Chapter 65
CHARLOTTE
“A peace offering? I didn’t think we left dinner on a bad note; the food was quite lovely,” I replied, gesturing to the sofa behind him. “Please, sit.”
“Thank you.” He settled onto the couch, glancing at the bottle and glass I had placed on the table before his arrival. “Yeah, everything else was lovely, but it still felt like something was… of£ 50, 1 came here to offer these, but I see you’ve already found the stash…”
I chuckled, casing onto the couch opposite him. “It seemed like a great way to distract myself from thoughts I’m trying not to pay attention to,” I admitted, catching his wistful smile.
“I understand. That’s partly why I’m here,” he confessed, leaning forward.
“While we’re on the subject of distractions, would you like to go to the beach with me this evening?
His offer caught me off guard, and I hesitated. “I… I’m not sure,” I began, but he raised a hand,
halting me.
“No need to decide now. I understand if it seems rushed. But know this: whatever happens, I have your best interests at heart,” he assured me, and I nodded, uncertain.
“Don’t give me a response now.” Rising, he checked the wall clock and then turned to me. “By… four?
If you’re up for it, I’ll come pick you up.”
“Sounds great,” I said, and he nodded in response. I stood up and followed closely as he made his way towards the front door.
The entire exchange seemed awkward, but I wasn’t sure what I could say or do that would make it feel any different. He reached for the doorknob and pulled the door open, then stopped in his tracks
as Sonia stood in the doorway.
“Good morning, Signor,” she said in a surprised tone as her eyes darted from one person to the other
and then rested on me. She arched her eyebrow and tried to mask her expression as he responded to
her greeting and walked past her without saying anything else.
“What was that about?” Sonia asked, shutting the door behind us as we returned inside. Her eyes flicked to the bouquet on the table.
“What? The bottle or Thiago?” I asked with an air of indifference, picked up the bottle I had taken
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Chapter 4
earlier, reached for the wineglass, and sat down.
“Both,” she replied, slowly making her way to the sofa he had been sitting on as her eyes rested on the other items next to the bouquet. “I heard the bottle hit the grond and came here as opackly as could. I wasn’t expecting to see him here,”
I shrugged in response and filled my glass to the brim. “I felt frustrated about the torn of events for a moment and took it out on the bottle,” I answered, and she chuckled.
“Poor bottle. That was one of the finest wines the Mooze family has ever produced. They send it to their partners and people in their… circle, if you could call it that.” She replied and turned to look at
the boxes in the corner,
“Interesting,” I uttered drily and downed the contents of the glass in one gulp then started refilling the glass.
“Any specific reasons why you picked that bottle, or did you throw it out because of him? She inquired and turned her attention back to me.
“Who? Thiago? Nah, he had nothing to do with it. He wasn’t here when it happened, I just have a lot of memories that I’d prefer to forget attached to the bottle, so I got rid of it,” I answered and picked up the glass again.
She watched in silence as I drank it in the same manner as the last one and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth when I started filling up the bottle again, “You’re going to kill yourself drinking in quick successions and don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
“What’s it to you if I wind up dead?” I asked in a sarcastic tone, and she grinned in response.
“I’ll lose my job or worse…” She drawled, then suddenly went mute as her face contorted into a
frown.
“Worse? What could happen? Aren’t you supposed to be a receptionist?” I asked and arched my
eyebrows.
“I learned quickly that when you work for the Mooze family, you can be a lot of things. A few hours ago, I was a receptionist, now? I’m your bodyguard, for lack of a fitting description,” she responded, and I rolled my eyes.
“I don’t need a bodyguard, or a chaperone and I’ll decide if I’ve had enough,” I retorted and lifted the glass to my lips. “Why are you here?” I added and sipped from it this time. She smiled at the gesture and then glanced at the clock.
“An hour ago, we had a shopping spree on the schedule but after seeing the bottle tossed out of the
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Chapter 65
window and Signor Thiago exit the premises, I’m not sure if you’re up for that anymore.” She
answered.
“I didn’t agree to a shopping spree,” I said, setting the glass on the table. She nodded in response and opened her mouth to say something, but I kept talking, “I think I have everything I could need right there,” I added and pointed to the boxes. “Thiago was here to ask me to come to the beach with him, I didn’t have any plans of leaving this apartment today but I might be open to the idea of listening to the waves as they crash against the beach.”
“A date to the beach? That’s not part of his schedule for the week…” She said and ran her hands through her hair.
“It’s not a date… I don’t think it is, he called it a peace offering and surely, you don’t know the man’s entire itinerary, do you?” I replied.
“It’s my job to know everything he’s up to, this is new which means he’s ditching something else to ensure both of you have this date,” She answered, seemingly lost in thought.
“It’s not a date, stop calling it that,” I insisted, emptied the cup, and set it on the table.
She stood up and sighed as a smile played at the corner of her lips, “Whatever it is. You must be really important to him; he doesn’t switch up his schedule for just anyone.”
“Why me? Why is he moving things around for me?” I asked and she shrugged in response.
I guess you’ll have to stick around to find out,” she said, bidding me farewell as she exited the
apartment.
Chapter 66
Chapter 66
CHARLOTTE
My vision blurred as I struggled to open my eyes. The weight of the world seemed to rest on my shoulders, and my body ached terribly. I blinked in confusion and exhaled slowly before looking around. Gradually, my vision cleared, and I looked at the window. It was still shut, preventing me from seeing outside. I yearned to reach for the blinds and open them, but my body had a different plan. It wanted to stay right where it was. My joints ached at the slightest movement, and I decided to stay put for a while. In my seated position, I remembered Maria and chuckled, imagining her
reaction if she could see me now.
She’d alternate between worried and distraught, but at least I wouldn’t feel as lonely as I did, sitting
in this apartment under such bizarre circumstances. I tried to focus on other things, but I didn’t have
the luxury of having different experiences. Everything that had happened up until now had led to
this point, so it was all I had to think about. I sighed, realizing the rest of the day had rolled past like
a blur. One minute I was sitting on the couch, watching Sonia exit the apartment and contemplating
her last words; the next, I had woken up in bed, barely able to remember anything that had happened.
My head started throbbing, and my body trembled slightly when I tried moving my limbs. I reached for my phone on the bedside table and glanced at the time. “4:30. I barely have enough time to get ready,” I muttered, groaning as my gaze shifted to the bottles at the foot of my bed and the wineglass
with its contents spilled on the floor. “Neither do I have the energy to clean this place,” I added,
placing a palm on my forehead to check my temperature.
I was thankful that, despite how terrible I felt, I didn’t have a fever. That would’ve been quite the experience; I didn’t want to add being ill to the list of things I had to deal with. I heaved a sigh and tried to stand up, but the room started to spin so fast that I forced myself back on the bed and closed my eyes, which ached as much as my head. Tears rolled down my cheeks in quick succession. I wiped my face with the back of my palms and sat in silence for a few minutes, hoping that when I opened my eyes, the pain would have subsided, and I’d be able to walk to the bathroom. I tried to
steer my thoughts away from the subject clawing at my mind, but once again, those actions proved futile, and I let it consume me. Slowly, I started to think about the exchange a few hours ago.
After Sonia had left the apartment, I had been tempted to reach out to Thiago and inform him that I didn’t want to go to the beach or have anything to do with him or his family ever again. I had already begun a speech in my head; I’d thank him for his kindness and inform him that I could find my path, roll my suitcases out of the penthouse, and be out of his life for good. It seemed like the perfect plan until I reached for my phone and remembered that I couldn’t reach him because he hadn’t given me his phone number. The only other option was to reach out to Sonia and have her send the message to him. I didn’t want to do that, and his arrival here without giving her notice
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hapter b
made it seem like he preferred to keep certain conversations between us.
The least I could do was respect that, but waiting for him to reach out left me more frustrated than 1 was when I tossed the bottle out of the window, I kept thinking about the ordeal, but I quickly started to loathe the fact that I constantly had to connect dots or find the reason for things happening around me. I was caught between resisting the urge to walk to the bathroom, take a bath, and be on the next flight out of this place, which grew stronger each second I spent sipping wine instead of gulping it like I originally wanted to before Sonia’s intervention.
“What’s stopping me from leaving right away?” I asked myself repeatedly, but a little voice in my head echoed the answer back at me. Removing myself from the situation seemed like the perfect option. I could simply leave; it wasn’t such a hard decision to make. But Sonia was right–I needed to know why he was so invested in my well–being,
He was doing a great job of making it out to be something trivial, but I could tell there was so much I didn’t know. If I left, that would be a part of my life I’d never understand. I didn’t believe in coincidences, and lately, everything that had happened reinforced that line of thought. He might have been kind to me on the plane and helped at the hotel because he thought I was a Thuthai, but ideally, that should’ve been the extent of his generosity. A penthouse, the willingness to explain the situation to me–which continually fueled the lingering feeling that he was still withholding information–security personnel, and peace offerings? Those were more than anyone could do, no matter how kind they were.
I had decided to stay in and read a book but ended up trying my hand at the beginning of a drinking problem, emptying bottle after bottle until I passed out cold. Now I’m sitting in bed, suffering the consequences of mirroring Rogerio’s hobbies. “No wonder he was always in a foul mood,” I said to myself, slowly opening my eyes as I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. I decided to try moving again, but my phone vibrated, and I glanced at the screen. The caller was an unknown number, but somehow I already knew who it was.
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