When We Were Young

Chapter 34

Paula nodded her head, inwardly disagreeing with him. To her, Rodriguez will remain a heartless and obsessive manipulator.

"Take a shower, you stink," he said and Paula laughed throwing a pillow in his face.

"It's nice to hear you love again. This sulking doesn't suit you at all. Come downstairs for breakfast when you are done," he said and strode out of her room.

She got up from her bed suddenly revived. She had lost Rafael to keep her baby and she wasn't going to let her efforts go to waste. For her baby, she had to be strong.

She showered and wore a fresh yellow summer dress with spaghetti strips. Everyone looked up when she entered the dining room. Andres and Sofia smiled at her but her father simply lowered the newspaper he was reading and glanced at her with unreadable eyes before going back to his paper.

Throughout breakfast, her mother kept rumbling about her wedding plans, the decoration, the catering, the people invited etc.

"It's going to be the best wedding of the year. I want everything to be of fine detail. Everyone will talk about this wedding for a year in Madrid," Sofia exclaimed in an excited voice, her expression dreamy as she visualised her plans.

Paula tightened her fingers on the fork in her hand until her knuckles turned white. She felt like pulling at her hair in frustration. Thinking about her pending and inevitable wedding with Rodriguez made her want to disappear from the face of the earth.

She couldn't stand his pervert eyes. The way his steel grey eyes moved over her body as if stripping her naked made her shiver in revulsion and feel like a tiny thousand insects were crawling over her body.

His eyes were always glinting with a cold, cruel and calculating cunningness. She felt like gagging every time he used the opportunity to kiss her during family meetings where he knew that she would never resist him in front of their parents without bringing to light their little lie.

She couldn't imagine sharing a house with him, worst of all a bed. She would rather die than let him have what had belonged to Rafael only.

Oh Rafael!

Her heart twisted painfully at his name. She had betrayed him in the worst possible way.

"This marriage alliance is good for our business too. Fernando and l have begun preparations to be partners," her father said with a satisfied grin.

"This is great news, Pedro!," her mother chimed in with an excited voice.

Paula felt her blood boiling at his words. Her parents didn't care about her well being. They were only concerned about advancing their family business.

"With Fernando Rodriguez's help, we are going to break into the Asian market," Pedro said in a pleased voice.

Paula couldn't take it anymore. Her chest expanded and tightened with anger. Before she knows it, her hand banged against the table and the conversation around her came to a halt.

Her family stared at her in shock.

"What's wrong with you, young lady?," her father's angry voice boomed in the silent room.

She closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath and blurted out the words that had been hovering at the tip of her tongue for days now.

"Father, l don't want to marry, Rodriguez," she quickly said before her new found courage deserted her.

Her father's face looked murderous at her words and a slight shiver ran down her back.

"You got knocked up by the boy! What did you expect? No daughter of mine will give birth to a bastard and disgrace me," he yelled at the top of his lungs and she felt her anger mounting high.