"Tomorrow, I'll ask your aunt to let you go on a date with me because I want to tease you during the day, too, and not just when it's dark."
No, no, no, please, no...I wanted to scream,please don't ruin this fairy tale, but the words get stuck in my throat.
"She won't let me," I whisper with sadness in my voice.
"I'll ask very politely." He keeps kissing my panties, and I feel like my second orgasm is moments away. "Trust me, I know how to be liked by parents."
Now. I have to tell him the truth. Now is the time. It all went too far. He has to know.
"I'm getting married next week," I exclaim, and he freezes in place. It seems like the whole world stops.
And here we are. This fairy tale ended before it even started.
CHAPTER FIVE
ANTOINE
I'm getting married next week...Her words ring in my head, and my mind refuses to believe them.
I pull away from her, straightening, looking at her face.
"Tell me this was a bad joke," I say, my voice cold, and so as my whole body: it instantly got cold.
"I'm sorry, I should've told you earlier. I didn't know it was going to matter..." She gets up and takes a seat, and I keep staring at her in shock.
"You didn't know it matters?" I raise my voice, and she gets scared a little, but I'm too angry to worry about it. "You thought it doesn't matter?"
I can't believe it. She, of all the women I've met here, at the Riviera, through all these years.
"It's an arranged marriage; I haven't even seen him yet; I..."
She says something else, but I’m not listening anymore.
The second my eyes landed on her, I knew she was the one. My heart started beating faster; my stomach shrank, and my eyes couldn't look away. And all that bullshit about butterflies in my belly—that crap I never believed in—happened to be confirmed when I saw her.
I didn't want to admit it at first. I thought it would maybe go away after we talked. But then we did, and I liked her even more. And after I kissed her, my whole world turned upside down.
And now she tells me that she'll never be mine. She was ready to give her virginity to me, but she will never bemine for real, at least not in the way I want her to.
"Antoine." Her voice shakes as she says my name, interrupting my thoughts.
"What do you want?" My voice is harsh as I speak, even though I try to talk quieter this time.
She looks at me with frustration in her gaze.
"What do you want from me?" I clarify, noticing that her eyes are wet.
"I...I don't know..." She lowers her eyes, unable to stand my cold gaze any longer. "I've never been on a date like this. I've never been on a date at all; to be honest, I wasn't allowed to. I always knew I'd get married one day, and it would be an arranged marriage. But I always wanted to have something, something...real."
Real.That's precisely what I feel. That every woman I've been with before wasn't real. That—this is—this thing between us—what isgenuine.
"I wanted to feel something, to have a fling..." she continues with a trembling voice.
"A fling?" I bark in response, and she startles. "So I'm just a fling for you?"
I can't believe it. This has to be a nightmare; I have to wake up. The last time I felt this hopeless was when...
When my mother died. Since that day, I've shut my heart from everyone else in the world in case someone wants to hurt me. I didn't care about business, my inheritance, my father's morals, my sisters' attempts to make me feel better, make me feel at leastsomething.