Chapter 8
Gabriel
“You’re lost again, brother.” I hear the voice of Charles and my gaze travels to him as he keeps his head down on his magazine, leaning back on the couch of my office.
“What?”
“You are doing that thing where you stare at the wall and space out, which you have evidently done a lot lately. Care to enlighten me in who has been occupying your mind?” He throws the magazine to the back of his chair and leans forward with his arms over his knees, watching me with a smile.
Charles has always been the witty type and loves to play games, especially when it gets on people’s nerves.
“You really think I am going to tell you that?”
“No, but it was worth a shot.”
“Nice try, brother.”
He puts his hands up in defence, gets up from his seat and leaves the room, but not before he leaves comments on how I should stop letting a certain someone distract my mind. The last week has been pure chaos with the project and a lot of meetings to come up with new ideas. Yesterday might have been the only day where I was not occupied with the project and just sat down to talk with someone. I am not sure what came over me when I disconnected the phone before I called her to my office but the peace and quiet we had during our conversation was refreshing. I could not miss seeing the sparks in her eyes when she talked about her favourite movies. I made myself sit last night and watch the rom-com she talked about the most.
How to lose a guy in 10 days.
I find the movie quite interesting and it definitely seems like something that Elena would watch. The movie perfectly describes her vibe.
I am not sure what has come over me ever since she entered my life but her presence here and anywhere has been driving me mad. My blood boils every time she is in the same room as me and my body heats up to the maximum.
There is no doubt she is mine. She has been mine since that first night at the bar. She just doesn’t know it yet, which makes this ‘game’ of nicknames between us so much fun.
The office phone rings at my desk in the room of silence. I pick it up and the first thing I hear is my mother’s voice. “Gabriel, my dear.”
“Hello, mother.”
“Oh please, don’t be so dry with your mother. How have you been?”
I shake my head at her as she has always hated when I gave her my short and subtle answers and made me change my wording with her. “Normal.”
“Young man, the short answers are no answers.”
“It has been pretty decent, just a lot of work due to the fact that a whole new project was opened a few weeks ago which puts the office and every worker on edge.”
“Seems like a lot of work, which I will leave you to in a second but I wanted to ask you something.” She stays silent on the other line waiting for me to say something and when I don’t answer, she asks her question. “It’s about the charity auction in Venice in two weeks.”
Oh fuck no.
“I know you said that you don’t want to but I am warning you, if you don’t let me know in the next week who your date will be, I will invite Mio.'' I groan in frustration and throw my head back at the mention of her name. Mio Hiraoka is my ex, let's also say my mother’s favourite since they bonded the most. She has been trying to get us together again since we broke it off on good terms over two years ago. She tried it multiple times at events, family vacations and even here at my work, by bringing her in anytime she came to visit me. She never gives up.
“You can’t invite Mio,” I tell her bluntly and she asks me again why she can’t. I look around the office, trying to brew up an excuse. My eyes glue themselves to her desk and I say the first thing that comes to my mind. “My fiancé will be there.”
You know I could have just said girlfriend but I guess that will work too.
“Fiancé? Since when are you engaged?”
“Last month.”
“Hold on, you are telling me that my son has been engaged for a whole month and been going out with that girl for god knows how long and I didn’t know?”
“If you put it like that, then I do sound like the worst son to exist.”
“You are,” she answers in a heartbeat.
“Ouch,”
“I mean it, who is that girl?”
“How about you meet her at the charity auction, I’m sure she would love to tell you all about herself.” Yeah, never in a million years will I be able to convince her to accompany me.
“Now hold one, just tell me her name and what she does for work.”
“Another time, Goodbye mother.” I put down the phone to its holder and start by taking a deep breath and think what kind of mess I just got myself into.
First problem is she will never agree to be my fake fiancé because I most definitely need to keep Mio away. No offence to Mio, she is a great woman, just not my type.
Guess I am going down the hard road. I will make Elena Ferreira my fiancé and she will love being mine.