TERRIBLE SECRET

“If it's not important, I don't expect you to text me. Tell Mia to pick a dress for you if you're so indecisive. If you're still uncertain after asking Mia, you can buy all three dresses. I don't care.”

I kept rereading the texts to see if I read it wrong, but each time I realised that I read it correctly.

‘This arrogant man’, I thought, fuming. I blamed myself for asking for his input. He was always self-centred, and I should have known better than to text him. I made a mistake to be excited for a moment. But now, I suddenly missed Ryan.

“What's wrong, beauty?”, the boutique owner asked with concern when she saw my smile had dropped. 

I tried to feign a smile. I could not let some words that Alexander said to me get me visibly annoyed.

“It's nothing”, I said.

“You don't like the dress?”, the boutique owner asked, walking over to me. She was so sweet.

“No, no”, I said. “The dresses are beautiful. I am just having a tough time picking the best.”

“How about we just say our favourite”, Mia said. “We will be brutally honest with our picks. Whichever gets the highest vote will be considered as the best and that's what our dear Miss would pick. How is that?”

“I think I like that idea”, I said, still thinking about what Alexander had said. 

I wondered why it bothered so much, but a part of me had sent those messages hoping that some great pictures would make him speak to me like a human being. I was wrong. He remained a mean jerk. I was supposed to be happy that he did not find my pictures appealing, but for some unknown reason, I was not happy.

“What if we all pick different dresses?”, the boutique owner countered.

I highly doubt we would pick three different dresses”, Mia said. “If we do, then we will figure out what to do.”

“So do we say which one we prefer at the same time, so we would not be influenced by what some other person says?”, I asked. 

If we wanted to be brutally honest, we did not need to hear what others had to say, which would give us lots of room to change our mind about our initial choice.

“You're right, I like your idea”, the boutique owner said, excitedly.

Personally, I could not wait to get out of there. I wanted to go home and hug my pillows or be with Ryan. Ryan made me feel safe and whole. If I had asked him what he would prefer on me, he would have made sure to compliment me, make me feel like a princess or even a queen. 

I was confident with or without any man in my life, but the thought of being forced to marry a man who did not care about my existence and only had money to offer sent chills down my spine. This was especially unsettling since I already had a boyfriend who provided for me emotionally, financially, and physically.

“Okay, on the count of three, we would all say our favourite dresses”, Mia announced, and we all listened carefully.

“One, two, three..”

“The emerald dress!!”

“The ball gown!”

It seemed that the Emerald goddess and the fairytale ball gown had made it to the top two dresses.

I and the boutique owner had picked the simple but expensive looking ball gown, while Mia had picked the wedding dress designed with emeralds.

“Oh, I honestly thought the emerald dress was the best. But the ball gown seemed to have won”, Mia said with a smirk. It was the first time I had seen her close to anything happy. I had not seen her a lot, but she did not seem like a happy person.

“Do you know how costly the lace of this gown is, Mi amor?”, the boutique owner questioned Mia with a smile, as she packed in the beautiful dress.

They went on and on arguing over the dress, and I just stood there. I did not engage in the conversation because I was not even happy that I was going to get married. I was upset at the thought of marriage.

To be honest, I did not pick the third dress because of its expensive lace and glitters, I picked it simply because it was the simplest of them all. The glitters were not as much as the first dress, and it was not as exposing as the second dress. 

If I was getting married to Ryan, I would have probably picked the first or second dress. Ryan would have loved to see my cleavage and I would have loved that he saw it as well. 

But this was not the case. I had no desire to show Alexander parts of my body. Well, except for the time his adulthood was pressed against mine and his hot breath was poured onto my skin. The thought of Alexander that close to me, his body pressed against mine, speaking into my ear with his deep, manly voice made me shiver.

“What about shoes? Accessories?Beautiful queen”, the Boutique owner asked me as she led me and Mia to another area of the boutique which had jewelry of all kinds with different brands of shoes.

It was easy to pick a shoe for the dress that I had picked. I picked a white-colored high-heeled sandals, which were about 3-4 inches high. The ankle strap was adorned with sparkling crystals.

When I tried them on, I looked like the newest version of Cinderella. The shoe fitted so perfectly.

“Oh my goodness, you look drop dead gorgeous, beautiful queen”, the boutique owner praised while Mia smiled.

The jewelleries were all beautiful, but it was still pretty easy to pick the best one for the dress. I picked a delicate sparkling white necklace with a small teardrop-shaped crystal pendant. 

When I tried them on, the necklace rested just above my collarbone, accentuating its beauty and drawing attention to my face. To complement the necklace, I wore a pair of matching white tear-dropped earrings with sparkling crystals. The earrings added a touch of glamour to the overall look.

A short after I had paid for everything with Alexander's black card, I and Mia left the boutique. I took the wedding dress home while Mia went back to Alexander's mansion.

Two days later, Ryan called me and I picked up. I had been avoiding his texts since I had gotten the wedding dress. I felt awful for not letting him know that I was going to get wedded to the beast called Alexander. I had not called him and perhaps, he had not had time to call me. He had texted that he was assigned for two surgeries in a row and could not call me. He had done well to drop several texts for me, but I had not responded to any of them.

“What's wrong babe? I have tried reaching out to you, but you haven't replied to any of my texts”, Ryan said. 

I could sense the annoyance in his voice even though he tried hard to suppress it. I must have gotten him worried. Well, he had all the reasons to be worried.

“I'm sorry, I just couldn't text you, please don't be offended”, I said trying not to cry. The weight of all the secrets and lies was getting overwhelming. I had to tell him what was really going on.

“Babe, I can feel you're not yourself”, Ryan said, the concern in his voice surpassing the annoyance. He cared for me.

“We were supposed to go on a shopping date today. On a normal day, you would've been so excited to meet up with me so we can go out, but you don't seem excited at all. I need you to tell me what's wrong. Please don't lie to me. You know you can tell me anything.”

“Okay”, I said, fighting against my tears. “Can we still meet up today? I will tell you everything.”

“Of course. We will still meet today. You can come over to my house so that I could take you shopping and we can discuss everything”, Ryan said.

“Uhm, no shopping. I will just come over to your house. We will just talk about the problem”, I said.

I felt horrible. I did not want to spend Ryan's money, when I had used another man's black card willingly. I hid a very terrible secret from Ryan and it was not good of me to hurriedly want to spend his money.

Besides, he had said in his texts that he had finished his two operations in less than twenty four hours ago. It was not going to be fair of me to still get him stressed.

“Are you sure?”he asked, bothered by my statement. “Babe, I have the money and even in bad times, I promised to spend my money on you. Remember that my money is ours babe.”

I started to cry. I had ignored him for two days, but he was still being kind to me. It was tough for me to handle all of this. Maybe, if he was as rude as Alexander, it would be easier for me to give up on him. But, he was so sweet. There was nowhere I was going to leave him for Alexander. Alexander just had to live with the fact that Ryan was going to be the one I loved forever.

I met Ryan in an hour, but before I could tell him what was wrong, he stated that I looked unhealthy.

“I haven't eaten in a while. But it's fine”, I said.

“No, it isn't Olivia, you have to eat”, he scolded.

I still tried telling him that I was going to get married to a horrendous person and not to him, but he refused to listen to me. He purposely played his music so loudly using his headset, so it was not possible to hear me as I spoke. He was angry that I was not taking care of myself and went to make me some food.

The aroma of the rice and roasted chicken made my stomach rumble. 

I missed his food. I decided to eat as much as I could. Perhaps, this was the last time he was going to offer to make something for me to eat.

“My parents married me off to a Mafia boss”, I stated, when Ryan decided to listen to me.