Chapter 16

Sitting outside of the house that was supposed to be called home, Lilianna cut the ignition and stared up at it for a while. It was way past midnight and, more than likely, Roman was sleeping in what was supposed to be their bed. The beautiful diamond ring that once glittered from her left ring finger slowly turned in her right hand between her fingers. Until Lilianna knew what their future held, she wouldn't wear the ring and had come to that conclusion on the ride to Roman's house. This wasn't her home – not yet. Possibly ever. Not if he kept putting his mother above her. Lilianna could feel her heart shattering in her chest at what she was about to do, but it had to be done. Calling off the wedding was the only way to open Roman's eyes to hopefully make him see all he'd done wrong. If not, she was finished with him and exit his life forever.

The gauntlet was about to be thrown down.

"No more stalling. Just get this over with." Lilianna muttered to herself and stepped out of the car, sliding the diamond ring back on her left ring finger for the time being.

Unlocking the front door, Lilianna put the code to the security so it didn't go off and walked inside, shutting it silently behind her. The house was pitch black and quiet, which told Lilianna she would have to wake Roman up to talk. That wouldn't go over well, but they had to hash this out before going back on the road. Personal issues couldn't be involved in their professional lives; she was a firm believer in that. Squaring her shoulders, Lilianna headed down the long hallway to the far back master bedroom and could hear Roman's snores. Apparently, their slight separation and disagreement over everything regarding the wedding didn't stop the idiot from having a good night's sleep. Lilianna wanted to smack him with a pillow or smother him with it because she hadn't slept hardly at all since the dress shop blowout.

Turning the light on, Lilianna did the only thing she could to wake the Samoan out of his slumber and slammed the bedroom door shut as hard as she could. Sure enough, Roman bolted upright in bed with his wild black mane and wide stormy greys, bellowing at the top of his lungs. Lilianna would've laughed if she wasn't so disgusted and fed up with everything going wrong in her life lately. She merely stood there, folding her arms in front of her chest and waited for Roman to stop bellyaching about the light blinding him along with the big bang of the door slamming shut.

"What the FUCK, Lilianna?!"

"You were sleeping deeply and I figured this was the only way to wake your ass up." Lilianna retorted swiftly, not a hint of regret or apology in her voice. "We need to talk. And it's not going to wait until morning. It's going to happen NOW."

Roman growled, not amused and shoved his black mane from his face, glaring at his fiancée contemptuously. "Didn't think you'd be coming home at all. What do you wanna talk about?" He yawned loudly, reaching down to scratch himself beneath the thin white sheet and rubbed his temples with his fingers.

She scoffed, rolling her eyes and didn't appreciate his cold attitude towards her. "If you don't know what this is about, you've been knocked upside the head one too many times in the ring. You KNOW what this talk is about, Roman. Don't act stupid. We need to hash this out and, for starters, this isn't my home."

"What the hell are you talking about? Of course it is!" Roman scrubbed a hand down his face, wishing they could have this conversation when he was fully awake and coherent.

"No – no it's not. None of this belongs to me. Do you know where I feel my true home is? Queens, New York in the penthouse I gave up to be with you. To move in here with you and start a family. To MAKE this my home with time and love built into it. That's all I wanted to do was marry you and start a family in this house. I didn't care how we did it, I just wanted you, Roman." Lilianna could feel the tears stinging her eyes as she slipped the diamond ring off her finger and set it gently on the bed beside a startled Roman. "But now, after seeing what your family is like and how you're around them, especially your mother, I'm having serious doubts about us…"

Swallowing hard, Roman's eyes followed every movement she made and felt his heart sink to the pit of his stomach at the sight of the diamond ring he bought her sitting beside him on the bed. "Lili…" He shut his eyes and looked away from the ring, not sure what else to say. "We're done then, that's what you're saying? All because my mother was trying to give us a beautiful wedding, you-"

"No." Lilianna could feel her frustration boiling and gripped her blue hair in her hands. "Once again, you're missing the damn point! I'm not calling this wedding off because of your mother. Yes, she's caused a lot of problems between us lately, but it's not her fault. It's YOURS." Pressing her hands together in front of her, Lilianna folded them to rest against her forehead before dropping them in front of her. "I don't want to marry a man who puts his mother before his wife and future mother of his children. Or anybody for that matter. I love how close you and your mother are, I really do. It shows what a great family man you are, but…Roman, the SECOND your mother got involved in this wedding, everything went to shit and you took her side on everything. YOU DID. This isn't her fault and it's not my fault…it's YOUR fault. You are the reason I'm calling the wedding off. If you want the engagement to be called off too, you need to tell me because I'm fed up with the bullshit. The only way I will marry you is if we elope. I don't want a wedding anymore and I damn sure want your mother to keep her nose out of our business from now on."

"Then why did you take the ring off if you still want to be engaged to me?" Roman didn't think it'd come to the point where Lilianna would actually give him an ultimatum and call their wedding off. "My mother is a huge part of my life, Lilianna. That's not going to change. I want to marry a woman who gets along with my family and feels accepted."

"Did your precious mother tell you what she said to me at the dress shop?" Lilianna watched his thick black brow rise in question and narrowed her eyes. "That would be a no. She told me that I didn't deserve you and she wished you would marry someone else and you could do much better than me."

Roman remembered his mother spatting that at him at the dress shop, or part of it anyway, but she'd been upset at the time. "She wasn't thinking clearly and after we talked…"

"Face it Roman, your mother has NEVER accepted me into your family. She's put on a hell of an act and you can't tell me differently. Even Jecina saw it at the dress shop! She couldn't believe the way Lisa was treating me and it was all because of my hair. Hair that is attached to MY skull! She kept commenting how it would clash with the dress and, last I checked, white goes with ANY FUCKING THING! So don't sit there and tell me she wasn't thinking clearly because that's a copout and a lie."

It was too late for this and Roman had heard enough bad talk about his mother. "What do you wanna do, Lilianna? What do you want me to do? Cut my mother out of my life and be completely devoted to you? Because I can't do that." His voice was low and gruff, full of exhaustion.

"I never said that! I never once told you to cut your mother off! But goddamn it, Roman, this was supposed to be OUR wedding, not hers! And you didn't have a problem with my hair until she said something! Just like you had no problem eloping until she said something with her fake crocodile tears!" Lilianna shouted, not able to keep her temper in check and tossed her hands up in the air. "I want you to choose me over her, yes! Because that's what you do when you marry someone. You put each other FIRST. You know what I went through with Randy and how that big extravagant wedding crashed and burned. He left me at the altar, if you don't remember. I didn't even want a wedding and the only reason I agreed to one is because you gave me a sob story about your mother! How about you get your head out of your mother's ass and start putting me, your fiancée and love of your life, FIRST?"

Standing from the bed, Roman knew sleep wouldn't come easily to him now that she'd woken him up and stretched his arms in the air. "If we don't get married now, there's no point in continuing the charade. This wedding has cost my family a lot of money and canceling it is gonna be a pain in the ass. So…we either go through with it or just call it quits." Maybe it was for the best the blowup happened because now Roman had seen a side of Lilianna he didn't like or want to marry.

The way he spoke to her just angered her further. He was acting like all of this was her fault and trying to play the victim! What the hell was wrong with this man? Didn't he hear a word she just said about not wanting a big wedding and wanting to elope? Was the idea of eloping really that horrible? Frustration glittered in her watery golden brown eyes as Lilianna stared at the man she once thought was the love of her life. The same way she thought of Randy Orton at one point. Roman didn't care about her, not the way she thought and the heartbreaking realization dawned on her on what just happened.

"If you won't take my feelings into consideration about having a big wedding and not elope…then I'm done, Roman. I can't do this anymore. I can't pretend I'm happy when I'm not. I love you and I will always love you…" Lilianna trailed off, taking a step back toward the open bedroom door and blinked as huge tears slid down her cheeks. "But I love me more. I won't – I REFUSE – to put a man before myself ever again. If anything, the man I end up being with and marrying should put me first. And you can't do that. So I guess we'll call the engagement and everything off altogether then."

Her words pierced right through him like a sharp knife and all Roman could do was nod silently, tears of his own burning in his eyes. "If that's what you want, I won't stop you." As much as he loved her, there was no point fighting for a woman who didn't want to be with him anymore and couldn't accept the way his family operated. The fact his mother didn't like Lilianna was a huge factor in not fighting for her as well.

"You never loved me, did you? You only loved the idea of having a wife at your beck and call and having a family. But you never actually loved ME or else you wouldn't let me walk out or end this so easily." Lilianna accused, feeling disgusted with herself for letting another wrestler enter her life and destroy her emotionally and mentally the way Randy did. "I'll send for my things in a few days once I find a place. You can take care of all the cancellations for the wedding, I want no part of it."

"My Mom already started the process. I'll let her handle everything since she planned everything." Roman replied solemnly, refusing to look back at the blue haired woman and had to wonder if what she said was the truth.

Maybe he was only looking for a woman to fill the role of wife and didn't care who it was. Hell, he didn't know anymore and felt more confused than ever, pinching the bridge of his nose to keep the tears at bay. Some part of him did love Lilianna, but it wasn't nearly enough to fight for her, not after what happened between her and his mother at the dress shop.

"I'm sure she did. Goodbye Roman."

"Goodbye Lilianna."

Lilianna couldn't stand being in the same room, let alone the same roof, as him and had to get out of there. Not bothering to grab any of her belongings, Lilianna had more than enough money to replace all of it and walked out of the house in tears. She didn't look back, just kept putting one foot in front of the other until she arrived at her vehicle, immediately sliding behind the wheel. It was only after she drove away from the house did Lilianna have a complete breakdown and had to pull over, the tears temporarily blinding her.

She hit the steering wheel repeatedly, screaming at the top of her lungs and gripped her hair tightly in her hands, almost to the point of ripping it out of her skull. Her talk with Roman hadn't turned out the way she thought and Lilianna was officially alone again with a shattered mangled heart and spirit. How was she supposed to come back from this? Roman promised her the world and then yanked it away from her when she didn't agree with his MOTHER of all people!

"Never again…" She whispered vehemently, coughing and breathing heavily from hitting the steering wheel a couple dozen times. "NEVER AGAIN!" The whisper turned into another shrill scream as she began hitting the steering wheel again.

The vow she'd made about wrestlers was cemented in stone after what happened with Roman. He knew her past with Randy and didn't care. She was stupid to believe a word he said along with all the 'I love you's' and sweet innuendos. All those times he whispered how he couldn't wait to be married to her and have babies…to start a family together…had gone up in flames. She gave everything to Roman the same way she did Randy and how did he thank her? By burning her and driving that knife of betrayal in her back deeper just like Randy did.

For the past 2 years, Lilianna fell into a world of lies and deception from Roman Reigns.

It would never happen again as long as she lived.