AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I thought about it, then shook my head. We’d never eaten dinners together to start with. Maybe Chase had, but I’d eaten in my room to avoid another one of my dad’s random angry outbursts. “I’m not sure. I just feel like meals are meant to be eaten together.”
She just stared intensely at me. I couldn’t tell what was in her eyes, but I felt as though she was feeling something for me at that moment. Something akin to pity.
And I didn’t like it.
“Anyway,” I said, breaking the few beats of silence. “Bring your plate over. Let’s eat.”
19
EMILY
Something very strange was going on here.
I realized it about two weeks into marrying Chris.
The marriage was nothing like I thought it would be. I imagined it would be like those mob movies I watched. He would keep me under lock and key every single day with thinly veiled threats of what would happen should I try to escape. Or, at the very least, he would place guards around me to make sure I didn’t talk to anyone and leak all his secrets.
But as far as hostage situations went, this one was pretty…lax?
Apart from the forced conjugal meals, sleeping together, and occasionally attending shareholder meetings, I was pretty much left to my own devices to do whatever I wanted to do.
And he gave me random gifts, too, while he was at it.
One day, he called me to go outside, and I found him standing next to a car—a nice sleek red Corvette.
“It’s yours,” he announced, to my everlasting shock.
“What?” I blinked at him.
“I bought it for you,” he said, holding out the key.
It took a few seconds for his words to sink in and for me to realize what he was saying.
“No.” I shook my head firmly. “I can’t take that.”
“Why not?”
I couldn’t believe he genuinely asked me that question, as though there weren’t a plethora of reasons why I should not be taking a car from him.
“Um, for starters, it’s too flashy and not my style at all.”
Although, it was hard to deny the sexiness of the sleek red vehicle. I’d never in my life had something this nice before, never even dreamed of it. It just seemed too farfetched.
“So, change the color,” Chris said, pulling my hand toward him and dropping the key on my palm. “Or change the entire vehicle if you want to. But you need a way to get around.”
I blinked at him again. “Are you serious?”
“Sure,” he said nonchalantly. “I got it from the garage on the sixth, but you can pretty much take it to any dealership to have it changed and just have them send me the bill. If you do go to sixth, though, tell Pierre I sent you.”
He said the words carelessly. Like it was something he was used to saying a lot. Did he do things like this on the regular?
“Just how many women have you bought cars for?” I asked and was surprised by the hot bothersome feeling that arched through me. I knew it was jealousy.
He smiled like he knew exactly how I was feeling and why I was asking the question. “None. You’re the only one to carry that honor.”
And then he dropped a kiss on my forehead before leaving me there, stunned, as he left entirely to go to work. I knew he would be back by dinner time, though, sometime around seven, like clockwork.
It was all so strange.
