Chapter 76 – Before It All Goes Boom!
With each passing moment after that, Ivy was able to convince herself more that Chris was her husband.
But there was a problem still.
As much as her conviction felt real, there was a small part of her that grew at the same pace of her ‘truth’, a part that doubted the whole situation. A part that believed she was seeing things the way she was seeing them merely because she had been over thinking them.
So the more her conviction grew, the more her doubt.
It was a battle she found herself constantly at the middle of.
She could have just easily asked Chris about the whole situation, but what if that other part was right?
Asking Chris then, would go against the contract and she would suffer the repercussions.
As much as she wanted to confirm things and set it all straight, the contract had terms too threatening for her to just risk it all.
There were lives connected to this.
Lives of the people she loved.
She would just have to wait, and hope that an opportunity to clear the whole situation up would simply present itself to her soon.
For now she would worry about the Valentine’s day that was coming up in a week and what to get for him as a present. Earlier she had a call with her father who asked her for options on the things to get her Mother for Valentine. He must have asked her and she must have given him her classic answer of “anything”.
Her mother just loved acting that way, like as if she was above receiving gifts and it didn’t matter much to her because she was too engrossed in her job.
That was a lie.
Not the too engrossed in her job part but the part where she would act like as if the gifts didn’t matter. They had always mattered and they would continue to matter.
The person who really didn’t care about the gifts and considered small acts of love to be the totality of it here, was actually her Father.
They had both hit her up regarding what she thought was best for the other, just as they had done every year before this. Her Mother had sent her a detailed text message of all the options she had thought would work out and wanted her to pick one, while her Father had called her and communicated his jumbled thought.
She had helped them out, as usual, ensuring that they wouldn’t get each other the same gifts they had gotten last year, while convincing them to take a couple of days off and enjoy. It was harder to convince her mum to do that. Something that was also the usual.
Ah, some things never changed.
Ivy felt herself sway lightly as the car took a turn.
She glanced away from the phone to the road and back at it, looking at the name on the screen of her phone.
“My Christopher”.
Once everything was confirmed, he wouldn’t want to get rid of her anymore. The contract would be gotten rid of instead, as the obstacle that it was and she would have to change his contact to “My husband”.
Or maybe she should just go with “husband”.
After her elaborate wedding of course, she would have to take pictures for memory.
She smiled to herself.
Or maybe just “my Christopher” is enough.
He had saved it on her phone like that so maybe she should leave it for memory.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,” the doubting part of her heart snapped at her. “You are just thinking yourself into stupidity.”
The smile on her face faded away and she thought of Elsa who was supposed to be out here on this shopping with her today, so that after she got something for Chris, they would be able to go out on their friend date that Elsa had promised her since forever.
Elsa was just so busy this days.
“… matters of the house,” she had given as an excuse.
Arrgh! This was so annoying. She missed her a lot.
She had heard from Elsa that she was spending a lot of time training with the Butler.
Koel.
“He is a great teacher” she had said a couple of times. “I’m learning quite some things from him.”
“Like what?”
“Like resistance.”
“Of blood?”
Elsa made dramatic noises over the phone, before she laughed. “And some other things,” she finally replied.
“Like orders?”
“You ask so many questions.”
“I just want to know.”
“The Sire doesn’t want you to… yet. It’s for your own good and when the time is right, he will tell you himself.”
Whenever she talked like that, it felt like they grew a distance apart and a wall of difference was thrown right in their middle.
“But you are my best friend,” she had replied, as she always did, to bring back the closeness, bridging that gap that felt like it was constantly building in-between them. “You should be able to tell me some things.
“I want to be your loyal servant like back in the days, Princess, but I have a Sire now and disobeying him might kill me.” She had said with a serious tone that scared Ivy, some how.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.
Remembering what had happened when she tried to tell her something on the rooftop had not helped at all.
The pain she had seemed to be going through and how Chris had snapped at her.
It was a terrifying memory.
The thought of Elsa hurting.
The clapping of someone in the distance, in the background snapped her right out of her thoughts.
“Time for lesson. Get your tea before you start and say Hello to the Sire’s woman for me.”
“Hi Koel,” Ivy said with a wavering smile.
He was the one stealing her best friend’s time these days, killing him would be nice.
But that was impossible so she would just comfort herself with the thought of yanking his head off in her mind.
“Have to go now, bye Princess.”
With that, there had been a bleep and the line had gone dead.
Ivy had sighed and tucker away her phone.
Well, there wasn’t anything much she could do, this was her life now.
But once her search was over and she could come up with concrete evidence, things would just have to change.
She just couldn’t wait.
In every sense of the word.