Chapter Thirty-Nine
She was going to kill him. She was totally going to kill him. Isla clutched the contract in her hands like it was a stress ball that she needed to take her aggression out on.
She was practically ripping it.
And Orlando stared at her from the other side of the limo like he was worried she was going to take some of that aggression out on him.
"Are you okay?"
She barely noticed any of the worry in his voice, and she absolutely could not have any sympathy for him and the fear he clearly had of her in his eyes.
"I'm fine," she said through her teeth.
The papers ripped just a little bit.
Sam was driving, but even he had been able to see from the look on her face that it was probably a better idea if he said nothing at all. Isla was so pissed that she didn't even want to ask him how his relationship with Robert was going.
She'd feel like a bitch later. For now she had big plans to take that bitchiness out on Arturo.
If Orlando said anything else to her on the ride to Calendri Corp, she didn't hear it. She barely realized it even when they drove into the underground parking lot and the limo came to a stop.
She opened the door and rushed out even before the limo came to a full stop.
Orlando's voice called out to her. "Isla, hey!"
He was right behind her, but she was heading to the elevator.
It was one of those happy surprises when the elevator doors opened for her the second her finger touched the button. She stepped inside and pressed the button for the penthouse office.
Orlando just managed to stick his arm through the doors before they slid shut on him.
The doors opened, he stepped inside, and then they closed again.
Isla stood on her side of the elevator while Orlando stayed on the other. He was only slightly red in the face, but Isla didn't think it was because he was out of shape and that little sprint had taken anything out of him.
He was probably just a little annoyed with her for constantly running off. And stunned that she'd jump out of a moving vehicle.
They were halfway up the building when he finally spoke to her. "Don't be too mad at him."
"Why shouldn't I?" she asked. Her voice was probably something Satan would love.
Orlando sighed. "I'm sure he has a good reason."
Isla huffed, but said nothing.
At least not at first. "Why did you follow me in here? Not that I'm not thankful for the ride or anything," she said. "Thanks for the ride, by the way."
Isla had just run downstairs, saw Sam in the Limo, and immediately hopped inside. She'd completely taken it for granted that Sam and Orlando would take her anywhere at all. Sam had never been her personal driver even when she'd been living in the Calendri mansion. Now that she had a couple of seconds in the elevator to think about it, the guilty bitchy feeling she'd been avoiding stomped all over her.
No, no, no. She was not going to think that way until after. She had to push it back. She wasn't going to look weak in front of Arturo when she shoved his stupid contract in his stupid face.
"I almost don't want to answer that question when you have that look on your face," Orlando said.
Isla rubbed her brow, as if that would get rid of the scowl that had formed on her face. "Sorry."
"I don't know why I followed you in here, other than I thought a girl shouldn't be walking in the basement parking lot by herself."
"But I made it to the elevator."
Orlando nodded. "I didn't think of that."
Isla glared at Orland from the corner of her eyes. He was a gentleman and everything, but she was pretty sure he was full of shit on this one. He was probably just following her to the top floor to keep her from going off on his brother, not to protect her from rapists in a basement parking lot.
Whatever. She wasn't going to let Orlando being a nice guy stop her from yelling at his prick brother.
The elevator was fast, and the doors opened to that bright space with the high windows. Sylvia was at her desk on the phone. Her brows furrowed at the sight of Isla walking towards Arturo's office door, but she probably didn't get off the phone to say anything because Orlando was with her. He might've even signalled to her to not say anything behind Isla's back as she opened the door.
And when Isla pushed open those doors with the contract still in her fists, she stopped dead at the sight of Arturo in his desk.
And that same leggy blond Isla had met the first time she was in here was sitting on his lap.
Their faces pulled back from each other. There was nothing so obvious as bright red lipstick left over on Arturo's mouth, but it did had that darkened just kissed look.
Even if she hadn't just walked in at this moment, the way his tie was askew, and how his mouth looked, made it clear that she'd been all over him. His hair was even a little messy, like her slender fingers had been in it, gripping the strands tight just minutes before Isla walked in.
She didn't know why she wanted to yell at him for this, but she did. The urge was definitely there. She just wanted to let out an are you kidding me kind of yell. She had to bite down on her lips just to keep that yell from getting out, especially when the blond giggled, pretending to be embarrassed as she slid off of Arturo's lap.
She actually straightened her skirt.
Fucking Christ.
"Sorry, is this someone who works for you?" she asked, looking from Isla to Orlando and Arturo, that annoying smile on her face.
If Isla voiced what she wanted to do right at that moment, the cops might get called on her.
Arturo looked right at Isla, and for some reason, his eyes were darker than usual. "No, you can go now. I'll call you tomorrow."
The vein under Isla's eye twitched. Tomorrow? He was going to call her tomorrow?
The blond whined. Isla couldn't tell if her disappointment was real or faked for manipulation purposes. "Awe, but that's so far away."
"Don't worry about that." Arturo got up from his desk. Isla half expected his pants to be undone, her heart lurched at the thought of what she might see, but they weren't.
Despite Blondy's skirt mess up, his zipper was right where it needed to be.
When Arturo pressed his lips to her perfectly creamy cheek, however, she may have wanted to explode just a tiny bit.
"Go out front and talk to Sylvia. She'll have something for you."
Those big eyes widened at the thought of a gift. "Really? Thank you!" She threw her arms around Arturo's shoulders and kissed him like there weren't two other people in the office watching.
It seemed worse that Arturo allowed it. He didn't exactly embrace her back with the same amount of enthusiasm, but he did hold onto her. His hands seemed to fit nicely on the small of her back. They looked like they could slide down to grip each of her perfect ass cheeks if he just didn't have an audience to watch. Arturo even closed his eyes. He actually closed his eyes.
Isla crossed her arms and looked away, disgusted with him and with her for having no sense of decency. Isla wouldn't kiss anyone like that in front of other people, let alone her own brother or a woman who was, well, only sort of an ex.
When the kiss ended, Blondy bounced out the door. She may have even winked as she waved and left. She was like a cartoon version of beautiful, all perfectly drawn lines and flowing hair, and Isla decided right then that she hated her.
Arturo straightened his tie, waiting for the door to close completely behind the blond. Before it clicked, Isla heard the woman interrupting Sylvia, asking for whatever gift it was that Arturo had left with her.
Probably an expensive perfume bottle, or jewelry. The bitch.
Isla finally noticed Orlando just then. He was still standing beside her, his face bent as he pinched the bridge between his eyes. Like he was warding off a coming headache, or the red that was climbing his neck.
Her pity for him almost overtook her anger over this entire situation.
Then Arturo had to open his damned mouth. "Was there a reason you decided to come back to my office?"
Oh. Right. She was here to yell at him.
Isla pulled up the crumpled contract and pushed it right into Arturo's face. She was probably a good inch away from making it actually touch his nose. "What the fuck is this supposed to be?"
Arturo very calmly, very slowly, reached his hand up and curled strong, tanned fingers around Isla's wrist. Her pulse jumped when he lowered her hand. His eyes were harsh when they were revealed.
Heat climbed up her chest and neck. She couldn't wipe the angry look off her face, even though she was probably blushing like someone who was not at all confidant in what she was doing.
"What would be the problem?"
Isla cleared her throat. "What are you thinking?"
The look on Arturo's face didn't change. He looked at her like he didn't even know her. "Just tell me what the problem is."
She exploded at him. "Forty-Nine percent? Are you kidding me? You're only going to give back forty-nine percent?"
"Is there something strange about that?"
"I'm going to be outside," Orlando said. He was shaking his head, like he couldn't handle listening to anymore of this.
It seemed he didn't want to bother with trying to protect his brother anymore. Arturo was officially on his own.
Which was terrible because when Orlando left, Isla suddenly felt like she'd lost her backup and most of her courage.
Great.
Arturo waited until the door closed behind his brother before he said anything. "Forty-nine percent is standard if I want to keep control of the business."
"You weren't supposed to keep control!" Isla yelled. She wanted to strangle him. She really did. "The deal was that you hand over the entire business to me and my family."
"Yes, after spending four weeks with me under my terms. If I felt the need to cancel our contract at any time then I was under no obligation to give back any percentage of the business."
Isla was probably red in the face right about now. She was probably on the verge of giving herself a nose bleed with all the blood rushing to her face.
"So, because I spent only half the time with you I get only half the business?"
"Technically, you spent less than half the time with me."
Isla spoke through clenched teeth. "Because you were working."
Arturo rolled his eyes. "It's not just about that. It's for your parents."
Isla couldn't believe it. "I swear to God, I really am struggling to keep from losing my mind."
Arturo actually smirked at that. "Are you?"
"Shut up. Just tell me what the hell you're talking about?"
Arturo shook his head. "Did you tell your parents that we're not together anymore?"
"Considering we were never together and I got kicked out the day after you sat down to dinner with them? No."
She'd gotten a few texts from her mother since that night, along with a couple of calls that she hadn't picked up.
Of course her mother had to make her feel guilty, as mothers usually do, and without even knowing she was doing it, by talking about what a nice young man she'd landed, and when could they meet up for lunch?
Isla had remained vague in her responses. She was easing her mother into the fact that she wouldn't be seeing much of Arturo around anymore. Isla was pretending that she and Arturo were still seeing each other, but not so much lately because Arturo was a super busy business man and he had a ton of stuff to do.
That way, when Isla told her mother that she and Arturo broke up, she wouldn't be too shocked.
"Okay," Arturo said. "So consider this, if I just handed over one hundred percent of the business to you after your parents just met me in person for the first time, do you think your father or grandfather would get suspicious? You're the one who didn't want them knowing you were sleeping with me to get the business back."
"That is not...oh," Isla said. It did kind of make sense.
Arturo nodded. "But, if I were to hand over forty-nine percent of the business to you and your family, I would still be the full owner, all decisions would still come down to me, it's still mine. The big difference is that it's just as much as I can give to my fake girlfriend as a present without looking suspicious."
"Normal people don't give their girlfriends forty-nine percent of multi-million dollar business."
"Normal people don't have twenty billion dollars in their accounts."
That heat came back into Isla's face. She hated being reminded that he could buy her business a couple thousand times over, destroy it, or give it away and not even blink over it.
Arturo pulled a pen from his pocket. A pen that probably cost two hundred dollars. He handed it to her. "Sign the papers. You can keep your share, or hand it over to whoever you want in your family. It's yours to do whatever you want with."
He wasn't speaking so coldly to her anymore. She didn't understand him at all, but now she felt more than a little compelled to sign her name where it belonged on the contract.
Isla looked up at him and down at the crumpled papers.
Arturo stepped aside and pointed his hand to his shiny big desk. "You can sign them on there if you want."
Isla swallowed, then she nodded. She walked to his desk and lay the papers down. She felt like Arturo was staring at the back of her head as she leaned down, smoothed out the papers, and then signed her name on all the dotted lines.
This felt so much different from the last time she'd signed a contract from Arturo. Arturo wasn't speaking coldly to her anymore, but this contract felt cold. It was so strange to be signing something that didn't require her to give him sex.
And that was the even stranger part. The fact that she felt strange about signing something so legal and normal shouldn't have been happening, but it was. And when her name was there in her normal, pretty script in black ink, something suddenly felt closed off.
Isla stood straight and really looked at her name. Her heart ached, her wrist ached where Arturo had touched her earlier, and even her ribs seemed to ache.
Everything hurt, and all because there was nothing in this contract that stated she had to spend time with Arturo, a man she couldn't stand a couple of weeks ago.
"Everything all right?"
She turned and looked back at him, her fingers barely holding onto the papers in her hands.
A light frown pulled at Arturo's dark brows, and Isla realized what he looked so worried about.
She wiped her eyes. She wasn't crying, but her eyes burned, and it was obvious she was about to start. "Sorry," she said, trying to laugh it off, but failing. "I'm just really happy about this, is all."
Arturo seemed to buy her excuse. "That's good, considering you looked like you wanted to claw my eyes out a second ago."
She still kind of did, knowing what she knew now, and thinking back to that blond that had been giving him a lap dance only a couple of minutes ago.
She bit that back. It wasn't her business. It never had been. Even if there was a chance of it being any of her business, there was nothing between them now, so she had nothing to complain about.
Arturo approached her. He didn't touch her, but his hands reached for the contract. He held onto one side while Isla held onto the other. He was taking it. When he took it and Isla let go, there wouldn't be anything connecting them anymore.
She let go of it.
Arturo smiled softly at her. She couldn't get a proper read on his face. She couldn't get a proper read on anything anymore.
She wanted to say something to him, to let him know what she'd just realized, but the thought of that woman on his lap, of him telling her she needed to go...
She couldn't do it.
Arturo wet his lips. He pulled his phone from his pocket. "I'll call Sam. He'll take you wherever you need to go."
Isla cleared her throat. "Right, uh, thanks for that."
She quickly started walking to the door. She needed to get out of here. It was too awkward and if she stayed any longer she thought she might actually die from how humiliated she was.
The worst part was how she felt like everything was all wide open for Arturo to see. She didn't want anyone to see her like this.
"Isla," Arturo called.
She was already pushing the doors open.
She walked out into the lobby. Sylvia saw her there, but Isla passed her quickly.
"Miss King? I think Mr Calendri is calling for you."
"Isla?" Orlando asked.
She pretended to not hear them either as she pressed the button for the elevator. She multi-tapped it like that would make the doors open faster.
It took forever before they did. Or it seemed to.
When she finally got into the elevator, pressed the button for the parking lot, she leaned her back against the wall and looked out one last time at Arturo's doors. She'd kind of hoped he would be there, rushing out to stop her or something, just like in one of Jane's romance novels.
The doors slid shut, and she descended. Orlando and Sylvia were clearly confused, but she just needed to get out of here.
Right, of course he wasn't going to stop her. This wasn't a game anymore and that stuff only happened wild fantasies.
Isla wiped her face with her hands and sniffed.
The only thing remotely close to being from out of a romance novel was the fucked up situation itself. She'd actually fallen for a man who'd been using her for sex. She was never going to say it out loud, but in her head she couldn't stop the words from forming.
She actually loved the bastard, and that fact was never going to make her happy.
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End Chapter Thirty-Nine!
Okay, sorry it took four days to upload this one, and this chapter also got no editing with the exception of a couple of things that I spotted, but aside from that, I'm still majorly happy with how this one turned out. A lot more emotion than I thought there would be :)
The good news is that there are only two or three more chapters left to go :) Then it will be the end of Isla's and Arturo's story. I mentioned before that I have the perfect ending in mind, and I hope everyone likes it, though I think it will disappoint some. Maybe. I'm still trying to get a read on what you all prefer as readers (aside from faster updates :S) But I really like the idea of this particular ending :)
Thank you all for sticking with me so far, this story is right now at 98, 923 words, and with the next couple of chapters it'll definitely break the 100k mark. I'm so beyond happy for that, and there's no way that this story would've had such a good flow without all of you. I tend to rush things without eyes being put on them, so I'm mega proud to have had this story turn out so well.
Plans for the ARC copies are definitely on their way. I'll get something going with the cover artist to create a spine and back with a banner letting people know these will be uncorrected proofs. I just can't shill out the money for an editor for a 100k word book right now, but I'm looking forward to doing the raffle and handing out the ARCs to the winners on Wattpad :)
Cheers,
~Mandy