The CEO's Proposal || ongoing

chapter twenty || 20

I fiddled my hands together and from from the corner of my eye, I could see Vittorio glancing at them once in a while.

"Stop being nervous, Rivera." He says calmly.

My hands immediately stop. "What? I'm not fucking nervous." I say coldly.

He rolls his eyes and his jaw clenched, staring back straight at the road.

Maybe that was too harsh. I don't even know anymore.

Our GPS shows we only have about twenty minutes so at least it's not too bad.

We ended up deciding to make sure to drop Matteo off at their mum's place, with Chiara there too.

I miss that little bundle of joy.

Speaking of joy, I miss Rhys too. I really need to get his mum to give me more days to babysit.

Vittorio found out about my mother's critical condition and immediately sorted out her treatment and admitted her to hospital, without my will.

I told him I had everything under control but he never listens. It makes me feel like whatever I earn for is worth absolutely nothing just because I don't earn as much as him. I feel pathetic and useless.

"Keep your hands to your fucking self, shrek." Em murmurs.

Matteo groans. "What? So I can't even grab my book, which was in your lap for some reason."

Emilia flips him off and gazed out the window with her headphones on, crossing her legs underneath.

This is going to be a long ride.

I turn back to Vittorio, noticing he hasn't changed his blank expression. Giving me absolutely nothing.

I cough awkwardly as soon as we hit the red traffic light.

He slowly turns to look at me, eyebrow raised expectantly.

"Why the fuck are you in such a mood right now?" I finally let out.

He sighs, "We're really doing this now, huh?"

I cross my arms and look back at the front seeing that the light's green again. "I mean unless you're happy to stay like this and never talk to me again, then yes."

"Alright." He says.

What?

I look at him again in confusion. "What does that mean?"

"It means, genius, that I'm happy to stay like this right now."

I scoff. "Well forgive me for trying to be the bigger person here."

Em starts hitting the back of my seat, "If you two lovebirds are done bickering, I would really like to get out of this car and grab something to eat. McDonald's is right there." She points to the right.

Initially, we decided that Matteo would be living with his mother and Em with ours but since mum isn't there, she's going to have to live with Vittorio's mum because she's still a minor and can't live on her own. Also Vittorio's apartment is only two bedroom despite being the multi-billionaire lunatic that he is.

We park up outside of McDonald's and Matteo and Emilia are first to race out the door.

I take my time sorting out my bag and making sure my phone is on me, texting Rayne to come to the McDonalds too because I know for a fact she'll be mad if I didn't invite her and it's conveniently near our home too.

My door opens and I jolt, almost dropping my phone in the process.

Vittorio stands there patiently waiting.

"Do you mind?" I exclaim.

He plasters a smile. "Not at all, princess. Would you like to get out or would you like to be fashionably late for that as well as your previous job?"

I was late by one minute! What a dick.

I roll my eyes, getting out and pushing past him to get inside. He follows after me.

I manage to find the table both Em and Matteo sit at, each sitting on opposite sides luckily so I don't have to sit next to that asshole.

Instead, staring directly into that smug face of his.

I go up and offer to order since we're all practically having the same things, so Emilia comes with me and we go to the counter to order our food, waiting at the serving station. I also tell them the order for what Rayne's usual is.

"So what's the deal with Vittorio? You look at him as if you're plotting to kill him any second." Emilia says suddenly, breaking our silence.

What is my deal?

Everything in my life was going unsteady; bills through the mail piling day by day, my mum sick but trying the best she could, saving enough money to prove to our landlord we were stable enough to not get evicted. All until he came into it and had to make it all smooth-sailing.

Alright, so he helped me along the way and my mother is finally resting on hospital awaiting treatment, but, I was about to make that happen for myself. I just don't understand how he thinks me helping him with this fiancé business is ever going to balance out what he's doing for me. Or how I am ever going to pay him back for all of it.

I turn away from Emilia and watch the two brothers engaged in a conversation.

I could just straight up tell her what the deal is.

Not in a fucking fast food restaurant.

Well I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow or something.

At this point, only Rayne and Camilo know about this little contract deal.

I ponder for a moment. "I don't exactly wish him to be dead. It's a long story Em, I'll tell you later properly." I pat her shoulder, and we collect our food just as it arrives.

We bring it to our table and I notice Rayne walks in.

With Camilo.

Who's not in his usual suit attire which was strange.

"Hola, mi amor." Rayne coos and kisses both my cheeks.

I laugh and accept her hug. "You sounded exactly like that one tía you met three years ago on our trip to Mexico."

Rayne smirks, "Babe she's my literal inspiration. I aspire to be like her one day."

I look over her shoulder and see Camilo texting away on his phone.

"Sanchez."

He looks up abruptly, his dirty blonde her falling on his forehead messily, "Shit, hey Nailea."

Vittorio told us he's trying to handle the whole situation with the Russian mafia as if they're any importance to us anyway. So Camilo didn't need to be our 24/7 bodyguard anymore.

We're close to sitting down until we here screams from behind us.

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A U T H O R   N O T E

Heyy!

It's been soo long, how's everyone?

We're literally almost at 1k reads this is mental.

I'm planning to keeping this story within 30 chapters so I don't want to make it too long as it's just a first trial kind of book and I need to make like huge edits to the rest of it since it's only my first draft kind of thing to see how successful it is.

Love you lots, stay notified for other updates!

Rue