CHAPTER 43
ῼ Ash Castillo ῼ
I woke up, feeling content for the first time in a long time. When I saw the long, curly mop of hair resting on my chest, I felt even more content, if that was even possible. No, it wasn’t the fact that I’d slept with someone – literally, sleeping. Our clothes were still on – but it was the fact that I was with someone I loved.
The ray of light shining through the curtains fell into my eyes and, uncomfortable, I shifted. Ella yawned and turned over. When she opened her eyes, I greeted her with a smile.
“Did you sleep well?”
She appeared disorientated for a few moments, but her eyes soon focused. When she realized where she was, she blushed.
“How long have you been watching me?” she murmured.
“I just woke up.”
She grinned again and stretched. Then, almost before I could do anything else, she sat up and slid her warm legs from under the duvet, let in a gust of cold air. I grabbed onto her hand, before she could escape me completely.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
Ella looked confused. “Going to have a shower. Why? Do you want to go first?”
“No, I mean, what are you doing, getting out of bed?” I said, sitting up and pulling her back by her waist. She resisted, but only half-heartedly.
“We have to get ready for school, Ash.”
“No, we don’t,” I argued, kissing her neck. “We can call in sick.”
“Both of us?” she said reluctantly, though she giggled. “Won’t they suspect something?”
“I don’t care,” I said, kissing her again. She fell back onto the bed. “I don’t learn anything at school anyway.”
“But…we have to go to school…” Ella resisted feebly.
“Not for half an hour,” I reminded her. “We can get dressed, really quickly, later. Come back to bed, Ella, please?”
I kissed her, on her lips this time, I think that was the thing that did it. She was ready to get back into the warm haven of covers, until she froze, suddenly. There’d been a noise, outside, loud enough to be heard even in the penthouse.
“What the –” I started, but she was already out of bed and at the windows. She threw open the curtains and let in the streaming light. I squinted.
“Oh my God,” she gasped.
“What?” I snapped, bad-tempered. I pushed down the covers, thinking about the coffee I really, really needed. “What is it?”
“The press…” Ella whispered, her breath fogging up the glass of the window, her face was so close. “They’re here…they’re outside. Dozens of them. Does anyone else famous live in this building?”
“No, I – What?”
I scrambled out of bed and joined her by the window. She was right. A crowd of them, huge even at a distance – there were a fifty maybe – were all congregating outside the building. I thought I could see cameras in most of their hands.
“Please tell me Brad Pitt lives in this building,” Ella said, sounding horrified.
“No, I had the entire building checked when we moved in,” I replied, slowly. “No one famous lives here, except –”
Us. I didn’t have to say it for her to know what I was thinking.
“So they’re here for you and me,” she muttered. “But why?”
That question was answered almost immediately.
My phone began ringing from the bedside table, where I’d left it the last night. I walked over to it, barefoot, frowning when I saw the caller name.
“Father, this isn’t a good time right now,” I said, not bothering with a greeting. I was pacing up and down the room, trying to figure out what to do. Why were the press here? Oh God, please don’t let it be pictures from Amsterdam. That’d been almost three months ago. I glanced at Ella. I didn’t think our new relationship would be able to handle a full-scale scandal. “There’s kind of a situation outside the penthouse –”
“I’m well aware of that,” he replied shortly. His tone made me stop my pacing. Something was wrong. Seriously wrong. Worse than strippers in Amsterdam wrong. “Have you seen the front of the New York Times today?”
The front page? Then it wasn’t some sleaze story. They wouldn’t slap a three-month old story about a Manhattan-socialite on the front page, not when there were wars and murders and senators who couldn’t keep it in their pants.
“Molly!” I called. Ella looked at me questioningly, but I just shook my head. When the maid came in, blushing at my state of undress, I snapped, “Molly, have we got a copy of today’s New York Times?”
“S-sir,” she stammered, an unflattering shade of maroon. “Let me – let me, check.” She quickly disappeared out of the room.
“It’s an exclusive,” Dad continued. The room was completely silent and all I could hear was the sound of Molly’s shoes against the marble flooring. I glanced at Ella, who was looking at me worriedly, stroking Eyelash, who had flitted into the room when Molly entered. She mewed gently as Ella’s hands ran over her soft fur, her eyes closed. “Someone did an interview with Theresa May yesterday. You know, the head reporter for the gossip section in the New York Times. And there’s something I have to know. Are you crazy, or just stupid?”
I frowned.
Molly rushed in, a copy of the New York Times in her hand.
“Here it is, sir,” she said triumphantly. “You didn’t have a copy, but your neighbor did, so –”
“Stealing,” I said, taking the paper from her. “I should fire you for that. But I’ll give you a raise instead. Get out of here.”
She left, just as I dropped the phone in shock. My eyes darted over the words, again and again, my brain unable to take them in. Oh my God. This couldn’t be happening.
Ella was by my side in an instant.
“Ash, what is it?” she said gently, tugging the paper out of my limp fingers. She understood as soon as she got the paper.
The Billion Dollar Girl
New York’s hottest couple, Ash and Gabriella Castillo, who tied the knot only a month or so ago, did not marry for love, as they would have the Manhattan social scene believe, but merely as a business deal.
Ash Castillo, teen billionaire playboy who had recently been involved in a number of scandals, has been revealed to have “bought” the right to marry Gabriella Castillo, in a legal contract rumored to be worth approximately a billion US Dollars, who prior to the marriage had a job as a janitor of a school gym.
So how did this year’s most anticipated debutante, Mrs. Castillo, manage to win over both the purse strings and heart of Mr. Ash Castillo?
Gabriella, maiden name White, New York Times can exclusively reveal, coerced the young bachelor, future CEO to Castillo Corporations, into entering the marriage with her, claiming she was pregnant with his child. She then made the smitten heir sign the deal, stating that he first give her a sum of no less than a billion dollars before marriage. The contract also states that he would be unable to divorce her for at least three months – something he would undoubtedly attempt, after finding out the truth about her “pregnancy”.
This contract, though morally ambiguous, does not violate any laws and so cannot be repealed.
(Story continued on page 6)
“Who would do this?” Ella whispered, horrified.
I closed my eyes and didn’t reply. My Dad’s voice was still blaring out of my phone. Slowly, I picked it up, pressing my hand against the receiver.
“I need some time to talk to him,” I said to her, quickly. “Just so I can explain things to him.”
I didn’t want Ella to hear what my Dad would say. I knew it would hurt her. I walked out of the room, out of the apartment. Once I was safely in the hall, I brought the phone to my ear.
“…your trust fund! I give you all this money and this is how you spend it? How can I ever trust you again–?”
“Dad,” I said, through gritted teeth. “This isn’t true. Ella’s not that kind of person. She would never…”
“I know,” he snapped. “Ash, how stupid do you think I have to be to believe every goddamn thing written in that damn paper? I wasn’t born yesterday. Of course it wasn’t the girl’s fault. She hasn’t got a seductive bone in her body. You’re the one to blame, always wanting what you can’t have.”
That was unfair.
“Not all the blame,” I said, stung. “Maybe sixty-forty. Eighty-twenty?”
“Why did you do it?” he raged on. “Why did you force this girl into marry you? A billion dollars, Ash! That’s my legacy, your legacy! What were you thinking? And please don’t lie about terms in the contract. Your lawyers are my lawyers. They told me everything. So, Ash, was this just all a game to you? Just a wild game to try to get some girl into bed?”
“It wasn’t like that!” I protested. “You were the one who wanted me to marry! You wanted me to settle down. So I did. I was going to leave her, afterwards. When I married her, I was going to divorce her three months later, so you would get off my back –”
“You’re an idiot,” he spat. “I wanted you to settle down. Think about your future. Think about the company for once. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“And Ella has helped me settle down,” I tried. “And I think she’s made me a lot more responsible. She’s helped me mature as a person, even tried to get me interested in school.”
He was silent for a moment. I held my breath, waiting.
“So when are you getting divorced?” he said, finally.
“What?” I was caught by surprise. “We aren’t getting divorced.”
“Come on, Ash. You can’t really expect me to let you stay married to her? Do you have any idea how this looks for our company? Do you know how many investors I have meeting with today, to try and convince them not to withdraw? How many shareholders who are trying to call me right now? People don’t want to invest in a company whose heir blew a billion dollars on some girl! Stock points are dropping faster than they did during the recession. If this scandal gets any bigger, the company might actually go down.”
“I don’t want the company!” I yelled. “Sell it, abandon it, give it away for all I care! Let Will be the next CEO. I’ve never wanted the company, and you know that. I must’ve told you a thousand times. I’m not leaving Ella. Ella’s not just a girl, Dad. She’s the love of my life.”
There was a long silence.
“Dad?” I said. “Dad, are you still there?”
“When did you realize this, Ash?” he wanted to know. “Tell me, when did you realize that you loved this girl?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed, closing my eyes. “It just sort of dawned on me that…that I couldn’t live without her.”
“Have I taught you nothing, Ash?” my Father said. Instead of sounding angry, he just sounded sad. “Didn’t I tell to run and hide if you realized you were ever in love?”
“I can’t leave her, Dad, no more than I can cut off my arm. Dad, listen to me. I think you need to gain perspective here. My relationship with Ella is nothing like the one you had with Mom. She’s different. I’m different. I’m not going to let the same thing happen to us.”
“You think she’s so different?” he snarled. “You bought her, Ash. She’s only with you for your money. I know her type. Young, ambitious. If you were penniless, she wouldn’t even give you a second glance. She’s just like your Mother. The only thing that truly matters to her is your billions. That’s the kind of world we live in.”
“That’s not true.”
But still, I wondered why Ella hadn’t told me she loved me. I knew she was aware that she hadn’t said it yet, because whenever I told her I loved her, she would get a distant look in her eyes, as if she was debating with herself over if she should say it. Each time, I’d saved her by breaking the silence. But her muteness worried me. Was she not saying those words because she couldn’t? Because she didn’t really love me?
“Alright. I see that you’ve become attached to her. I’ll make things easier for you. When you some to your senses, call me. You have a week to change your mind, before I call the lawyers and cut you off. You’ll be penniless. The properties you own will be seized. All your credit cards will be blocked.”
“You’re giving me an ultimatum?” I said, disbelievingly.
“You think she’ll love you, even if you lose all your money, your status in society, your company? Well, in a week’s time, we’ll both know the truth.”
***
Author's Note: Hey guys :) How've you been?
I've been reading an amazing book by John Greene - Looking for Alaska. Someone recommended it to me, and it's completely epic - I just finished it, in fact. I think I'm going to move onto the Fault in Our Stars next. Apparently that's amazing too <3 If you've been reading something really good, please tell me because my reading list is totally empty right now :P
LOVE YOU ALL X
P.S. Another pretty banner :) x made by @AllTheStarsCollide this time! <3
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