Chapter 7

The lights that fell on my face had my eyes burning and even though I wanted to close them, I couldn't, in the fear of having a weird photo posted up in the news and social media had me forcing my eyes to remain open even though they were stinging pretty bad. But upon all the smile that I had forcefully plastered on my face, I was burning on the inside. I was literally, shaken up to my core for taking such an action against my father, getting myself in a pretentious engagement.

My father and Mr. Aaron looked as if they had won a lottery. I understand that my father was actually after money and power and it was why he wanted me to get engaged to Keith but in contrary, I didn't really quite understand what does Keith's father Mr. Aaron wanted from me. We were not as powerful and as rich as they were, so why was he forcing Keith into this?

Is there something I didn't know and I should know?

Talking about Keith I found him weird and just weird. His personality was weird, he didn't laugh, he didn't smile, he didn't talk, he doesn't reply...he was just like a living zombie. Sure, he was going to take over his father's business and I had heard that he was a brilliant student but that doesn't really polish socialising skills. He was just plain weird for a woman like me.

What exactly had I thought when I was a teenager on how I was going to find myself a perfect husband who would love me, take care of me, give strength to me, we would earn money together and buy a house, go on vacations, have kids and what nots...and here I was. I looked to my left to find Keith looking straight towards the camera which made me wonder did his eyes not hurt? Oh wait! he had his glasses on. He adjusted his glasses and had a blank look on his face. I was sure, nobody could understand if he was happy for the engagement or if he was forced.

Just what in the world have I gotten myself into?

He is just not the guy whom I had wanted to marry. He is nothing like what I had actually dreamt of. Thankfully, he was wearing a grey suit not like the other days where he had his hoodies on and he had neatly styled his hair and I noticed how tall he was as he stood next to me. Even in my heels I couldn't match his height.

Just great!

Soon I will be called a shortie. I know it.

"Sir, can you please put your hand over her for a couple of shot, please?" one of the photographer asked and I stood straight in my spot as my from peripheral vision I saw Keith nodding before he put an arm on my waist. He wasn't actually holding me or anything, he just hung it lazily around my waist as if I were some untouchable thing. I sighed inwardly and smiled for the couple of picture before getting off the stage and walking towards the common room to have some rest.

Keith seemed to join me as he walked right beside me leaving his father and mine to talk to the news reporters.

"Why are you following me?" I asked once I realised he came right into the common room after me.

"Well, as far as I know there is no other common room and you don't own this place," he gave out a sarcastic comment before plopping down on the sofa as I sat on the other ignoring his comment.

A husband who would be my strength, my ass!

I scoffed at the thought thinking that I even had such a cliche dream.

"Excuse me? Did you just scoff at me?" I heard him and that made me furrow my eyebrows as I looked back at him.

"Why would I?" I asked and looked elsewhere uninterested to talk to him. Thankfully, he got that and he minded his own business by remaining silent while I went through my phone checking the news notifications. We were already trending and people had mixed reactions seeing our engagement news. Some were mean criticism while some were well wishers. But the part where there was a poll going on with options like a) Lovers.... b) Gold Digger... c)... and the fact that two percent of the people voted for 'B', still made me sad.

It gave me anxiety thinking that perhaps the number would increase day by day and people would actually think that I was indeed a gold digger married off to a rich family for money. Now, that we were engaged I was sure that the media would do there part and butt into our lives and dig deeper to our past trying to look for any hole that they could use for entertainment and honestly, I wasn't really bothered about it because leaving the part where I had a feud with Regina Jones...I had never been into any fights or anything that would break my image.

But I couldn't say the same think about Keith.

God only knew what he used to do. Even though he was famous, nobody exactly knew what he had been upto from all these years. And honestly, I was also interested to know about him and it was why I did all my research in the night surfing the web wanting to know about him but unfortunately, the only picture the web had of him was when he was twelve years old. He looked like an average child and the fact that he was actually smiling and waving to the camera made me surprised. After that it was written that he was sent off to boarding school and he continued to maintain a private life until his older sister Ms. Leila Devlin announced him to be taking over the company.

The guy was very mysterious and looking at his teenage picture I wondered what exactly happened to his smiling face and the reason for him to wear a hoodie even though it was so hot outside.

"What are you looking at?" he asked and that made me break out of my thoughts as I shook my head only to find that indeed I was lost in my thoughts and I was unmindfully staring his way.

"Nothing," I muttered ashamed that I was caught.

So what next?

"So what next?" he asked and that made whip my head towards his direction like a bolt thinking that he actually read my mind or something.

"What?" he looked confused.

"What do you mean?" I asked with the same level of confusion etched on my face and he shrugged.

"What next? The announcement is done. Our parents are happy. We are on news headline. So, what next?" he asked and even though I had no idea still I continued to keep quiet but then it stroke me.

"Wait! What do you mean by so, what next? Wasn't this your plan from the beginning? You should know what to do next!" I said as I tried to make a point.

"Why in the world are women so delusional?" he mumbled and held his head as if he were having a headache.

"What?" I snapped incredulously.

"D-Delusional? How does this even make sense?" I asked and he gave me pointed stare.

"Fine! I was the one who planned this. But aren't you supposed to take part and think of ideas as well? You know it will be good if you work in it too instead leaving everything on me. If you want to sit idle doing nothing then just tell me, I will plan everything on my own and I won't bother to disturb you too,"

His snobbish remark made me stand up from the sofa and I made my way towards him to teach him a lesson regarding how he should talk to me but damn to my heels I slipped on the floor and in a swift motion I landed on top of him or it was what I thought because I felt the pain on my face as I face planted on the hard leather sofa and instead of him. Astonished, I got up as quickly as I could to check what really happen and to my extreme horror, a ball of light emitted right before my eyes and out of nowhere he appeared and eyed me like a deer caught in headlight.

"What in world?" I muttered as the scene went on replaying in my head as I thought about it again and again.

I walked up to him.

He was on the sofa.

I slipped.

Fell on him.

Correction, fell on the hard sofa.

He vanished.

He appeared out of nowhere right before my eyes.

"This isn't possible!" I muttered baffled, words not forming in my mouth and all he did was to arrange his suit and avoid my gaze.

"What are you talking about?" he asked as if nothing happened.

"What ar-"

"Oh here you are. Let's go! The engagement rings are already here," Mr. Aaron said and smiled at the two of us and went back. Keith followed him out while I sat there like a statue thinking what the hell did I just witnessed.