by Jade White
She looked at this all wrong. She was angry at him, but what she should have been with him was terrified. This man had a magical power and she was sitting in the middle of his kitchen, drinking and scolding him for something he could destroy her for. There was nothing stopping him if she said no. His hand on the table was enough to snap her brain back into place and she felt a cold shiver run down her spine as she stared at him.
All she wanted to do was run and bolt. She had enough money in her savings account to run and she should. If she ran, there would be plenty of time for her to hide and wait for this baby to be born. It would be like running out the clock. But she knew that no matter how much money she had, it would never be as much as Gus had. He would find her eventually. There was no hiding from that.
“I was hiding this from you because I knew this was how you would respond,” he said to her. “I have never told anyone in my entire life that I’m able to transform into a bear and you weren’t going to be an exception until I knew you were willing to stay with me for the rest of my life.
“Right now, I see that it was probably a good move on my part not to tell you, because you’re treating me like some kind of monster, when all I’m doing is trying to protect myself.”
“You should have told me,” she said to him with a snarl in her voice, still defiant to the end. If he was going to kill her or harm her, she was going to get all of this off her chest before the end. She wasn’t going to let this go unsaid. “We are going to have a child together and I deserved to know what my child might be like. I have a right to know that my child might have magical powers and it might be dangerous to me.”
“You were going to know,” he said to her sternly. “Even if you had said no to me, I would have left instructions for you. There is more to this than you could possibly understand and I’m very sorry for what I’ve done, but we are engaged right now and there are people expecting us to be together forever. I am expecting us to be together forever. I’m sorry I’ve kept this from you, but it is the only thing in the world I have ever kept from you. I am an open book to you.”
“It’s a pretty big thing to keep hidden from me,” she said to him darkly.
She knew he probably wasn’t the only person out there who could transform into an animal. After all, if there was one of them, there had to be others. There were probably legions of people he knew about. She began to realize that waiting out the clock wouldn’t be enough. She would have people vengefully looking for her for the rest of her life and they would probably try to take her child away.
The thought of losing her child made her furious. There was no way she was going to let these monsters ruin her life and she would fight to the bitter end to protect her child. No way was she giving in to them.
But at the same time, the easier thing to do would just be to play along. If she married him and he stayed human, maybe he would be willing to let her go if she was miserable enough. If she ran away with a ton of his money after a few years, taking their child down to the Caribbean or something, maybe he would just let her go. She was hoping he would.
Because right now, she saw no other choice.
Chapter Five:
The Rose Room was the most beautiful venue that she had ever seen and when she realized this was only the announcement party, she couldn’t help but wonder how many other beautiful places she was going to see before this wedding was done and through.
She had been given the keys to the kingdom and she was setting up everything to be amazing and nothing would be spared for the whole event. Everything was as fantastic as she could make it and there was nothing more beautiful and perfect in the world than this venue.
From the rose gardens outside with the terrace and the gazebo, to the large catering ballroom full of mingling guests and friends, she thought she had died and gone to heaven.
This was where she wanted to spend the rest of her days, avoiding the man she was going to marry and just living in peace and privacy. There were so many people here, from family to staff to friends, she felt overwhelmed by it all.
“Hello, darling!” her mother declared as she arrived, fresh off the airplane and looking to stay in the city for the majority of the engagement.
It was going to drive Tiffany insane if she didn’t find a way to get rid of her mother and father so they would stop bugging her. She didn’t have a great relationship with them in the first place and after they heard she was engaged and pregnant, they had been condescending and cruel until they found out she was engaged to Gus Anderson.
“Hi, Mom, Dad,” she greeted them.
She hugged them and received their kisses on her cheeks. She had family flying in from all over the country and they were all here to see the show. It made her feel repulsed by all of it, but what could she do right now? Everything was out of her hands and she was just along for the ride.
“We have food, drinks, and more people to talk to than you could imagine. There’s even dancing in the ballroom.”
“Quite a place you have here,” her father examined the place approvingly.
“I’m glad you like it,” she said with a weak grin.
Her father picked up on it and quickly hurried her mother along so they could greet her sisters and brothers who had come for the whole affair as well. She remembered why she didn’t like any of her family. They were always so negative, pointing out things that were wrong with everything. It drove her insane and even the Rose Room was not immune to their snide remarks.
She didn’t like the thought of having her family here and letting them run amok with all the people that Gus had invited. She had offered to have them corralled in a different location, but she was afraid that corralling might be insulting to him and his kind. She didn’t know how animal jokes could be played anymore and it frightened her to no end that she was going to say something insulting to him or be offended by. She didn’t want to be that person.
Aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents all flooded the Rose Room in a parade, each of them happily taking the ride in first class to come out to New York City to be here for the wedding events.
Everything was covered by Gus and his family and they would be attending the announcement party, the engagement party, and the actual wedding event. Everything was paid for and they were taking it for granted. She didn’t blame them. None of them had seen opulence and glamor like this before and they were all more than eager to see what Tiffany was getting herself into. If they only knew the half of it.
Of course, she greeted the coworkers and friends she had invited from the city who were mostly here for the free food and the open bar. She knew they were just as susceptible to the offer of a bunch of free, top of the line offers Gus let her throw together for this party. There was nothing wrong with that and she wasn’t holding it against any of them. As far as she was concerned, she was letting them enjoy every last cent of Gus’s life she could get her hands on.
It was her version of revenge against him.
She had been avoiding Gus the entire evening and they had only been together for a few pictures. She was certain she was going to have to spend more time with him later tonight, but she would cross that bridge when she got to it. Right now, avoiding him was the only thing she wanted to do and she was sticking to her guns with a powerful conviction.
She didn’t care what people were going to say. Whenever she caught sight of him, she headed off in the opposite direction and worked her way around the party. She knew it was only a matter of time before he caught on and then he would probably give up, the smarter move to make right now. She didn’t want to be with him and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.
Outside of updating him on what she was planning, Tiffany had avoided Gus successfully until now. The last time she saw him was at the apartment when he transformed into a bear like he was some sort of abomination out of a nightmare. She didn’t know if she was ever going to recover from that or ever get over it. When she looked over her shoulder and saw him, she
headed away from the entrance to go mingle with friends.
She spotted her friends near the bar and she gladly joined them, still regretting the fact that she had drank wine and whiskey the night Gus had transformed, but she’d talked to her doctor about it. She looked at her angrily and chewed her out and made her swear never to do it again. When Tiffany was in tears and swore never to drink again, the doctor told her there was nothing wrong with the drinking and the baby would never even notice it. She felt like she’d gotten off with a slap on the wrist, but nevertheless, she held firm to her convictions.
“Hey, gang,” she said with a warm smile, greeting them as they turned and looked at her with grins on their faces. They were all extremely buzzed and she saw that Mark had already made friends with someone at the party. “How’s it all going?”
“This place is amazing,” Caitlin said in bewildered glee. She had been at Tiffany’s side through all of this and it had been Caitlin who had suggested the venue. Caitlin was the one person Tiffany felt like she could trust with the planning and she had been leaning heavily on her support since then. “You were so smart to pick this venue. We have to meet as soon as possible to start going over the engagement party. I have a few other venues to show you for the wedding.”
“Sounds good to me,” Tiffany laughed. “Are you having fun, Joey?”
Joey looked at her with a smile on his face, holding up his free drink; she knew he was being a trooper through all of this. It was hard to date someone when all thought about and talked about was the fact that they wanted to get engaged. As far as Tiffany was concerned, she was going to make sure Caitlin had the time of her life and saw how exhausting a huge wedding was. If anything, Tiffany was doing Joey a favor.
She started to feel light headed and didn’t know what was wrong with her. She looked at Mark and offered him a smile before she started to excuse herself and headed straight for the bathroom. She didn’t know what was wrong with her, but she felt nauseous all of a sudden.
She wasn’t sure if she was going to throw up, but the thought of it was enough to make her feel even worse as she headed toward the bathroom. Something was wrong, that much she knew, so she smiled and excused herself, not letting anyone catch her in the corner or pin her down. She needed to get out of there before something bad happened to her.
In the bathroom, she felt like she was hot and the walls were beginning to close in around her. She felt like there was nothing in the air but a thick mist making it hard to breathe. She wanted to scream and shout, but all she could do was look around herself and wonder what was happening to her. There was something seriously wrong and she felt like her chest was about to burst. Panicking, she backed into a stall and waited for the moment to pass.
She didn’t know what was happening to her, but she thought it was a panic attack. She thought she was beginning to feel the stress and anxiety coming with all of this. It wasn’t the wedding bothering her, but something else.
It was the fear that she was going to be marrying a monster and there would be no escape. She was going to have to find out what was happening in her life and address it head on, or she was going to have a panic attack every time she was in a situation where Gus’s people were around.
While she was in the bathroom, she tried to focus on her breathing, telling herself everything was fine and that she was going to be okay. There was nothing wrong with her and she was going to be able to get through this just fine. She just needed to calm down and relax. She needed to think happy thoughts and she would be just fine.
She listened to the other person in the bathroom flush and walk up to the sink, fixing their makeup after they washed their hands. She wanted to snap at the person and tell them to get lost, but she kept her calm.
All she could think about right now was the fact that she wanted to tear her dress off and stand naked with her back against the cold wall and just get rid of this suffocating heat. She needed to feel free and stop this strangling feeling.
She didn’t know what to do and was looking for something to relieve the stress and anxiety of what was happening to her. Her heart was pounding against her chest and she listened as the woman at the sink walked away, leaving her alone in the bathroom. Tiffany finally felt like she was alone in the world and she was at peace.
This was the calm she was looking for; the bliss she had been hungry for. She just needed a few minutes to get everything under control as she listened to the music vibrating through the walls and echoing in the distance.
Stepping out of the stall and looking at herself in the mirror, she studied her reflection, wondering what she was going to do with herself. She was completely horrified by what was happening around her and she didn’t know what to do.
She didn’t know how she was going to handle any of this and she was completely lost. She knew she was surrounded by people that didn’t care about her and saw her as a means to break a curse that had afflicted their golden boy; she was all they needed to make sure it didn’t happen.
Everyone who was here in support of Gus was here because they saw her as the poor girl he had knocked up and nothing more than that. She didn’t know what to do with that. She didn’t know what to do with any of it. She just wanted to close her eyes and pray it would all be over soon. Taking a deep breath, she looked at herself in the mirror one last time. She was surrounded. She was going to have to be on her guard.
She couldn’t trust any of the people who were here and there was nothing she wanted to do more than just run out of this bathroom, shouting that there were people here who could transform into animals like demons. No one would believe her, though, and she would be the one who ended up in a mental institution, locked away, while the man she feared and loathed raised her child. That wasn’t a fate she was going to allow to befall her or her child.
There were probably people here who could transform into animals and she had no illusions about the fact that she was surrounded and there was no escaping from them. She was going to have to fight to keep her sanity and do her best to make sure they couldn't do anything to her. That was when she realized it might not be the best idea to hang out alone in places like bathrooms.
She washed her hands and headed out the bathroom door, holding it open for some women she didn’t know as they smiled at her sweetly and entered the bathroom. She didn’t trust them and looked at them suspiciously before she headed out into the Rose Room, smiling at the guests who now stopped her and wanted to chat with her. The panic attack had faded and she felt much better now.
She knew she was going to be okay and she talked herself down out of the panic that had engulfed her a second ago.
She needed to blend in and make these people feel like she actually cared about them and not let on that she was on to their little schemes at all. She felt like she was going insane, but the truth was, there was nothing sane about this world anymore. She was pregnant, engaged to a man that could turn into a monster, and completely confused as to what she was going to do with her life.
“Hey, you,” Gus said, coming up next to her, having finally caught her.
She was disgusted by how nice he had been to her since she had left his apartment. It was like any golden opportunity he was given to interact with her, he made the most of it. She wasn’t letting him off of the hook that easily.
“Hi,” she played along for the sake of the eyes that were on them.
She knew he was taking advantage of that, not wanting to let anyone see them sweat. She looked at him and tried her hardest not to get angry. She didn’t want to be that kind of person. She wanted to make this simple and easy for him.
“Would you be interested in meeting my parents?” he asked her.
She had been dreading this moment. When she found out they were going to be here, she realized they were going to try their hardest to spend time with her and Gus. They were ravenous to meet her, but she was far from happy with the thought of meeting them. In fact, she was terrified of the whole affair.
&
nbsp; “Sure thing,” she said to him with an encouraging smile.
His mother turned to be the kind of glamorous beauty you would expect to give birth to a millionaire and his father was completely unremarkable in any way. He was just like any other businessman she had seen in her life; there was nothing exceptional about him at all. All she could think was that his money must be something truly impressive to snag a wife as beautiful as the one he had captured and spent his life with.
He grinned at her with an expression that made her uncomfortable. She wondered how many affairs he had enjoyed over the years. She could practically smell the infidelity wafting off him as his beautiful, bombshell of a wife smiled in a way that looked like she had been trained to do so.
“It’s such a delight to finally meet you,” Gus’s mother said with a pleasant smile on her face, her eyes sparkling with light.
She wondered which one of them was the person who could transform into a bear, assuming it was genetic and not some kind of weird gypsy curse that Gus had fallen into by accident.
