In Love With Mr. Billionaire

EPILOGUE

I stopped in my tracks when I reached the studio. Indeed, she was working on the canvas. Her fingers were coated in paint, droplets of various sizes of paint were splashed on her arms and clothes. Her hair was tied up in a bun, supported by two paint brushes. Nothing in the world existed for her right now other than the colors and the canvas.

I folded my arms across my chest and leaned on the wall. It was a gorgeous sight. One would think after watching her work on her paintings with such passion almost every day of the week, I'd get used to it. Initially, I had thought I would. Yet here I was, standing silently at the doorway, watching her work, and grinning to myself like an idiot.

I had no interest in art earlier. I had never tried to invest myself more in it than what was required for decorating the places that I created or bought. But this woman made me fall in love with everything she loves. Now, I love art. I understand it. She makes me see things through the eyes of an artist and I love to watch her explain things to me with the overwhelming passion in her eyes for the things she loves.

Right now, it was the canvas she was working on that was the center of her universe. I walked towards her, wanting to steal that look for myself.

I wrapped my arms around her 12 weeks pregnant belly and absorbed her shock by holding her tight when she yelped.

"Oh God, Aaron. You scared me," she chided and leaned into me the very next moment.

"The doctor called," I said as I pulled the paintbrush out of her hair, making them fall around her shoulders.

"What did she say?" she asked, twisting her head to look up at me.

"She said I need to keep you away from your studio."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Be serious."

"You need rest, Caroline. Something that I've been telling you for the past week."

"I'm fine, Aaron." She pulled out of my arms to dip her finger in a lilac puddle of paint on her palette. "I've been resting since morning. I got bored doing nothing. And I need to finish this. The exhibition is next week."

"I'm not saying you stop working altogether. You need to take care of your health. If you keep stressing about the exhibition, then believe me when I say, I'm going to call Martin and tell him to postpone this event," I said in a stern voice.

She laughed and kept on mixing the colors on the canvas till it was of her desired shade. "He won't do it. He'll face a huge loss if he postpones it now. Nice try, though."

"Not even if I compensate him for the loss?" I suggested. A triumphant smirk playing on my lips.

Caroline's hand stopped on the canvas. She turned around to look into my eyes, her face held the same betrayed look that she had given me the previous night when I had found her sitting on the kitchen counter gulping down bowls of ice cream in the middle of the night. This was where her pregnancy hormones kicked in.

"You've changed, Aaron," she said. "You weren't like this before. How can you do this to me? You know how important these exhibitions are for me."

"Alright, alright," I sighed, pulling her into an embrace. "I was kidding."

"Really?" she asked with watery eyes.

"Yes." I kissed the top of her head. "But you need to stop stressing about the exhibition. I'm thinking of taking you out for dinner. Not today though, you need rest. We can go tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow. We're going to visit your dad tomorrow."

"Tomorrow isn't Sunday," I said, totally confused.

Every sunday she dragged me along with her to visit my father. Initially, I had no idea why we had to visit him so frequently. But in time, I got to realize that she wanted me to spend more time with him. The first few meetings have been awkward. I hardly talked to him, if not for Caroline to intentionally pull me in conversations with him. After that, we started to talk. Though it was mostly about business, I'd seen the happiness in Caroline's eyes whenever that happened.

"Tomorrow is your parents' anniversary. I don't want dad to feel lonely. So we're gonna go to meet him, spend some time with him, and make him feel less lonely," she answered.

I stared at her face. Never in these years have I thought about how he must feel on days like these. The days that were once for celebration and now were nothing more than painful reminiscence of those happy times.

I'd spent so much time being angry at my father for being absent from my life after my mother's death that the thought of me doing the same to him had never occurred to me. I hadn't realized until now that I could have taken the first step.

"Okay," I whispered.

"Aaron, I know you forgave him a long time back. But you need to talk to him. He still blames himself for not being a good father to you. Talk to him, tell him you love him and you've forgiven him. He doesn't have to blame himself anymore. In fact, we should be thankful to him for the contract. Look how it turned out," she touched my cheek as she smiled brightly at me.

I placed my hand over hers. "That was the best thing he ever did for me."

Caroline nodded. I watched her face as her smile faded away, and her eyes went wide in surprise. "Sorry," she whispered. I had only started to fear that something had gone wrong, when he pulled her hand away from my face, trying her best to suppress her laugh.

I felt the wetness on my cheek and noticed her fingers were still covered in paint. Damn it!

She stepped away from me, giggling all the while, but I caught her arm and pulled her back to me. Dipping my finger into a scarlet little bottle, I moved my hands towards her face in slow motion as I watched her dreading the contact. She struggled within my hold, unable to free herself.

"Nooo. No!" She shrieked, laughing uncontrollably as I stopped my hand merely a few inches away from her face. "Please," she requested with those adorable eyes. The expression was so cute on her face that I couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I touched my paint covered finger to her nose and moved my hand lower to circle her waist.

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and moved her face towards me. I lowered my head to kiss her. Cupping her cheeks, I tucked the rouge strands of hair behind her ear as my mouth moved over hers, until she punched me in the shoulder.

"You tricked me, Woodwords!" she pushed away from me, glaring as she did.

For a moment, I was shocked, then I saw her face and hair covered in paint and realized what I had done.

"That wasn't intentional," I said, trying to call a truce, but my lovely wife was in no mood of going down without a battle.

She picked up a paint bottle, and splashed it on me. "That wasn't intentional as well," she shrugged, then burst out laughing.

I shook my head. "If paint war is what you want," I said as I picked up another bottle and reciprocated the act.

Only minutes later, our faces, hands, hair, and clothes were completely covered in multicolored paint. The studio was a mess with empty bottles lying on the rainbow colored floor. I got up from the floor, offering my hand to Caroline who was still laughing like a gone case.

"It's all your fault. Look at the studio. Look at me. It's going to take a lot of effort getting rid of all the paint," she complained.

"I can't promise about the studio, but I can surely help you get rid of that paint," I said, moving closer. Before she could step back, I picked her up in my arms and walked out of the studio, towards our bedroom for a long, long shower.

- Analia