A/N: Sowee again for the delayed update. I'm rearing a battle acolyte (apart from my nun), so I am a little busy. ^^ Not to mention that I'm making case studies and articles for the school paper. Nwei, enjoy the short update.

I read the reviews and someone noted that Tomoyo was…too desperate. Actually, I have a reason for that…it's in the plot. I hate to make Tomoyo that way, but the plot I have in mind asks for it. Yeah, and hate Eriol all you want now. ^^ I have something special in mind for them.

K, that's it, I guess. Chapter dedication: kyte-chan

Tomoyo woke up, eyes still puffy from her whole night of bawling. She still couldn't comprehend how easily she lost her control over herself. Was she that sexually starved that she gave in to Hiiragizawa Eriol's cold, calculated advances?

A part of her though was unsure. Eriol was calculated, but cold?

His passion was anything but cold; she could vouch her whole inheritance for that. Or was that because he was simply a good actor?

She vehemently shook her head. That was irrelevant. The bottom line was, she had never felt so ashamed of her life until last night. And for the first time in her life, she felt fear and insecurity; vulnerability and uncertainty. All her life, she believed life was always good and sweet and kind to her, for that was what she was like ever since. How in the world then, could someone like the Londoner affect her this way?

Just then, she heard the maid call from outside her door.

"Daidouji-sama, someone is downstairs, looking for you. Your mother is talking to him now."

She frowned delicately. Now who could be that person paying her a social call?

Even though the last thing in the world she wanted to do now was to dress up and exchange pleasantries with people, she forced herself to get up. If her mother was spending her precious time to talk to this said visitor, then he must be someone important.

Anyway, Hiiragizawa Eriol was not worth wasting her whole morning.

She donned her pale blue sweater over her white cotton leggings. She pulled her hair back with her scarf headband, then slightly retouched her face with chamomile powder. Satisfied that her getup was complete, she took her rose-colored shades and placed it on her eyes to cover their swollenness.

"I wonder what is taking my daughter so long…" Sonomi looked up when she heard footsteps heading their way. She smiled when she saw Tomoyo enter the living room quietly.

The raven-haired woman raised an eyebrow when she saw who it was seated in front of her mother.

The blue-eyed devil himself.

"What are you doing here?" she asked despite her earlier vow to act civilly despite her anger at him.

Eriol Hiiragizawa calmly eyed her, as if they were intimately close friends for a long time, as if nothing awkward happened between them last night. "Really now, Daidouji-san, I was just checking if you made it home alright. You were so adamant about me bringing you home. Now that I saw that you are fine, I'm going on my way—"

She frowned some more. This was, indeed, strange. Now why would he do that? Unless…

Sonomi eyed her daughter disapprovingly. "Tomoyo, you should have offered the good man some snacks, at least. Someone informed me that he was the one who brought you home from that…" Her eyes crinkled in distaste. "…third-class beer pub. What were you doing there anyway?"

Holding a solo prayer rally for world peace. She quietly rolled her eyes. "Just…stuff." Her gaze went to Eriol's subtly mocking eyes, silently challenging her to tell her mother the same reason she gave him last night. That she was having fun. She clenched her fists.

"Anyway, Mr. Hiiragizawa here wants to take you out tonight for a charity ball, and he had already asked my permission, which I freely gave him," her mother said.

She frowned. "Him?"

Eriol shrugged. "Me."

Her eyebrows knitted some more. Why would he do that?

She caught a diabolical twinkle in his eye, and she immediately knew that he was on to something. She raised her chin defiantly. Well, she's not scared!

"So will you go out with him tonight, Tomoyo?" asked Sonomi, unaware of the heavy tension between the two.

"Sure." She smiled, relaxed. "It's the least that I could do to thank him for helping me last night."

He smiled, and she recognized that kind of smile. It was a predator's smile—the smile of the spider while inviting the fly into its web for tea and biscuits.

But she was not afraid. She had psyched herself to hate him. Only hate.

That night, Tomoyo quietly entered Eriol's car as he talked with her mother about her curfew. Daidouji Sonomi beamed approvingly at the man. She rolled her eyes. It seemed like he was easily able to snatch her mother's heart!

Soon, he joined her in the car. He quietly started the engine and drove away from the Daidouji compound.

"Where's my corsage?" she asked sarcastically.

"Save your sarcasm for later," he said, unfazed. He kept on driving carefully on the road. "I need to tell you something."

She exhaled sharply. "Oh really? That's nice. OK, will we be talking about the weather?"

Again, he ignored her. "Daidouji-sama told me how desperate you are to find your groom."

Despite of herself, she felt her cheeks turn red. "O-Oh."

"And I thought it over…I want a daughter of my own." His grip on the steering wheel tightened. "I want a child."

She tried to laugh. "I'm too old to be your child."

He faced her grimly. "That is why I have decided to…marry you."

Her heart skipped and slipped at the same time. "W-What?" she croaked.

"Marriage. I'm proposing marriage."

"Shit…"

"Daidouji-san…"

"Shit you!" she hissed. "Stop the car!" She tried to fiddle with the lock, but apparently, it was automatic.

"I thought you want to get married?"

"Yes, I do! But not with someone like you!" She wished looks could kill. The world would then have one less jerk in the world.

He laughed dryly. "You're twenty-nine years old. Soon you will be thirty. Women at that age are already in their second divorce."

"Well, I'm NOT them!" she snapped. "If I marry, I want it to be for keeps. I want to live happily ever after!"

"You don't seem to take harsh reality well," he said, shaking his head. "There is no such thing as perfect love, because every individual is imperfect. This marriage that I'm proposing is not perfect, but it will suit us both."

Tomoyo was aghast. "How can you say that? Does happiness not count for you?"

"My happiness is to have a child," he said coolly. "Your happiness is a wedding. See? Everything falls into place. It's like a mathematical equation."

"My happiness is not comparable to Math, you jerk!"

He groaned and stopped the car by the on-shoulder. "Look, Math or no Math, you have to face the truth. It's lonely growing old alone." He cast his eyes on the dark isolation of the woods beyond the barbed wires. "We both need someone to take care of us. A child will do that for us."

"For you, you mean."

"Us." He faced her. "Will you agree to marry me if we stay together for a year, and if we are compatible, we'll stay together?"

"Oh. So the marriage comes with an evaluation period!" Her eyes flashed. "What do you think matrimony is, some kind of computer program? Hiiragizawa Eriol, we have not a single common ground and here you are, asking me to bind myself legally and sacredly with you? Go to hell!"

"I know of one common ground," he murmured, gazing at her intently.

"M-Music?" She was starting to get uncomfortable with the kind of look he was giving her.

He unbuckled his seatbelt and inched closer to her. "Yes…that's another common ground." His hand reached out and stroked her cheeks.

"Um…skin care products?"

He chuckled. "Think deeper."

She couldn't. Her eyes were glued to his azure ones, falling deeper and deeper into its infinity.

"The bond between us," he whispered softly, his words light and hushed and gentle. Each word fell like feather on her heart. "It's ancient. It's real. Don't tell me that you don't feel it." He lightly kissed her forehead as his other hand gently caressed the back of her palm.

Electricity ran up and down within her as her heart began to hammer wildly.

He continued his feathery kisses down to the bridge of her nose, her eyes, then her slightly parted lips. His hand guided the recliner down, and she could feel herself falling back. Her heart began to panic. This wasn't supposed to be happening! He didn't care a bit for her. He just wanted to seed a child in her!

But her thoughts collapsed when he kissed her again, this time, with more urgent fire. Heat began to scorch her again, just like what happened in his room before.

Yes, he was right. The fire between them was real.

The way he devoured her, the way he worshipped her lips…it made her feel desirable. And she liked it. She liked how he never seemed to get enough of her. It made her feel wanted.

Then she felt him stop. When she opened her eyes, he was gazing at her quietly, passion still evident in his face. His hand smoothed her skin as he shook his head. He propped her seat back up, muttering.

She looked at him, puzzled. What happened? Why did he stop?

"I want to do it right. I want to do the honorable thing," she heard him murmur.

And despite of herself, something touched her heart. For all his crude way of treating her, he still respected her, at least as a woman. And looking at him, she once again saw the groom of her dreams. The groom that promised her lifetime bliss.

He faced her. "Daidouji-san, you treat me with hatred and yet, you don't even put up a fight to save your virtue. What do you mean by that?" But sarcasm was not present in his voice. He was simply asking her.

She gazed at him for what seemed like an eternity, then smiled. "Hiiragizawa Eriol-kun, if you…if you intend to kiss me that way everytime…then let's get married."

He suddenly looked up.

"Joke." She smiled uneasily.

He shrugged. "I don't think so." He made a U-turn and headed back to the Daidouji compound.

"W-What…"

"I'm going to marry you tonight. I don't want to wait for sunrise. You might just make things difficult again."

She groaned. "I was just kidding—"

"And I took it seriously."

"Hiiragizawa-kun!"

"Shut up."

"I don't think it's a good idea…"

"I don't give a damn for what you think."

"Eriol-kun!"

"If you don't stop arguing with me, I will continue what I've started but I will NOT marry you."

"You won't dare."

"Try me."

And she kept quiet.

All those hours that she had memorized how she would salvage her pride from this dangerous man was in vain. In the end, what he wanted still materialized.

But strangely, beneath her wounded ego was a happily beating heart.

tsuzuku