she was sitting between his thick thighs, his arms wrapped around her shoulders as he held her to his chest. Think about it. If I wasn’t here, he would still be here because he needs his payout. He still would have broken into your dad’s computer to steal money to come force you to come home except I wouldn’t be here to help you.”
“And then there is Ramona.”
“Well, we can agree she is your fault but let’s blame Sloane for taking the Initiative.” He chuckled, “but security is following her everywhere. Her parents arrive tomorrow apparently but until then they are tailing
her. What else?”
“Halima being plotted against by Anderson. If Sloane hadn’t brought her to confront Anderson for hacking my itinerary then he would not be lusting after her in his skinny jeans.”
Whining and Complaining
“Oh I think it would have happened eventually. Anderson texted me from the airport right after you left and said he’s going to marry her and she is his fate.”
She rolled her eyes. “He’s so weird.”
“He is but he’s the most brutally honest fella there is. I’m surprised considering he’s such a ladies‘ man but he seems sincere.”
“My father and mother are coming,” she grimaced.
“Again, not your fault. This is all on Odin.”
“But they’re all ruining my vacation.”
“Why? What is ruined?”
“Everything!”
“What have you wanted to do, we haven’t done yet?”
She frowned, “I don’t know.”
“I think, Ladybird, you’re feeling overwhelmed. The s**t with Odin and his stealing and his secrets are playing with your mind and instead of admitting you care about the fact you know he’s probably hurting, you are internalizing all your stress. He’s still your brother despite him being the terrible person he is and when he hurts, you hurt.”
She turned her head and glared at him.
“No?” he chuckled at her expression.
“Maybe a little but also the wedding thing. I know you have reasons but,” she made a face, “someday when I get married for real, this is going to always be in the back of my head.”
She knew she sounded like a whiny brat but the words tumbled from her mouth,
“I just envisioned my first marriage being special and real and with someone who was actually going to mean the words he was saying to me. I hate this idea,” she admitted feeling her tears clogging her throat. “I feel like I’m personally responsible for crushing my own hopes and dreams for my dream wedding and I have nobody to blame but myself because I caused this chaos for a few minutes of venr
“Hey,” he tilted her head towards him, pressing a gentle kiss to her nose, “I promise when this is all said and done, you won’t have regrets, Ladybird. It might not be the dream wedding you’d been planning since you were a little girl and it might be the craziest scheme we’ve ever concocted between us but at the end of the day, it’s us, working together to fix things. I won’t let you regret it, I promise. It will be a wonderful memory and if you ever have another wedding, it won’t be one pushed together in a couple of days. You can use this has a practice wedding.”
guess.” She looked into his hazel eyes. “I think I’m feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Do you know how expensive this resort is? I’m trying to figure out how Odin and Ramona both got rooms when it’s the height of the season. How is everyone getting rooms?”
sy the other night. I mean it was very
Cruz gave a shrug, “I don’t know. I was able to get one pretty easy expensive for a night. They aren’t planning to stay long, perhaps?”
“I don’t know,” She groaned again, “1 feel like I don’t know anything.”
C
Whining and Compt
“What would you normally do when you’re feeling like this?” He hugged her tight. “What can I do to help?”
“Build a time machine and send me back to right my wrongs?”
“Ah, but then I’d have to go back to when I was a preteen boy and stop picking on you first.”
“Truel”
“In fact, if you think about it, none of this is your fault, it’s all mine.” He smiled at her, “if I wasn’t such a sucker to make my friend happy and excited to engage in a prank war to drive you bonkers, which resulted in us abusing you,” he didn’t look away, “then you wouldn’t have felt compelled to come at me when I was in the
restaurant.”
“It’s a stretch,” she knew he was trying to make her feel better.
“Is it? Let’s shoulder the blame together.”
“Sure.” She rested against him. “Your shoulders are bigger anyway.”
“How are you feeling now?”
“Like I wish I’d brought the entire bottle of wine from the bar
“Did you go for a drink without me?” he tickled her ribs.
She giggled, “only a glass of wine and then I ran into Ramona and Paris.”
He grimaced, “there’s a weird match if I ever thought of one.”
“It’s weirder. Paris got it into her head, her lovers need new, fresh meat and was planning on doing something to get Ramona into their bed. I warned her Ramona is crazy but she said crazy to her means open to anything.”
Cruz frowned for a moment before a loud bark of laughter erupted from his chest, reverberating off her back.
“No!”
“Yes,” she giggled at his response
“Good luck to Paris. I hope she can pull it off, they end up in a poly marriage and my troubles are forever over, “he snickered.
“Do you think Ramona will go for it?”
“Not unless there are a lot of zeroes in the bank account. Ramona likes to be spoiled.”
“Did you spoil her?”
He shrugged, “at first. I took her on vacation and gave her a credit card, bought her jewelry.”
“Is she good in bed?”
“I’m not answering that Presley.”
“She’s crazy good.” Presley sighed and rolled her eyes. “After you broke up did you have s*x with her again?”
“Not even once. When I’m done, I’m done. The fact she could so easily pack her s**t up and move out while I was at work told me she wasn’t in love with me. You don’t walk away like that over an argument. She left and first thought when I walked into my condo was, I’m sad to admit it, finally some f*****g peace and quiet.”
my
“Really?”
Whening and Complaining
“I wish it wasn’t but honestly in hindsight, I was so tired of her constantly harping at me.” He contemplated his next words and then he gave a little laugh, “you know, I have put more thought and effort into our phony wedding than I did in the months following her proposal to me? I think it speaks volumes when I’m more excited about reciting vows with you than I ever was with her and I lived with her for years”
His words shocked her “Really?”
“Yes, really, Ladybird. I’m having fun. I can honestly say you’re the first woman I’ve dated where I feel this kind of excitement. The wedding might be fake but the rest of it, the feelings I’m growing and the fun we’ve been having, it’s all real to me.”
With his words she gave a little smile, admitting to herself it felt good to hear.
“Hey Cruz,” she said suddenly, “you know when you asked me what I do when I feel like this?”
“Yeah.”
“I usually pour some wine, have a bath and relax.”
“You do?”
“Yes. If you order the bottle of wine to the room, I’ll run a bath and maybe you could join me?”
“I think,” he reached for his phone, “nothing would make me happier.”
12
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