The Unwanted Bride

Chapter 7

Dinner ended and what was left was a messy kitchen and a huge pile of dishes covering the entirety of the sink. All four were silent, only looking at each other to see who would clean up the mess. The silent, however, was broken by the ringing of Alexander's cellphone. "Well would you look at that, this is important I have to take it and it might take a while," Alexander felt relieved that he may excuse himself. 

"Look I'll clean it up, I made the mess anyways. You guys can head upstairs and get ready to go to sleep," Shawn says. 

Both ladies headed upstairs and went their separate ways to their bedroom's located at opposite ends of the hallway. After taking off her makeup and a quick shower, Amelia headed back downstairs after deciding to help Shawn clean up. 

After hearing the soft footsteps approach, Shawn turns around and is greeted by Amelia. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought you might need some help, and from the looks of what you have done, you will need a lot. Besides, I can't fall asleep anyways so maybe a little work will tire me out," Amelia replies. "I'll take the dishes."

"Thanks Amelia for your help." The two worked quietly together one doing the dishes, while the other is scrubbing food off the stove.  Amelia slowly getting bored started faintly humming "La Vie En Rose" which garners Shawn's attention. "Isn't this our wedding song?" 

"Yeah it is, sorry if I disturbed you I was just getting bored"

"No it's fine, I was getting bored myself. If you want I can turn some music on from my phone, maybe then we will get done quicker," Shawn suggests. After seeing Amelia nod her head to show her approval, Shawn gets his phone out to play some music. "Maybe I should turn my music off instead, most of the things I listen to are slow and it might bore you," Shawn says after realizing that his playlist mostly consisted of ballads. 

"You don't have to turn it off, we actually have similar taste in music," Amelia responds. As soon as the two finished cleaning, the song ends and the beginning of "La Vie En Rose" starts playing. 

"I actually downloaded this song after hearing it at our wedding," Shawn says while slowly approaching Amelia, "If you don't mind, may I have this dance?" Afraid that Amelia might reject him, Shawn gently grabs her hands and wraps his hands around her waist. He felt her body tense but soon relaxes and the two dance around the kitchen while the music plays in the background. 

Shawn cannot help but admit that Amelia has definitely grown on him. The black haired beauty that he once hated is someone that he now admires dearly. But he perceives that the affection that he feels for Amelia is one that is of a friend. 

Amelia, however, is taken by surprise at Shawn's gesture. She is glad that the two of them are getting along quite well but she knows that she should not develop any type of fondness for him. Although she thinks this, she wraps her hands tighter around him liking the feeling of his arms around her. That even for a quick song, she would like to pretend that the two are genuinely together as husband and wife. 

The song ends at the same time Shawn lets go of his embrace on Amelia. Before they separate to go to their separate rooms for the night, Shawn plants a kiss on Amelia's forehead and utters a quick goodnight. 

Amelia was left with her heart pounding and restlessly moving around her bed. Not being able to fall asleep, Amelia takes a blanket and heads down to the beach. Upon reaching the beach, Amelia sets her blanket down and sits on it looking out into the calm ocean. 

Following a quick shower, Shawn realizes that his phone is nowhere to be found and concludes that he must have left it in the kitchen. After grabbing his phone in the kitchen, Shawn notices a figure out on the beach from the huge windows in the living room. Curious to who it was, he decides to head down to see for himself. The closer he got, he soon notices the long black hair of the petite figure. "Care to explain why you're on the beach at one in the morning Amelia."

Turning around to face Shawn, Amelia answers, "I could ask the same thing to you, but to answer your question I just couldn't sleep and thought that I might as well head down here to relax my mind."

"Well if that's the case, do you mind if I join you. You can pretend like I'm not here at all," Shawn replies. Amelia makes a patting gesture right next to her and Shawn takes his seat. After a couple of minutes staring out into the ocean Amelia's head falls on Shawn's shoulder and soon after Shawn also falls asleep.

Tara feeling that Shawn is still not beside her, decides to go look for him. Not finding him around the beach house she decides to look for him outside. When she finally found him, however, he was not alone, for he laid on a blanket and in his embrace was Amelia. Feeling hurt, Tara heads back to the house and leave the two alone. Tara knew that staying with Shawn although he is married would be hurtful, she knew that she should have just left him. But at the end of the day, she still loves him and couldn't bring herself to leave him.