Wildflower (Chapter 25)

Chapter 25

 

            The house was quiet. It was the first time it was ever completely quiet since the first time she came there. And this was the only time she was ever going to get to enjoy the quiet. Wildflower was in the kitchen, in her bra and panties, making breakfast. Since Tammy did most of the cooking she never really got to do much cooking in the kitchen. When she had imagined living on her own she had wanted to be able to walk around in her underwear without it being an issue. With 9 brothers she could never have done that, but for the next week and a half she was free to do whatever she wanted. Nicolas came into the kitchen yawning, he was only in his boxers.

            “I could have taken you out to breakfast,” he told her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned his chin on her shoulder.

            “No, I like to cook,” she replied.

            “Really? You’ve never cooked for me once since we’ve been together.”

            “Well I’m cooking now so you can enjoy it.”

            “My domesticated bride,” he said and kissed her cheek.

            “I love the quiet in here,” she said.

            “We can have quiet again soon; the kids will be going back to their mothers.”

            “Not all of them, I talked to Angel she is fine with Sammie staying here. Then we have Sugar and Evan,” she reminded him.

            “Yeah but they are teenagers they don’t want to hang around the house.”

            “Nick, they are teenagers who live in a mansion with all types of things to do, they are going to want to bring friends over.”

            “So I guess we ought to make these few days we have count. Though we will get to be together for a month in Brazil, Gloria already made all the plans.”

            “It is going to be amazing to get to go to Brazil.”

            “Yes, it will and maybe we’ll come back with you pregnant.”

            “Why do you want babies so much?”

            “Because I like kids and I think you would make a great mother and maybe I enjoyed spending time with Ariela,” he said.

            “I think I like the idea of you as a daddy,” she said.

            Sometimes she thought they were moving a little too fast, they technically were. But he was older than she was and she could understand that maybe he was more ready to settle down than she was. And the more she thought about it a child of her own wasn’t that bad of an idea. She’s been raising her brothers all her life so having a child that was all hers was a nice thought. And the way Nicolas was with Ariela made her heart ache for him to have a child of his own. They spent the summer taking care of other people’s children and they were going to have the kids living with them, so maybe they needed their own kids.

            “If you don’t want to have kids yet its ok,” he told her.

            “It’s fine, I want this for you,” she said. “I just need to you know party a little before I’m a mommy.”

            “Why don’t we go out together? You’re always going out with your friends but we never do things like that,” he said.

            “I like that idea; we need to go out together. It’s just that Chris and Brooke are always trying to get away from my brothers and Carmen is looking to hook up, but now it’s just the two of us.”

            “Yup, just us,” he said. She could feel him against her and she knew what he wanted, she smiled.

            “I’m making breakfast,” she said.

            “And I want to make love to you,” he said.

            “Since when do you say that?”

            “I should have always said it because it’s always been love with you.”

            “Stop loving me or we won’t have breakfast,” she told him. He was kneading her behind with one of his hands and pulling her panties down with the other.

            “What I want for breakfast is you,” he whispered in her ear. It was hard to do anything but what he wanted when he was like this.

            “Nick,” she purred. His fingers found their way inside of her and she couldn’t focus on cooking anymore.

            Somehow she did manage to at least turn the stove off and move away from it while he was fingering her. He lifted her up onto the counter and finished pulling her panties off. They kissed while he continued to work his fingers inside of her. She reached down to stroke him. Doing this right here in the kitchen was definitely a huge turn on. It didn’t take long before she came on his hand. He pulled his fingers out and licked them, that was a turn on too.  She used her feet to pull his boxers down.

            “Want something?” Nicolas asked looking her in the eyes.

            “You in me now,” she replied. He complied with her request and thrust inside of her hard. She had to brace herself on the counter while he thrust harder and harder. This was definitely going to be a good week.

 

 

            Ivan was at work when he got a picture message on his phone. It was from Sugar so he was worried when he opened it. But it wasn’t a naked picture of her as he expected, it was something worse. The picture was of the two of them at her birthday party. She looked so happy and it wasn’t a bad day. The problem was that she was in love with him and he knew it and instead of doing the right thing he did all the wrong things. He’d had sex with her twice before she left for Paris. Not only was he committing a crime, he was also leading her on and that was the worse part. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about her, because he did, but he was selfish. This girl had just attempted suicide and was an emotional wreck and yet he was still messing around with her. What was wrong with him? Why was he still doing this?

            Since he had never once been in love with any woman he dated, he just figured he just couldn’t fall in love. So if he couldn’t fall in love then he couldn’t love Sugar. Why did he want to see her all the time? Why did he get jealous when she was hanging out with his brothers? And why couldn’t he make himself stay away from her? So many questions that he couldn’t answer and he couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t stay away from her. Looking at this picture of the two of them smiling like a happy couple made him feel horrible. And it said ‘miss you’. Maybe he needed to end it with her when she came back. The thought of that did not appeal to him. He was starting to fear that maybe he felt a little more about her than he could admit to himself.

            “Who’s the girl?” Max asked him and grabbed the phone. Max the bigmouth pain in the a*s that he worked with was studying the picture. It annoyed him the way Max was looking at Sugar, which was a bad sign.

            “She is none of your damn business,” Ivan said snatching his phone back.

            “Why don’t you want anybody to see your girlfriend? She’s hot,” Max said.

            “Do you not have work to do?” He asked, he was about to put his phone away when another picture message came through. This picture was just of Sugar and it was what he had expected to see the first time.

            “Wow,” Max said having obviously seen the picture.

            Ivan just walked away and put his phone back in his pocket. He needed to delete that picture it was technically child pornography. However even though he needed to delete it and that would be the smart thing to do, he wasn’t going to. Sugar in lacy lingerie affected him a little too much. That meant he definitely probably had feelings for her. Why was fate so cruel that he should find himself having feelings for a teenage girl? Since she just turned 17 it meant that there was a little less than a year until she was legal and he wouldn’t go to jail for having sex with her. Not that it would mean anything once his sister found out or crazy Nicolas, between the two of them he would be dead.

            Instead of thinking about his fast approaching funeral or the girl that was literally going to be the death of him, he worked. He had been working at this garage since high school and he learned a lot in that time about cars. Working on cars was a lot easier than dealing with real life and issues. While he was at work he wasn’t a statutory rapist and he didn’t have to wonder if he had feeling for a girl that was his sister’s niece. Even if he wanted to think about it or talk about it he couldn’t tell anybody, they would think he was insane. Sugar was a very troubled girl and he needed to stay away from her, so maybe he did need to talk to somebody that could set him straight. Evan was the only one that knew about Ivan and Sugar, but even if he was pathetic even to ask his baby brother for advice Evan was in Paris. Of his brothers that were actually still here, they would probably all tell him he was crazy. Both Jay and Isaiah were not good choices because their women were Wildflower’s friends. That left Ricky and though that was the best choice, he did not want to talk to him about it. But at the moment he didn’t have much of a choice.

 

 

            Cody was walking to meet someone at Starbucks. Her searching on the internet for information about Nicolas hadn’t brought up much more than a few speculations. But a woman contacted her about him after she ranted about him on her blog. So she was taking a chance and meeting this woman who claimed to know things about the Caprianis. After she received a disk in the mail yesterday with exactly what Nicolas said would be on it, she was pissed. And the fact that he had the original copy to do whatever he pleased with it did not make her happy. She really hoped that she found out something useful. When she arrived she forgot for a second what she was planning when she saw a familiar face. A man was sitting at one of the outside tables with a laptop and a bunch of books and notebooks piled on the table.

            “Owen?” She asked and he looked up and smiled. When had he gotten so attractive? The Owen she remembered that followed Wildflower around wasn’t bad looking but he wasn’t anything special either, this man looked delicious.

            “Cody,” he greeted and got up to hug her. “Funny I should see you after I saw Wildflower last week.” There was a look of disappointment in his eyes.

            “You saw her?”

            “Yeah, she told me she’s getting married,” he said. There was an obvious hint of bitterness in his voice.

            “You say married I say she’s selling her soul to the devil,” she replied.

            “Come sit we can catch up,” he said and she did. “She mentioned that the two of you were having problems.”

            “Really? I didn’t know she was advertising it.”

            “I was the one that asked about you and Brooke. I’m guessing that you aren’t fond of the man she is marrying?”

            “That is an understatement, he’s doing everything he can to keep us from being friends and he’s like brainwashed her. I hoped that at least her brothers were smart enough to not fall into Nicolas’ trap but nope they’re all one big happy family,” she sighed. “Anyway what have you been up to?”

            “Med school and working, nothing exciting,” he said.

            “Do you still have feelings for Wildflower?” She asked he looked surprised by the question, but she had a feeling he did.

            “Actually I kind of do or I did and I told her that when we talked. But it doesn’t matter she’s getting married. Tell me how did she end up with one of the richest guys in the world?”

            “Oh um we were at a bar for her and Ivan’s birthday and he lured her away. I don’t know he’s been throwing money around ever since, he bought her mom a new house and is paying for one of her brothers to go to college and her sister-in-law and her three youngest brothers are going to some expensive private school. He bought them all new stuff to replace what they lost in the fire. Basically he just purchased her family,” she explained. “And he pays Brooke to be her ‘personal assistant’ but all she does is go shopping with Wildflower or hang out around the mansion or goes to clubs.”

            “Why don’t you like this guy? Everybody’s heard things about that family but you seem to really hate him,” Owen said.

            “He is a criminal that had his own sister beat up because he wanted to have custody of her daughter. And he put the place I use to work out of business. God only knows what else he’s done.”

            “Does she really love him?”

            “She thinks she does, I know her she just feels morally obligated to stay with him after all he has invested in her family. And she’d probably too scared to leave him, he’s violent ands has a temper and he follows her if she goes out anywhere.”

            “Maybe I should talk to her again,” Owen said thoughtfully. “Would you give me her number? I thought it would be inappropriate to ask before but I’m concerned for her.”

            “Sure, I always did like you two together,” she replied.

            Was it so wrong to hope that maybe Wildflower would want to leave Nicolas the devil for sweet Owen? If Owen could lure Wildflower away that would be a miracle. He did seem genuinely worried about her and he was still in love with her. It wasn’t like she was married yet so it wasn’t a bad idea. Cody cared about her friend even if they weren’t exactly speaking right now. And a good person with values and was hard working like Owen was just what Wildflower needed instead of the rich jerk.

            “Are you Cody?” A woman approached her with sunglasses on and she kept looking around.

            “You are Sadie?” Cody asked and the woman nodded, then she looked at Owen.

            “I thought you were coming alone?”

            “This is a friend and I’m thinking he might want to hear what you have to say about Nicolas,” Cody said. If she was going to try to take down Nicolas, she needed as many allies as she could find.

 

 

            Sugar had been to Paris twice when she was younger with her mother. It was nice to get away from a place where everybody knew who she was and what she had done to herself and about her mother. She wasn’t sure how she felt about what happened to Katrina, she did deserve it and she was alive. That really wasn’t important to her; she was mostly thinking about Ivan. Maybe it was a bad idea that she sent a picture of herself in lingerie to Ivan’s phone. The rationality behind it was so that he still thought about her while she was gone. But she hadn’t heard from him at all and so she was regretting it. Right now he could be with someone else and she would have no idea. Technically she couldn’t get mad if he was because they were not in a relationship. And when reality set in her heart ached because she was nothing to him.

            She was sitting in her room in the house they were living in for their trip. Sammie was sharing the room with her but of course at the moment she was with Evan. Why couldn’t Sugar have that? A guy that loved her? Sammie got a guy to love her without trying and Evan basically worshipped the ground she walked on. Yet Sugar was destined to always be a hook up or a good time, never ever loved. Before it didn’t really bother her, now that she was sober and had a lot of time to think it really bothered her. This was exactly why she needed to drink so that she could numb everything else. It would be easy to just slip out and find some trouble to get into, but she was supposed to be good.

            So instead she laid on the bed staring aimlessly at the ceiling. She could have listened to music on her iPod but she didn’t feel like it. Nothing could make her stop thinking about things. She stared at the inside of her arms; they had matching long vertical gashes on them. Mostly her scars were healed, at least the physical ones, the emotional ones were probably never going to be healed. And she tried so hard to get over everything, but she still had nightmares sometimes. Sleeping with Ivan seemed to help her nightmares but she was stupid to feel safe with him.

            Her non-relationship with Ivan was wrong and she knew that. She was starting to seriously think about ending it, which was easy to say when she was far away from him. Maybe that was what she needed, boarding school in Switzerland. Katrina had threatened her with that about a million times, maybe it wasn’t a bad idea. Somewhere nobody knew her or her family, a place she could start over. And if she took her dad’s last name instead of Capriani, she could really just blend in. The idea was actually appealing, then her cell phone rang and she looked at it. Why was Ivan calling her?

            “Hello,” she said into the phone.

            “I got an interesting text while I was at work today,” Ivan said.

            “Let me guess you never want me to do that again, right?”

            “Actually I was going to say you looked hot.”

            “Really?” Shed completely shocked.

            “Yeah, just remind me never to leave my phone lying around again.”

            “Ok, so I’m surprised you are calling.”

            “Me too actually, but I’ve been thinking about you. Or more like I’ve been thinking about us.”

            “Us? I thought there wasn’t really an us; it was just a sex thing?”

            “Do you want it to be just a sex thing?”

            “No, you know how I feel but I’m not going to pressure you into caring about me. I know what you want.”

            “Actually I don’t know what I want and I do care about you. I probably care too much about you, notice me calling you when you are in on another continent.”

            “So what are you trying to say?” She asked trying not to get her hopes up because there was no way he was saying what she wanted.

            “I’m saying that I have developed some feelings for you that I know I shouldn’t have but I do. And honestly I have no idea what to do about this but I thought I should talk to you.”

            “Ivan Laiez I swear you better not be messing with me,” she said.

            “And I swear I’m not.”

            “What does this mean?”

            “Hell if I know, I don’t have girlfriends or relationships or any of that stuff.”

            “Are you saying you want me to be your girlfriend?” She asked with a smile on her face, was this real? Did she fall asleep and dream up this whole thing?

            “I guess, but we still can’t be seen together, hell we probably never can be seen together. Between your uncle and my sister somebody is going to kill me.”

            “We can figure something out,” she said trying to keep a calm neutral tone. Getting too excited about this was not something she could do while on the phone.

            “Yeah I guess so; I’ll see you when you get back.”

            “Yes you will,” she said. “So before you go, you um did really like the picture right?” Her confidence needed a boost.

            “Oh yeah, I liked both of them.”

            “Good, I’ll see you next week.”

            “Yes you will.” He said then she hung up the phone.

            Could it really be possible that Ivan was serious about this? That he really wanted her for more than sex? Not that they could really be together, there was no way anybody would be ok with it. And that meant she was still going to have to keep secrets. She hated keeping secrets, especially from Wildflower but she couldn’t do anything about it. If anybody found out it would ruin everything. Maybe the secret wasn’t so bad she at least had one thing in the world that was hers. Ivan was hers and she liked that. When she got back she was going to show him a night he would never forget.

            “Sugar,” Evan called when he opened the door. He came in and shut the door behind him, he didn’t look happy. “I know you’ve been having sex with Ivan.”

            “What?” She asked completely shocked, she hadn’t told anybody.

            “Don’t lie, I saw you together and he spends the night with you.”

            “Ok, yeah we’ve been together but I swear it was his idea.”

            “How long has this been going on?”

            “Um since the day after the engagement party, he came over and we talked.”

            “And that’s why he volunteered to bring me to the hotel to see Sammie, right?”

            “Yeah, but back then we weren’t having sex just messing around. The first time we had sex was the night of the karaoke party,” she admitted. Evan was pacing and he looked angry, but she actually felt better that somebody else knew.

            “He’s an idiot,” Evan said shaking his head. “And you are too; you can’t be with him Sugar. Does it not occur to either of you that he could go to jail?”

            “Yes and that’s why I’ve never told anyone and we’ve been really careful.”

            “I knew this would happen, when I saw you looking at him at first I didn’t think he was that dumb. And I thought it’s just you that you wanted him and wouldn’t leave him alone. No its worse and I blame him for it.”

            “Evan, please don’t tell anybody,” she pleaded. “He says he has feelings for me and nobody has ever felt anything for me.”

            “Sugar,” he said sitting beside her. “I know you want to believe that and I bet he told you that but he doesn’t love you.”

            “I didn’t say he loved me, but I mean I never thought he would then he called me. We just talked on the phone and he said he wants to be with me for real.”

            “He’s lying to you, it’s what he does it’s the type of person he is. Ivan is using you and he does type of thing all the time,” Evan told her.

            “No, why would he lie to me?” She asked but she knew Evan wouldn’t lie to her.

            “There are reasons I don’t talk to my brothers about things, they aren’t all as nice as they claim to be. I’m trying to help you,” he said.

She’d thought today was a great day because Ivan told her he cared about her, now she was starting to think about boarding school again. Evan would never lie to her and she couldn’t honestly say if she could believe Ivan. He was a man that wanted to mess around with a pretty girl that he had fun with. She had no idea what to think anymore and she really felt like drinking. And she was starting to wish she had died, it would be so much easier.

 

 

Ivan went to see his brother at his new apartment that he suspected Ricky shared with his boyfriend. But Ricky was very private about his love life. Probably because he didn’t think their family really accepted him. That was mostly true of their mother but as far as Ivan knew nobody else cared. He knocked on the door and Ricky answered staring at him. This was probably a horrible idea.

“What have you done?” Ricky asked when he let him in.

“Can’t I just want to visit my big brother?” He asked and Ricky rolled his eyes.

“You only come around when you want something. Whatever it is better not be cash because you’re out of luck coming here,” his brother told him.

“I have a problem,” he admitted. He threw himself down in a chair and Ricky sat on the couch.

“Would the problem be female?”

“Yeah.”

“And would this female be 17 and suicidal?” His brother asked and he stared at him in shock.

“How did you know?”

“I have eyes; I’ve seen the way you look at her. Jay suspected you had a girlfriend or something since you often don’t come home. But who would think you were stupid enough to be sharing a bed with a little girl with a lot of issues.”

“Does anybody else know?”

“Evan, he told me that he saw you with her more than once. So I was just waiting for you to come to me about your little problem,” Ricky said. He was obviously angry with him and he understood that, but he didn’t expect Evan to tell on him.

Growing up basically Ricky was a father to all of them; he devoted his life to taking care of their family. Until of course earlier that summer when he decided he was done trying to take care of everything. Ivan understood that and he honestly didn’t understand how his brother had been doing it for so long. Everybody was sick of their mother and her ‘issues’, all she had to do was continue to take her medication and everything would be fine. Because of her Ricky never graduated from high school because he had to work. They all worked but it was never enough and their mother always seemed to create more bills.

“I think I have feeling for her,” Ivan said.

“Are you having sex with her?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t going to but we did twice.”

“Of course you did,” Ricky shook his head. “Stay away from this girl, not only is she young but she just slit her wrists. Did it occur to you that you could make her problems worse? What if she tries again because of you and she dies?”

“I know, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he said pathetically.

“Then you need to end it, as soon as she comes back tell her it’s over and stay away from her. You can not try to rationalize this, just leave her alone.”

“I can’t, I’ve tried and she’s in love with me.”

“She is 17 and unstable she is not in love with you. I’m warning you Ivan stay away from this child. You are only going to hurt her and I’d hate to see her kill herself because of you,” Ricky said. He had that look in his eyes like when Ivan was younger and he told him he couldn’t do something.

“It’s not that easy,” he said and still got that look.

“Make it easy, don’t touch that girl again. Is she really worth going to jail and being labeled as a pedophile?”

“Maybe,” he said and that got him a different look.

“You are not in love with this girl, its just lust.”

“That’s what I thought, but now I don’t know. I miss her and I’ve never cared that much about any female.”

“Do the right thing for once in your life Ivan, leave her be no matter how you feel about her. Break it off before it’s too late,” Ricky said firmly. “Not only is she going to be our sister’s niece but she also lives with her and I’m willing to bet that Nicolas would shoot you. And I wouldn’t blame him for it. In fact you would deserve it for having sex with a girl that just turned 17.”

“Thanks for the help, brother,” he said slightly annoyed. But he knew that was the truth and Ricky was right.

“Since I know you are an idiot, I’m betting you won’t listen to me. I would tell Wildflower so she can keep you out of her house, but I don’t want to upset her. So you better end it before she finds out, Evan knows and he will probably tell her,” Ricky warned. “I’m surprised he hasn’t already but he came to me because he wanted to spare her having to deal with it.”

“Fine, I’ll tell her we are over,” he agreed. This was for the best and there was no way he could really feel anything for her, it just had to be lust. Oh how he regretted calling her.

“When you do this do not have sex with her or touch her.”

“Alright,” he said. He had to keep reminding himself he needed to do this for both his and Sugar’s own good. “So Rick how’s your love life?”

“Non-existent,” Ricky replied. “Why do you care?”

“Because you are so secretive, now I see where Evan gets it from.”

“I never had time to date if you must know.”

“But now you’re free, no more Marguerite to drive you crazy.”

“Yeah for now, she keeps calling me. You can take care of your mother I’m done. Or maybe she could grow up and take care of herself,” Ricky said bitterly.

“Wildflower says she’s doing better,” Ivan said.

“It’s not my problem anymore.”

“Is mom the reason you never bring any of your boyfriends around?”

“What boyfriends?” He asked looking at him both amused and annoyed.

“None of us have ever had a problem with you being gay.”

“That’s nice to know, was there a point?”

“Why don’t you I don’t know have guys around?”

“For a lot of reasons one of them being that I didn’t exactly choose to be this way so sometimes I resent being the way I am. My life would be a lot simpler if I was straight. Anyway another reason is I’ve been pretty busy since dad died so dating was always impossible and I’m not good at relationships. The last relationship I had was with Angel and that was a long time ago,” he said looking slightly amused.

“Well you know statistically in a family with 13 kids the odds that someone would be gay were pretty good. And well nobody in this family does relationships unless you could Iris and Jeff.”

“Yeah I don’t count them,” he shook his head.

“Isaiah would have never stayed with Christina if he didn’t get her pregnant,” Ivan pointed out. That was a true fact that even she knew.

“He loves her though, and Jay has been with Brooke for awhile. Maybe only most of us can’t do relationships.”

“Like Wildflower who marries the first guy she’s ever had a relationship with. I still don’ trust that guy and I really don’t think she should marry him,” Ivan said. He was surprised when Ricky laughed.

“That is you being jealous, I’d expect Evan to whine about it more than you. But then again Evan’s too busy with his own girl problems.”

“He told you about his situation?”

“Evan tells me a lot of things and I think it’s weird that you have both had sex with the same girl,” he said shaking his head.

“Yeah I know, but I’m done with Sugar. Why don’t you and I go out and I can watch you pick up guys,” Ivan suggested.

“That’s not going to happen, you are embarrassing,” Ricky told him.

“I want to see you in action,” he insisted. Focusing on other things, like trying to get his brother to go out and have a life was better than thinking of Sugar. Or of that picture on his phone of her and how he wanted to see her with less on. This time he really had to put an end to it.

 

 

Wildflower was lying on the bed waiting for Nicolas who was in his office again on the phone. They had been basically having sex non-stop all week all over the house and in the pool. A few times they actually went out to dinner and the one night they went out to the club and they went shopping together. Scarlet had called to suggest they work on their wedding registry, so they got to play with price guns. They also went to the movies and went horseback riding together and had picnics. It was nice to have that time together. And they even went out to dinner with Richard and Tara and Brian and Nadia.

She had wanted to go to Paris but staying home was much better. Though she did miss the kids, the house was just too quiet. The only interruptions they had were from his work and it was pretty obvious that he was going to be heading to New York again soon. Since school would be starting soon she couldn’t really go anywhere, she needed to be here with the boys starting at a new school and Sugar needed extra attention.

When her cell phone rang it startled her. She’d started dozing off because he was taking way too long. The number that was calling her she didn’t recognize but she answered it anyway. It wasn’t like she was in the middle of doing anything.

“Hello?” She asked into the phone.

“Hey Wildflower, this is Owen.”

“How did you get my number?” She asked in shock, why would he call her?

“I ran into Cody and she gave it to me. Um I was hoping we could get together some time and do dinner or something, you know to catch up.”

“Oh um,” she did not know what to say.

“I know you are taken I’m just asking as a friend.”

“Uh I guess that would be ok but this week is really bad for me.”

“That’s ok; we can set up another time when you aren’t busy.”

“Owen, why do you want to go out?” She asked because this was a bad idea and she had a feeling he had ulterior motives.

“I’d like to say it’s a part of my elaborate plot to win you back but I just want to talk to you. Cody had some interesting things to say,” he told her.

“Oh I bet she did,” she sighed. “I’ll call you when I’m available but it might not be for awhile. The kids will be back soon and we have to send most of them home and I have to prepare the ones that are staying for school. So things are going to be a little hectic for the next few weeks.”

“Ok, that just means I’ll have to text you and bother you.”

“Did you miss me or something Mr. Williams?”

“Little bit, we use to be friends and I would like to be friends again. I don’t exactly have many friends around here anymore.”

“Maybe I can have you over and you can meet Nick,” she suggested. That was the only solution she saw to his request to be friends again. Not that they were much of friends, she had just liked to have sex with him.

“Great, I’d love to meet the man that stole your heart.”

“What did Cody say exactly?”

“She is concerned for you so I am concerned too. Is everything alright?”

“Everything is fine; you don’t have to worry about me. Cody is just suspicious of everything and everyone and it’s the money. She just can’t stand that he has a lot of money, I don’t know she’s just drama.”

“Ok, I’ll reserve my judgment for when I meet him myself.”

“Alright, well I’m probably going to go to sleep so I’ll talk to you later,” she said. At that moment Nicolas came into the room and looked at her questioningly.

“Bye,” Owen said.

“Bye,” she replied and hung up.

There was no reason she shouldn’t think that Owen’s intentions were anything different than what he said. Of course Cody had been off running her mouth trying to poison his mind. It was sweet that he was worried about her but there wasn’t anything to worry about. At least not until she told Nicolas that he called her and wanted to see her, but it wasn’t like he was trying to win her back. Even if he maybe told her he still had feelings for her, that didn’t mean he wasn’t just trying to be her friend. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea but how was she supposed to tell Owen that she couldn’t be friends with him because Nicolas had a temper and was definitely the jealous type. In her past life most of her friends had been guys, so having a friend didn’t mean something was going to happen. Or did it? Right now she wasn’t sure of what to do about Owen.

“Who were you talking to?” Nicolas predictably asked, it wasn’t a suspicious thing he just always asked.

“Owen,” she said and he stared at her.

“You gave him your number?” He asked in a calm tone, of course he would keep a calm tone while trying to get a handle on the situation.

“Actually I thought it would be inappropriate to do that, Cody however saw it a little differently. He said he saw her and she gave him my number,” she explained.

“What did he want?”

“To um go out to dinner or something as friends,” she said and that got a different look. “We were friends once so he just wants to be friends again and he wants to meet you. And I know Cody said all kinds of crazy things to him.”

“You want to be friends with this guy that has feeling for you?”

“I don’t know, I guess,” she shrugged. He was silent a moment, obviously trying to think the situation through. “If you don’t want me to hang out with him I won’t.”

“Just be careful,” he said surprising her. “I trust you and if you want to be friends with this guy then I can’t stand in your way. I just want you to be careful because he might have another agenda.”

“Sometimes you really surprise me,” she said. He came over to the bed and kissed her and pulled her close to him.

“You are mine and he can’t have you, I’m never letting you go,” he told her.

“Good, cause I don’t want you to,” she replied.

Maybe if things in her life had been different she would have ended up with Owen, but she didn’t care to think back. This was her life now, Nicolas was her life and she loved him but she never loved Owen. In two more days everybody would be back and it would be Evan’s 16^th birthday the day after and Sammie was going to soccer camp the next week. She had things to do she had a life and a family and that was what was important. And she was getting married very soon. There was no reason to give Owen much thought. Her mother was still in the hospital so she was going to have to once again get her brothers ready to start school. And Dominic was going to be leaving for college. For once she was happy to not be working she just had too many things to do.

 

Reviews

[Katie]

Amazing! Love love love it!

[silver threaded queen]

loved it!!!!

[deeps]

Wow! This is one amazing chapter, Gripping and full of detail!
I like the imagery and drama alot. This is very well written.