In Love With Mr. Billionaire

CHAPTER 35- A PHONE CALL

The rays of the sun filtering through the glass wall of my very own studio filled the room with golden light. It had been a few days since Aaron and I returned back to New York after our honeymoon was cut short due to some issues in his company. It was nothing major—though it had appeared to be that way at first. The issue took barely a couple of days for Aaron to fix it.

Though it had caused our personal time with each other to be cut short, I knew how important the company's work was, not only for him but also for all the employees working there. Those two days, and a few others after returning from the Bahamas, I stayed at his penthouse while he worked round the clock to manage the issues that his absence had created.

The day he returned to the penthouse, Aaron asked me to go shopping with him. I accepted it immediately, eager to steal any time I could out of his busy schedule. It was only after we had reached the first site that I came to understand that he hadn't meant 'shopping' in the traditional sense. He had taken me out to shop for houses.

After showing me a few of the properties, all with brilliant architectures and designs—with the first look I knew his company made them—he took me to the mansion that was going to be our future home.

'It's too large for just the two of us, Aaron,' I had said, overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of the estate.

'We'll have kids, Caroline,' was his argument.

I had only started forming a playful debate in my head about how no amount of kids, extended family, friends or relatives, living in the mansion together at the same time could make this place seem smaller. But all those arguments died in my throat the moment I took my first step inside.

After spending days in his penthouse, I had started getting used to the dull, colorless, luxurious-but-too-formal interior.

The mansion was nothing like his penthouse. Oh, it still had all the luxuries, but it was filled with vivid colors and brightly lit rooms and passages. It was only later did Aaron inform me that he had gotten the property built specifically for me. His proof of that claim was a studio for my paintings with a view of the garden outside.

I had already forgotten about my liking for a cozy house the moment he had confessed he had gotten it built for me. But the studio had done it. There was no more doubt about which property was going to be our home.

So here I was, sitting inside my very own studio admiring my own paintings that I had painted ever since that day on the beach. The studio was filled with several other paintings that we had bought while visiting exhibitions on the main island. The one that mattered the most was the one that Aaron bought for me at the charity auction all those months ago.

I smiled remembering how excited I was to bid that one, but Aaron had decided to not play fair and buy it himself instead. The painting was long forgotten since, as that night had turned to be one of the worst ones for me. Now looking back at it with a clarity that only the future could have given me, it warmed my heart knowing the night when I thought I had lost him and the painting both, he was only buying it as a present to give it to me later.

My phone rang, breaking my thoughts of the dreadful past that had transformed into an endearing present and a promising future. I checked the caller ID and smiled wide at the face that appeared on my screen.

"Do you know who I am? Do you still remember me?" Nadia asked. Her eyes were narrowed to almost slits.

"Nadia Hayden? Is that you?" I guessed, then acted surprised.

"Thank goodness!" she exclaimed, matching the drama in my tone. "The new life has yet to overwrite your memories."

"I'll never forget you," I laughed.