Her eyes widened In alarm immediately their eyes met, and she quickly turned to look away from him. He caught her! He freaking caught her staring shamelessly at him. But was she to be blamed? He was a breathtakingly gorgeous young man, and she was a helpless young lady with untamed hormones in her. Should she feel guilty? Should she feel guilty about finding her husband attractive?
"In the living room, you'll find a carton of pepperoni pizza." He stated, rinsing out his cup. He then placed it on the sink and proceeded to dry out his hands with a clean towel.
Mona played with the hem of her short dress with a frown on her face, wondering what the pepperoni meant. As for Pizza, she had heard about it and read about it in books, but pepperoni?
"Did you not hear me?"
He cocked a brow at her in askance, and she decided to go check it out for herself instead of pondering over it. She was hungry as hell anyway. Walking out of the kitchen, she made her way to the living room with fast strides.
There on a side stool sat a carton of pizza. She smiled inwardly at the fact that she was soon going to get food in her stomach, before reaching for it, only to find it empty. She opened it to be sure, and it was really empty.
A sense of disappointment rushed through her, and her shoulders visibly deflated. She turned with a questioning frown on her face to stare at Jackson who was standing on the doorway leading to the kitchen, only to find him staring at her with a satisfied smirk on his face.
"What is this? It's empty." She waved the carton around for added emphasis.
"I told you that you'll find a carton of pepperoni pizza. I did not specify if there is pizza in it or not." He shrugged.
Ella stared at him at a loss for words. She couldn't contain the look of bewilderment on her face.
What the actual heck?
"Then why?" She asked, loosening her hold on the carton, and it found it's way to the ground.
"Why what?"
"Why tell me about it then when there's nothing in it?" She waved her arms around for more emphasis.
"Because I felt like it." He shrugged nonchalantly.
Ella folded her arms underneath her bosom and moved towards him.
Childish man, she thought.
"Why are you so childish? Do you hate me that much to tease me like this?"
The angry emotions she had been trying to keep in suddenly made themselves known as she glared straight into his eyes. She wasn't one to be bullied or made fun of like that. He behaved so childishly. His childishness was so much that it made her want to pop a vein out in anger.
"This is just me being nice, Bella." The tone with which her name rolled off his tongue, promised her much more embarrassing situations like this to come. Whether it made him seem childish or not, he didn't seem to care.
"What do you want from me? It's not like you don't know that I was coaxed into this marriage as much as you were. It wasn't my choice!" She sounded desperate for him to believe her. He had to stop blaming her.
"It sounded more like you were eager to be married to me. Did you even refuse the idea of us getting married once?" He watched her face closely, waiting for a reply, while she stared at him guiltily. It was true, she never refused the marriage, not even once, and that was because she didn't see the need to. It was already signed and stamped by the king and her father, wasn't it? Who was she to say no?
Seeing as she wasn't making any move to defend herself, he wrapped his arm around her and pressed his hand down on the small of her back, before pushing her close to himself. Ella on the other hand stood rigidly with her fisted hands pressing against his chest, to avoid her front from pressing up against his. She was not liking how things were turning out one bit.
"That just shows how much of a gold digger you are. You pretend to be a nice little girl when in fact you're a deadly parasite." He lowly stated next to her ear in a venomous tone.
Ella's eyes widened at the animosity in his voice. She felt overwhelmed by everything. Firstly, he was too close for her liking, and secondly, his insult hit deep. She could feel herself tear up, but she struggled to keep her tears at bay.
"I'm not a gold digger, and I'm not a parasite, talk more of a deadly one." She defended, staring sideways into his eyes. He applied pressure on her back, with his hand that was resting on the small of it, while she struggled to keep as much distance as she could between them, but it slowly closed until her arms were the only things between them, that stopped their front from pressing up against each other. She was definitely no match for his strength.
When the look in his eyes got too intense, she averted her gaze to stare the other way.
"I'll make sure you regret not fighting this union. You should have settled for a village man, not me. We're no match. I'll make your life hell, and then when you've had your fill of my harsh treatments, you would leave me without me even needing to say a word." His hot breath fanned her ear and neck, making goosebumps form on her skin.
"I won't leave because I can't." She murmured out in a breathy whisper. They were joined, nothing could separate them.
Jackson chuckled darkly and humorlessly with barely contained annoyance.
"And why is that?" Ella could sense his brewing anger from within, but she cared less. The truth was bitter, wasn't it? He had to wake up from that dream that he could get rid of her, and face reality because she was going nowhere. She was not going to bring shame to herself and family.
"I'm bound to you and you to me. Forever." He was quick to let go of her like she burned him, or more like her words burned him, and then he stepped away from her. Unsurprisingly, his expression was blank but deadly.
She took a step away from him, not daring to take her eyes away from his. She didn't know how she got into a staring contest with him, all she knew was that she was losing.
"Dream bigger, because the bigger you dream, the harsher reality gets when it comes knocking on your door. I'd love to see you miserable." His eyes narrowed at her as he said this. Ella averted her gaze from his, and rubbed her sweaty palms down her small strapless dress. Was July usually this warm in Paris?
Her action drew his gaze to her body, and she felt his gaze bore a hole every and anywhere it touched, before he brushed past her, purposefully hitting his arm against her shoulder.
She winced as she felt a sharp pain jolt down her arm.
Must he be so childish?
*
It was morning already. If not anything, the sun rays projecting into the room through the small space in the window that the blinds didn't cover, was enough proof that it indeed was morning already. Ella felt too weak to sit up. She had found it hard to sleep at night because she had spent half of it crying and being homesick. Her stay in the City of Paris would be a long one, she knew for sure. It was only her first day in it, yet she already feeling homesick.
"Get up." Ella thought that she was still sleeping, and was having a dream, because there was no way Jackson could be in her room. She even remembered locking the door.
"I said get up." Ella snuggled closer to her pillow, pulling her knees up closer to her chest. The blind covering the window was suddenly yanked open, letting the morning sun into the room without any restrictions. Her eyes squinted open immediately, and she jumped up to a sitting position in shock upon seeing Jackson advancing towards her bed.
How did he get in? Or did she not lock the door? She could bet that she did.
"What are you doing in my room? How did you unlock the door?"
She shot the questions at him, pulling the bedsheet up to wrap around her chest. What if she slept naked?
"Go brush your teeth so that you can eat before the food gets cold, except you want to eat without brushing, the choice is yours to make." He said, plainly ignoring her questions, and she couldn't stop herself from frowning at his words.
"Food? Which fo-" Before she could complete the sentence, her eyes fell on the plate of mouth-watering pizza on the fancy stool standing close to her dressing table.
There were about four slices of pizza, and her mouth watered at the tempting sight.
"It's getting cold." Jackson reminded her as he headed for the door.
The skin between her eyebrows creased in a frown, and she eyed his retreating form warily.
"Why are you suddenly offering me food, and in my room for that matter?" He didn't come off to her as the type of person that'd do anything without a reason, or without wanting something in return.
"Do you not want the food?" He turned and asked her with an arrogant brow up in askance.
"Of course, i-"
"Then eat it without questions." He grumbled out, before turning away and walking out of her room.
She stared at the closed door for a long time, not knowing what to make of his attitude, before getting up from the bed and going over to the stool where the plate of pizza was. She inhaled, eager to taste because she had never eaten it before.
Where did he get the food from? What if he poisoned the food? He wouldn't, would he?
After eating the food with her eyes, she turned on her heels and headed for the bathroom.
When she got into the bathroom, her reflection which stared right back at her through the mirror in it greeted her, and she grimaced at her unruly appearance. Although her hair was weaved neatly in an all back thereby taming its wildness, she still managed to look like a character in a haunted movie.
Tears lined her face from all directions, due to the different positions she had taken while crying. Her cheeks were puffy and her eyes swollen. She felt a feeling of shame wash through her. Jackson had seen her in that state, while he managed to look like a beauty god even when he obviously had woken up not too long ago, how could he even manage to pull that off?
*
As she dried her hands off on the hand towels hanging from a rack on the wall, she hummed to herself, one of her mother's favourite songs. She had enjoyed every bit of the meal and she was full, but she couldn't stop wondering why Jackson did what he did.
She wandered back into the living room where Jackson stood with his back to her and a phone to his ear as he barked replies at the person on the other side of the line. She felt a bit bad for the person. What did the person do to receive such harsh and bone-chilling responses? Obviously, Jackson didn't have a nice bone in him. So once again, she wondered how much strain it must have put on his cold bones to bring her food in bed. Technically not in bed though.
She decided to give him some privacy by leaving the sitting room, it was the best time to take a tour of the house. She made her way into the long corridor and decided to venture deeper into It, not looking into any room she came across except one. And also, she made sure to avoid going close to the one with a black door. After reaching the end of the corridor which led into a basement, she peeped into it and turned back around. The house looked small if you viewed it from the outside, who would have thought that it had five big bedrooms, a medium-sized kitchen, a medium-sized dining, a basement which happened to be divided in two places; a gym, and a storage room, and a normal-sized living room.
The whole doors In the house were white, except for the door to her room and Jackson's room which was brown and black respectively. She peeped into a room with a white door and discovered that it was just a room. Having nothing else to do, she decided to see what the other two rooms with white doors held.
She walked back to stand in front of one of the white doors that she hadn't opened before, and just when she rested her hand on the doorknob and was about to turn it, a hand was placed atop her's, stopping her. She jolted out of shock, and she quickly turned her head to see who had snuck up on her like that.