She was always quick to save me from trouble, even if it was with Mom.
“Excuse me for a minute,” I said, and made my way from the table and to the balcony to collect my thoughts. It won’t help me to say something rude now.
Allison found me a few minutes later.
I ran my hands through my hair. “I cannot do this! I cannot pretend to be something I am not. I do not want to be with Aurora and never want to see her again.”
“Then tell everyone!” Allison said.
I nodded once, and then again. What was I so scared of? I allowed Allison to lead me back to the table, where I took my seat. I ran the outcome of my words through my head several times more.
“Christian, you need to answer the question my father asked,” Aurora said to me, and I couldn’t tell if she was smiling or smirking. Either way, I wanted to wipe the look off her face.
I wondered if I was the only one who was in our relationship. How could she not see that we were not fit for each other? But then again, Aurora only ever cared about how she felt, and nothing else.
Allison looked at me and offered me a smile. It was up to me now to make my stance; Aurora thought she could pull this dinner on me and force me to admit something I wasn’t feeling.
“What was the question again?”
“He asked if you are still in love with me,” Aurora said.
I thought of Fiona, not just from this evening, but what it has been like to reconnect with her. I thought of the peace and the feeling of not being trapped anymore.
“Not anymore,” I said, and nodded in agreement. I saw Allison smirk, but she brought a glass of wine to her mouth to hide it.
“What?” Aurora’s voice was a screech, and she got to her feet, the chair falling backward. Fiona wouldn’t behave like that.
“What are you talking about, young man?” Aurora’s father asked; there was no humor in his voice. Beside him, her mother’s mouth was slightly agape.
Now that I have started, I had no idea why I didn’t say it all the while ago. It was easier for the words to start flowing now.
“Sir, I’m sure that your daughter is a good woman,” I said, and Allison scoffed, but everyone was so focused on me that they didn’t catch it, “but I’d be doing us both an injustice if I were to pretend to feel something I don’t. I don’t love Aurora, and I was certain she knew that. In fact, I have made it clear to her on more than one occasion. I wish I could say I saw a future with her, but I can’t. We’d both be miserable if we were to pretend to feel something that we don’t.”
“You can’t be serious,” Aurora said. Her eyes were blazing, and I could tell she was holding herself back from slapping me across the face.
“Aurora, I’ve been honest with you. I don’t know what you hoped to gain from all of this, but I won’t help you sell a lie. You’re a great woman, and I’m certain the right man is out there waiting for you to walk by so he can fall in love with you. That man is, unfortunately, not me.”
“You love me,” Aurora countered. “Where is this nonsense coming from?”
It wouldn’t do me good to come this far and fall just by losing my temper. “I did, in a past life, in a very distant past, but I don’t feel that way anymore.”
“Enough!” my mother’s voice cut through, stopping whatever Aurora hoped to say next in her defense. “You’ll learn to love her then. You’re old enough to get married, and nothing is stopping you from loving her later on, as far as I’m concerned.”
It’s now or never, I told myself.
I sighed dramatically, “That’s the thing, Mom. There is something stopping me from loving her now or later.”
And because I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, the words came easily to me. “I love someone else.”
Chapter Thirteen
Fiona
“Fiona?”
It wasn’t a voice I heard every day, but one that I’d played in my head over and over again; it was no surprise I could tell who it was from just one word. I didn’t know what to say in response, but Aurora wouldn’t give up any time soon.
“I can hear you breathing,” she said, and I quickly realized that I’d given myself away. I cleared my throat to make up for my lack of response.
“Who is this?”
I expected her to say something rude to really drive home the point that she could see through my bullshit, but she spoke with a soft voice when she replied that I had to pull the phone away from my ear as if I could see her face through the phone.
The same unknown number stared back at me, and I returned the phone back to my ear. Asking how she got my number wouldn’t get the conversation going because she was rich, and rich people had their ways.
“It’s Aurora.”
I waited for her to say something more, to get to the point of the phone call, but she didn’t say anything after the fact.
“Okay,” I replied, breaking first. “What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you, Fiona,” her voice had taken on an air of desperation that I could tell she was trying to hide back. But it was Aurora; she had no business calling me.
“We’re already talking.”
“No, I meant face to face. Can we meet up somewhere?”
“You want to meet up? With me?”
