Chapter 50
ROGERIO
You’d think my problems would go away as quickly as I wished. Well, that would disprove the relationships beggars have with horses, wouldn’t it? My job, the upcoming wedding, my life in general; everything made me feel uncomfortable. Waking up meant I was saddled with the responsibility of living like a lab experiment, someone’s fun science project. Only, I wasn’t having any fun. The lab rats never do anyway.
I disliked being here and perhaps taking the offer to be in charge of the family business was the worst decision I have ever made. On a personal scale at least, if I dared to look beyond my needs, I could understand why doing it was for the greater good. But how many of these greater good projects would I have to do before I can finally do something that I wanted?
“Ironic, isn’t it? One would expect the richest billionaire in the city to be having the time of his life,” I said to myself
and looked around the room.
When my thoughts started to follow this path, it filled me with amusement because I wondered if getting wasn’t a personal decision. It would be expected that the man who broke up his marriage with his trophy wife was ecstatic about his wedding to the woman he loved. Well, I wasn’t. I would never admit it to anyone else, but I was terrified because this entire thing started off as a personal plan.
Now, it felt different, and therein lies the issue. I loved Elena once; devoted would be the right word, but she left. A part of me still cared about her after that event. I spent weeks angry that the private investigators I had hired to find her were unable to give accurate details about her location. Then one day, she came back to Milan.
She looked as beautiful as ever, and her charisma charmed me once again. Enough to let her tales of woe slip past me, even if it seemed like a story cooked up on the flight here. I didn’t think about it much. I was happy to have her back, and she was ready to get married to me again.
Perhaps I should’ve thought about an offer to reschedule a wedding that had been canceled at the altar, but I didn’t. At the time, my parents seemed glad to be rid of Charlotte; they had never liked her. She wasn’t ill–mannered towards them, if anything, she constantly tried to get on their good side. They treated her the way they treated everyone whom they thought had nothing to offer.
When I informed them about my decision to marry Elena, I hadn’t attached any external ideas to their approval to divorce her despite the buzz they knew it would create in the media. If anything, they were ready to put a few people on their payroll to spread propaganda against Charlotte. The plan was to absolve us of any faults in the public eye and find something scandalous to pin on her, but that was too mean, even for us.
I stood against it and told them I would take all the blame because I didn’t care about public perception. The only opinions that matter are the ones that were acted upon, but they wouldn’t stand for it, which was understandable. The Thuthais had already been through one marriage scandal, and the media had a field day creating stories about it. It didn’t matter that neither family involved in the issue granted any interviews. They milked it till there was nothing left but silence.
I learned a couple of lessons the first time; one, people liked to have opinions. It didn’t matter if they had adequate information regarding the topic. If there was something to talk about, you can be certain they’d say something. It’s
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best to let them speculate. Two, people had a very short attention span.
If something more important piqued their interest, it would be over soon. People who sat in their houses and led lives that no one scrutinized them for didn’t matter to me in the long run. Yes, their resources funded our businesses, but that was the extent of their importance. While my mother and grandfather were still hung up on keeping the family legacy, I had learned over time that someone needed to be the villain.
They didn’t think it was a fair position, but when has anything ever been? I had been fighting different forms of unfairness my entire life… If it could take one snap of my fingers and someone would push a button, delete some parts of my life, and get a do–over, I’d take it in a heartbeat. But this wasn’t the time for regrets or thoughts about things I couldn’t control.
My life seemed like something had tipped the balance, but I needed to find a way to focus and stay in control. As the days rolled by, I slowly doubted my decision to take Elena back. I admit marrying Charlotte was a spontaneous decision, albeit necessary, but this, I felt like I was being handed the award for the world’s biggest moron. Why else would anyone take back their ex who abandoned them at the altar? What exactly was I playing at? Love? At what
cost?
“Does anything even make sense?” I muttered to myself as I walked down the hallway, making my way to the front door with slow steady steps. I fished in my pocket for my phone and looked at the screen, taking note of the time.
It had been three days since I had seen or spoken to Elena. She was having a party somewhere I can’t be bothered to remember, and I was here, making more money for her to spend. That’s how I thought about her now; for some reason, I felt like this entire thing had an angle. Her stories weren’t adding up, but neither was my grandfather’s.
When I spoke to him about my doubts, he assured me that they were merely pre–wedding jitters. I gave up on trying to make him see my reasons. I had done enough with my marital issues, I might as well do the wedding and get over it. I tried to keep my mind on the merits of marrying her to remind myself why this needed to be done. That posed a new problem, given that the only thing her family offered me was social currency.
Sure, they had enough wealth to go around; sure we didn’t need their money. If anything, they needed ours. If my family was still open to the idea of marriage after the disappearance, something else was at play here. I was certain my grandfather wasn’t receptive to the idea because of their financial records. He wanted something more, and knowing him, he was going to get it. Sometimes, I envied his drive.
I was ambitious, at least I’d like to think so, but he… He was something. As cold as he seemed to other people, to me, he was an enigma. I constantly tried to unravel his plans; it was the only way to stay steps ahead of him, but getting him to approve a wedding between Elena and me, the second time, felt like I was walking into a trap. One I had built with my hands.
I reached for the door and pulled it open. I took one last look and shut the door behind me. I nodded my response to the security guard stationed at my door and tried to ignore his presence as we got into the elevator. Once outside, he turned in the opposite direction while I waited for the driver. It was nearly dawn but still dark.
This was my favorite time of the day; the world was barely awake, and I could think quietly. A few seconds later, the car slowly came to a halt in front of me, and I entered it. As we drove through the streets, I watched as nature stirred, slowly coming alive, and the last conversation Elena and I had before she left Milan replayed in my mind.
We had arrived at the restaurant, exchanged pleasantries, and ordered food despite my refusal to eat anything. I decided to let her have her way and forced some pasta down my throat as she rambled on about wedding dresses
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and whatnot. The food wasn’t bad, it wasn’t as great as the one I had before getting there, but it served its purpose as
a wonderful distraction.
That was up until I mentioned her visit to the estate. Her expression seemed to falter for a moment, then she asked me how I knew. I insisted that she answer me, but she clammed up and proceeded to act offended that I was having her watched. She said everything but confirmed that she had been there in clear terms. When I thought she had run out of things to say, she reminded me that the estate belonged to her, being my wife.
“We’re not married yet,” I blurted, and she stopped talking, her eyes holding a blend of amusement and curiosity which quickly turned to rage.
There was a brief moment of silence which I suspected she was using to replay my words in her mind and catch onto the undertones. For the first time since she returned, I felt like I could finally see through her as she struggled to mask her anger. I couldn’t fight the feeling that Elena was up to something, and I had become a man with no choice but to watch.
Well, that would absolve me of blame because I did have a choice. I could buy her another estate, and give her acres of land on a different continent. Three if she’s greedy enough, but for some reason, when I questioned her about it, she seemed reluctant to discuss the issue, insisted she wanted the one in Milan, and assured me that I didn’t have to bother myself with the details because she had it under control.
