If I Could

{29} - You Don't Fool Me

Twenty-four hours had passed since her encounter with Roger Taylor, and she still couldn't get him out of her mind. Everything that he had said to her was still very vivid inside her head, sadly, repeating every moment of their conversation as she pretended to be asleep on her side of the bed. She couldn't stop thinking about how devastated and dejected Roger looked when she told him she was pregnant, it was an image that she was sure would haunt her for months.

Belle was so immersed in her thoughts that she didn't even flinch when she heard the rage-filled voice of her boyfriend shout at her, slamming open their bedroom's door.

"What the hell is this?", Rami hissed as he threw a newspaper on the bed. "Explain yourself, Belle".

Belle turned around and took the newspaper in her hands. She saw a paparazzi picture of her and Roger leaving the conference room, printed on the front page with the headline "Princess Mercury makes a new friend". The headline was stupid enough to make her want to laugh a little.

"What do you want me to explain?", she raised her voice louder than his. "I bumped into him last night in Barcelona. We happened to be photographed together".

Rami scoffed in response, wandering over to a table in their bedroom where he flattened his hands down onto the wooden surface.

"You know very well you did not only walk past by him, he talked to you", he wheezed. "There's no way in the entire world that Roger freaking Taylor would be in the same room as you and not try to have your attention".

"All I did was say hello to him", Belle snapped at him. "You're creating a mountain out of a molehill".

"I'm not. Have you seen the way he looks at you?", Rami whispered, squeezing his eyes shut, his once flat hands now balled fists pressing hard against the table as he remembered the image. "He looks at you with so much lust and desire. I can't fight him now, because I'm about to become a goddman shareholder of his company, but I just want to tell you that if I wasn't doing business with him I would have already beaten the living daylights out of him".

"Control your anger and stop being ridiculous, Rami", Belle said as she crossed her arms, still laying on the bed. "And what do you mean you're going to be a shareholder of his company? Aren't you his company's CFO?".

"Yes, Belle", Rami whimpered in annoyance, but decided to follow Belle's decision to change the subject a little bit so he could ride out his anger. "Remember when I told you I would be attending one of my last meetings?".

"Yes".

"Well, it's because I resigned. It was one the last times when I would be informing your freaking wooer of his company's revenue and expenses".

"Wow, I didn't see that coming", Belle exclaimed as she stared blankly at the ceiling. "And I suppose you had a reasonable excuse to do that".

"Of course I did", Rami said as he turned to Belle and sat in the corner of the bed. "I'm going to start working for the family business, finally".

Belle nodded, his idea made sense but an important question popped in her head.

"Why didn't you work there in the first place?".

"Because I wanted to gather experience from a different perspective, Belle", he uttered as he felt his heart starting to beat normally again after his momentary anger. "I wanted to see the way things worked in different places. I wanted to test myself, I wanted to see if I was able to get into a Board of directors without nepotism being involved. And I did, knowing that I was able to keep a job in the real world somehow made me feel better about myself. Not to mention that the idea of working with the people I've known all my life for the rest of it would seem like such a boring idea".