The Replacement Girlfriend

Chapter 39

“Is a lawyer.” Chase finished her sentence with a slight nod. “No wonder I never saw you around. Your dad was Mr. Waite’s boss.”

She nodded before she continued. “As you know, I wasn’t born here, and neither was I raised – at least not my early childhood – but my father is half American. When he decided to move back to America, he brought me and my mother along, and of course, he secured a job by taking partnership at a law firm that was started up by an old friend of his. Every now and then, they would host a dinner party and the employees would all try to bring a date, or their girlfriends, wives or children. It was a very showy type of event – filled with tense smiles and fake laughter.”

“Back then of course, I did not look like this.” She turned and eyed Chase with such disdain that he was slightly taken back by the expression. “I was fat. And I was ugly.” A dry laugh came out of her as she breathed out a long sigh. “And I remember precisely how my mother forced me into this turquoise princess dress with frills and ribbons and lace, but it was a size too small and couldn’t be zipped up all the way in the back. Rather than looking anything like a princess that night – that first dinner party – I looked like an elephant in a blue tutu.”

Chase couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She was sharing some deep emotions with him, and yet, he couldn’t seem to picture her as anything else than what she was right now – how she looked right now.

Her words drew blood out of her soul as she spoke. “That night, I looked fat, I looked ugly, and even more than that I talked funny. I had a weird accent. My English wasn’t good and people couldn’t understand me clearly. All the other kids would gather among themselves, giggling and whispering secrets about me right in front of me, asking each other questions, spreading rumours, yet none of them wanted to actually talk to me – to get to know me.”

“Besides Jace.” The words came out of Chase’s lips before he knew it, and LaCienega turned to him and smiled, her eyes staring intensely in his direction – though he knew by that glitzy gaze that she wasn’t looking at him, but at a shard of a past memory.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Besides Jace.”

He was her Prince Charming, Chase realized, and yet, even as the thought struck, he was determined to prove Jace wasn’t. Or perhaps Jace was. Perhaps he was her Prince Charming, but Chase’s million dollar question was, is she his princess?

Chase didn’t know how long they sat there and talked for, but when LaCienega suddenly shivered, his perception of reality suddenly came back to him. “Are you cold?” He stood up from sitting down for so long and stretched his arms overhead. “We should go back in the car. It’s getting chilly out now that it’s late.”

LaCienega hastily agreed, and once back in the car, Chase turned on a bit of heat before glancing at his phone. More messages. More missed calls. He didn’t even look at his texts, just opened a new one directed to Krislynn.

“I feel slightly famished,” LaCienega murmured quietly beside him. “I haven’t eaten anything since early afternoon. Are you hungry by any chance?”

“I’m starving.”

Her lips curved slightly upwards. “If I remember the directions correctly, there should be a–”