Rose and Victor stayed in that position for almost a minute. It was when his gaze shifted to her lips that she finally snapped back to her senses and moved out of his touch. But she remained next to him on the couch.
She tried not to look at him and fixed her gaze forward. He followed her lead and looked forward as well.“How did everything change?” She already had a feeling about what he was going to say.“I met you and fell completely in love with the amazing person you are. People say that a man will know if he wants to spend the rest of his life with a woman in no time.It took me by surprise but right from the moment I saw you, I knew that I never wanted to let you go. The feelings got a lot more intense as our relationship progressed. All I could think about was you and how much I enjoyed being with you.But I kept on thinking about how marriages end up for the men in my family. I’m not superstitious about most things but this wasRose opened her mouth and blinked like a fish.“What did you just say?”Victor held her gaze and spoke adamantly. “I said that I want you to marry me. I can repeat it as many times as you want. You are the only one I want and that is never going to change. I love you Rose.” “Things have changed Victor. You can’t just come back into my life and hit play like it’s been paused since you were gone.” Rose said as she shook her head in disbelief.She could understand that he had gone through a lot, but this was asking for too much. How was she so sure that he was really over his traumatic experiences or had learnt how to cope with them better?Was seven months really enough time to deal with several years’ worth of trauma?Victor watched Rose as her wheels churned. “I can see you thinking about it, but it doesn’t have to be this complicated.”“Well, I’m sorry Victor but it is complicated.”“I know it feels
“No Victor, you don’t get to take that tone with me or look at me that way.” Tears slowly rolled down Rose’s cheeks. “I waited for you. I tried to find you. I mourned you! I almost ran mad because I had no idea if you were alive and I prayed every day for you to come back to me.Do you even have a clue of what that was like for me? I stayed faithful for months even when I wasn’t getting any leads. Are you so shocked that I eventually moved on? Were you expecting me to wait forever? Like I was your widow who swore a vow of faithfulness to you?”Victor began crying as well. “Damn! I messed up so bad! When did this start? This thing going on between you and him?”“The answer isn’t quite straight forward.” Rose smiled in spite of her tears. “It started off as a sham because he lied to his Mom.”“What?” He looked confused and she could not blame him.“Forget about that, it’s a totally different story. It was a couple of wee
Wayne was sitting in the living room and a million thoughts were going through his head.He was sitting there instead of being in his bedroom because he wanted to see Rose as she soon as she came back.Well, if she came back. She did have to return eventually because some of her stuff was still in his house. But he was not sure if it was going to be this night or another time.“Maybe she has decided to spend the night with Victor.” Wayne muttered bitterly and took a sip from a glass of scotch. He had been nursing the bottle ever since he got home an hour ago. He had delayed coming home because he had been hoping to meet Rose here; but she was still nowhere to be seen. Wayne glanced at his wristwatch for the hundredth time; it was 6:47pm. Rose had disappeared with Victor at noon.Why was she taking so long?Maybe they were having makeup sex. Wayne wondered if he had made her feel as good as he did.
Rose stared at Wayne in stunned silence.Wayne glanced at his watch. “Tick tock Rose, I haven’t got all day.”Rose shot him a bewildered look. “I haven’t even said anything but you are practically in attack mode.”She had never seen him act this way and it was more than a little surprising.“I’m not attacking you Rose. I only want to make things easier for you, so perhaps I should get the ball rolling since it’s taking you so long to start. It felt good to see Victor today right? All those bottled up feelings suddenly bubbling to the top.You love him so much that you are going to believe any ball of crap he tosses your way. He doesn’t even have to put in much effort into spinning his web of lies and you are already caught in it. He has given you exactly what you want to hear; a justifiable reason for abandoning you without a word.So now, it’s easy for you to jump back into his arms and pick up where you left off.”
Rose watched Wayne leave and she felt powerless to stop him.A huge part of her didn’t want to stop him because she knew that if he stayed, he would probably say something mean to her again. She fell to the floor and wept.This really hurt; it hurt worse than how she had felt after Victor had disappeared. It hurt worse than all those private investigators hitting dead ends. She was stupid to have thought that anything good could come out of her being more than just friends with Wayne.Rose allowed herself that moment of weakness to slightly grief. But she needed to get herself together and leave with her things before Wayne showed up again; she could continue her grieving in the comfort of her home.She did not want Wayne to return and find her bawling her eyes out. He would probably find another terrible thing to say.Rose slowly got up and made her way to the purple guestroom. She checked the closet and drawers for h
While Wayne and Rose were tearing their hearts out and Jessica and Winfred were drinking champagne over it, Nathan Reynolds was enjoying dinner in his hotel room.He breathed a sigh of relief that he had been a good boyfriend and not fully ended things with Rose before disappearing. It had given him the opportunity to return and weasel his way back into her life with a spectacular sob story.Nathan was proud of himself because of his outstanding performance and thought that he deserved several pats on the back.He had even been able to pretend not to know who Wayne was. Who didn’t know Wayne Blackstone? He was proud of Rose to have entangled herself with a huge fish like that; she had always been a smart girl.He had been really scared that the billionaire would have completely taken Rose away from him. But he had been able to resurrect her old feelings for him and it looked like he had a fighting chance against Wayne.
“Sir?”Wayne snapped out of his reverie and realized that Tom was holding the doors and waiting for him to step off the elevator. He stepped off the elevator without a word and made his way to his office.“Sir? Umm, excuse me Sir.” Ben spoke up meekly.Wayne sighed with exasperation but didn’t stop walking. “What is it Ben?” This better be good because he wasn’t really in a talking mood after seeing Rose walk away like that.“Umm… Sir… Are...” Ben hesitated to say what was on his mind.“Spit it out for God’s sake.” Wayne stopped and looked at Ben.What was getting his personal assistant all flustered?“Umm, aren’t we going in the wrong direction?” Ben finally let it out.Wayne was about to give a sarcastic reply but looked around first.This wasn’t the way to his office.Wayne had thought that he was going to his office, but he had been walking towards Rose’s office.
Nathan had spent the night counting down the hours until what could be considered a reasonable amount of time to give a woman space to forgive you; after you had abandoned her for seven months had passed.He was able to wait until the next morning and had finally decided to call Rose. He picked up his phone and dialed her number.As he listened to ring, it felt like his heart was vibrating in sync to the tone. It didn’t bode well for him if she didn’t pick his call; unless she would call back with the excuse of being busy or something.If Rose answered his call then it meant that she hadn’t written him off yet and was still ready to give him a listening ear. So he would have the opportunity to fill her head with more lies.Nathan had taken a course on Psychology in college and thought of himself as an expert when it came to human nature. He attributed his expertise to how he was able to easily manipulate Rose.Maybe it was because he knew