"When I said that you're wonderful…." He trailed off as he drove, eyes on the road as he spoke.
I turned to look back at him, "I told you the same thing." I cut off, offhandedly.
He rolled his eyes, "The fact is that you have had a great idea for the project." He continued as if I hadn't spoken.
"I told you because you had already said it." I shrugged. "Oh, by the way, Tanya is very beautiful. Very elegant, and well-educated. I understand why you two fell in love." I told him, as I moved some hair out of my face.
He sighed, and shook his head, "It was a brilliant idea to invite them.." He admits, still ignoring what I said.
I hummed, "I am known to have one of those every now and then." I replied, dryly, as I pulled yet another stray hair behind my ear.
He hummed before turning the car back around and heading in the direction of his office, tapping the steering wheel as he did.
I remained quiet, allowing myself to get lost in thought as I did.
As we reached the office, he parked in front of the building, and led me inside by the hand.
"What is this are we going to lift our arms and expect a miracle? We are screwed this project took us a year to complete, how are we going to redo it all in one night?" Ben asked.
Edward shook his head as he led me inside. "Hey, I've got great news. My lovely Ella has just resolved our problems with an amazing idea." He announces.
I turn my head to give him a shocked look, "Me?" I asked.
He nodded, biting his cheek to hold back his amusement. "Yes, you." He whispered, "Everything that we were going to plant in the empty plot of land we will place it in the hotel." He informs them.
Emmett frowned, "How would we do that?" He asks, tilting his head.
"We will build terraces. In front of the rooms, on the side facades, on the roof. The hotel will be completely covered with terraces. You see, instead of building a garden, the plot next to the hotel. The entire hotel will become a garden." He informs them.
Emmett beams at me as he nods, "That is a great idea. Brilliant in my opinion." He says smiling widely.
Everyone in the room began to clap, smiling and beaming at me.
"I like that idea a lot," Rose says, giving me a genuine smile.
"She deserves it. Bravo, Ells!" Emmett cheers, clapping along with everyone else. "Let's start making the plans and adjustments now!" He calls.
"Start organizing. I'll be back in a minute." Edward says as he turns and makes his way out of the room, with Emmett hot on his heels.
I stood there watching as he left, wondering what that was about.
"Ella, what major did you study for?" Rose asked curiously.
"Landscape architecture, I didn't finish. Haven't yet, anyway. " I replied, honestly, before turning to look at the people in the room. "Does anyone want some coffee?" I asked, changing the subject.
Emmett appeared back in the room suddenly, "I do, please." He said.
I nodded, "Does anyone else?" I asked.
Everyone shook their heads, before turning back to their work.
For the next few hours, we worked together to redo the work.
I would occasionally help them with the landscaping, telling them where each plant would work best.
After a while, I stood up, and went to make Edward some tea, to calm him down, as he looked agitated. Silently walking into the conference room when the team moved to work there, before heading back to the desk that Edward had me using.
He gave me a look, before silently serving himself the tea, and turning back to work.
As I watched them continue to work, my personal phone began to ring.
"Hey, Aunt Nat," I sighed.
"Sweetheart, at what time are you and Edward going to come?" She asked, exasperated.
I frowned, as I looked down at my wristwatch.
Shit! It was getting late.
"Sweetheart, the table is set already." She informs me.
"The dinner." I gasped, covering my mouth with my hand.
I turned to look at Edward as he and Rose quietly spoke, still working on the project.
"Aunt Nat, we can't go." I breathed. "There was a problem in the office. I don't even have time to begin to tell you what happened." I added, tapping my fingers on the desk.
"Just so you know, if you aren't here in fifteen minutes. You can't even imagine the enormous problem that this house is going to have." She informs me, calmly.
Though I can hear the annoyance and anger in her voice.
I sighed, "I'm serious, we can't go. Don't get mad." I reply, trying to calm her down.
"Are you avoiding me?" She asked, hurt.
I frowned, "What are you talking about, Aunt Nat? There's a huge problem. If you were here…" I trailed off.
"Alright, I'll go see this problem in person." She concedes.
I gasped, trying to get Edward's attention now. "No, that is not what I was trying to say. Don't come here." I told her, trying to remain calm.
"Why can't I go? I am going to go. I'm serious, Isabella. I'm going to go." She promises.
I sigh, in defeat. "Alright, fine. We'll go to dinner. Don't come, we'll go." I sighed.
I could hear the smile in her voice as she replied, "Okay, great. I'll see you soon." She replies before hanging up.
I drop my head in defeat and hold back a groan as I look up at Edward, before getting up and slowly moving to the conference room.
"Let me explain something to you. The terraces cannot be overloaded with flowers or trees. I agree, and in my opinion, we need an air passage but let's build the air passage so that they don't get in the way…" He told Emmett and Rose.
"Edward." I called him.
He ignored me and kept talking as I stood there.
"Edward!" I called louder this time.
"What happened?" He asked, as he turned to look at me.
"We need to leave." I told him, giving him a look.
His responding look told me he didn't want to leave, and he was about to verbally tell me, but he did promise so I was going to uphold his word.
"Where?" He asked me, surprising the hell out of me.
"We need to go have dinner with my aunt." I reminded him.
He gave me a displeased look, as he turned his body in my direction, "I told you to cancel that." He replied, annoyed.
I put a pleasant smile on my face, "And I told you that I couldn't do that." I replied, sweetly.
He sighed, "Then call your aunt right now, and tell her we can't make it." He replied, tensely.
I sighed and moved in his direction, "You promised that you would go in and have some coffee." I replied, in the same sweet tone.
He sighed, "Do you know what we are doing in this conference room?" He retorted. "Everything has to be ready for tomorrow." He adds.
I nodded, "The team can continue without you. You can finish this later. Let's go." I told him, giving him a look.
Everyone looked from him to me, and from me to him, as he let out a defeated sigh, and smiled up at me, in a fake manner, shaking his head as he got up slowly from his seat.
"Alright. Let's go then." He replies.
I can see the amusement in everyone's faces as he moves to walk out of the room.
"Don't look at me like that." He snaps at Emmett as he moves past him and Rose.
I move to grab my bag and walk out with him.
I can see he's angry, as he walks ahead of me, practically ignoring me as I follow him out of the room.
As we get to the hall, he turns to me, jaw tight as gives me a look.
"If you have that attitude again I will never set foot in the office again." He warns me.
I roll my eyes at him, "Oh? And what are you going to do? Are you going to fire me? Your fiancee?" I asked, tauntingly.
"Do not test my patience, little girl." He tells me, in a controlled manner.
"You know what I think is funny is that you are a very cruel man that no one would be surprised if you do fire your fiancee," I replied amused.
He sighs and shakes his head, "A woman who is engaged to me would not be as rude as you and would be intelligent enough to talk to me in private." He all but growls, taking a step towards me.
I look away, fighting my amusement, because he is right, but pissing him off is like stealing candy from a baby. I couldn't help myself.
Still, I should be taking this seriously. I shouldn't have embarrassed him like that in front of his employees.
"It's the only thing I can do, I'm sorry that I don't live up to your standards," I tell him, honestly.
He sighs, looking away as he sighs, before looking at me, "Where does your aunt live?" He asks, changing the subject.
I keep my eyes away from his face, as I respond quietly. "Where I live." I breathe as the sudden change I feel in between us.
"Alright. Five minutes, and we leave." He tells me, before turning away.
The drive back to my aunt's house is quiet, as I stare out the window.
I can feel his stare on the side of my face as I pretend to find the streets of the city more interesting than anything.
I fantasize about one day being able to travel and escape from here. Live somewhere else in the world as I stare.
"We're here." He whispers as he pulls up to the front of the house.
I nodded, before slowly getting out, and making my way to the house.
"It's quaint. Did you have someone professionally help you do the landscaping?" He asked me as he followed me.
I shook my head as I smiled at the garden, "No, I did it last summer." I replied as I walked up the porch steps and towards the door.
He hummed as he continued to look around.
I led him through the house and up to the terrace, where I knew my aunt loved having dinners. Especially when the night was warm like this.
My aunt was bringing out a bowl of rolls from the inside of the house as I walked out to the terrace.
"Ah, welcome!" She greets.
"Thanks, Aunt Nat," I called as I slowly got closer.
"Hello." Edward greets, as he follows me.
"Hello." My aunt Nat greets back with a pleasant smile.
"Edward this is my aunt," I inform him with a smile, as he raises his eyebrow, and extends his hand towards her.
"Hello, I'm Natalia, Ella's aunt." She tells him as they shake hands. "It's a pleasure to meet you." She adds.
"Her aunt? You look too young." He says, politely.
My aunt laughs, "Thank you, that is very kind of you." She replies, "You two can sit down. I've got a few things to do. I'll be right out as soon as I am done." She tells us before scurrying inside.
We watched her going inside before I turned to look at him.
"It wouldn't kill you to smile a little," I state, flatly.
"What for?" He mumbles, giving me a look.
I shake my head as shaking my head in exasperation, "Oh, I don't know, generally people smile when they're engaged." I tell him. "It's normal," I add.
He hums in response, "I am not in the mood for this, Isabella. We are going to leave in ten minutes." He adds.
I give him a look before shaking my head, "Are you ever in any other mood? I am beginning to think that you have solely one mood. Which is depressing to think about." I snip, shaking my head as we stare each other down.
He raises a brow, "I do have other moods. But at the moment annoyance, anger, and stress seem to be the ones that are coming out. That's usually when you're around." He notes as he rolls his eyes at me.
"Yeah, well, you can't keep living your life with all this stress and you won't get to fifty. You need to get laid, or find some way to work out that stress, it'll kill you if you don't." I told him.
His eyes flashed with something, causing me to gasp as my aunt walked out again.
"Why are you two still standing?" She asks. "Come on, sit at the table." She tells us as she makes her way towards us.
We stare at each other before I sigh, and gesture.
"Sit down," I tell him, as I move to sit down on the other side of the table.
"Uh, Ella, sit down next to your fiancee.": My aunt says, giving me a knowing look.
I shake my head, "It's better if we keep our distance." I tell her.
Edward gives me an amused look, before moving to sit down.
"If I sit next to him, I can't see his face." I stumbled, smiling fakely.
My aunt laughs, "Don't do that. He's a guest. Go sit next to him." She tells me, with a nod of her head.
I let out a long breath before moving to sit next to Edward, who smiled up at me amused. "I thought you weren't in the mood to smile," I mumbled.
"You managed to change it." He replied, amused.
I glared at him in response, jumping when his hand slid onto my thigh and squeezed before he turned to look at my aunt."You have gone through a lot of trouble, this table looks amazing." He compliments my aunt from his seat, as he takes his hand off my thigh.
"Why, thank you, Edward. This is the first time that Ella's fiancee has come to our house. This was no trouble at all. It's been a pleasure." My aunt replies as she sits down.
"Aunt Nat, we can't stay for dinner very long." I finally say as I give Edward a nervous look.
Edward shakes his head, "I think we can stay for a while. Maybe eat some of that salad." He says, fighting back a smile.
"Of course." My aunt says smiling at Edward and giving me a look.
Shit.
She served us some of her homemade lasagna, roasted asparagus, stewed squash, and salad, adding garlic bread before smiling at us.
"This looks delicious," Edward comments as he digs in, smiling at my aunt.
"Thank you. Enjoy." She tells us as she leans back.
I began eating slowly, trying not to panic at the sudden nerves that swirled in my stomach.
"Ms. Natalia, I know this engagement thing has developed quickly." Edward begins after he finishes eating.
I stare in surprise, watching as he licks his lips.
"I wouldn't say quickly, rather than the speed of light." She laughs, causing Edward to laugh too. "It is impossible to understand why you're both in such a hurry. Why are you in such a hurry?" She asks us, eyeing me.
I sputter, for a moment before smiling, "Other people have done the same thing." I point out, as I bounce my leg.
"True." Edward agrees as he places his hand on my leg, squeezing it once, silently comforting me as he stares at me aunt.
"Aunt Nat, there are people out there who have married within knowing the person for two days. Right? There's also people who have married within hours of knowing each other." I stumbled.
"True." Edward says, nodding, as he keeps his hand on my leg.
My aunt simply stared at us, eyeing us, while I spoke.
"We wanted to make it official. We didn't want to go around headlessly." I added.
She hummed in response, chewing through her food, as she listened.
"Look, I admit that this is a little unusual." Edward begins.
"This is a situation completely unusual." My aunt agrees, as she nods.
Edward nods, humming in response.
My aunt waves her hand in the air, "It doesn't matter. What matters to me is to see that you two get along well." She says, eyeing me.
"We do get along well." I replied, stubbornly.
I felt Edward reach over once more and squeeze my leg in warning, but I ignored it.
"We are very happy together. In fact, you know what, Edward turns out to be such a good conversationalist that I swear I don't even want to interrupt him when he starts." I joked, smiling when I saw his jaw clench.
He lets out a strained chuckle, and nods, "Yeah." He says, before smiling widely at me. "The thing is that after Ella put the handcuffs on me I could no longer leave her side." He adds, as his eyes flash again, with the unwritten emotion.
I feel my eyes widen in horror, as I slowly turn to look at my aunt.
Oh no.
My aunt stutters, "The handcuffs?" She asks, confused.
"The handcuffs…" I breathed, as I felt my body begin to react to the sudden surprise.
No. Not here. Not now.
Edward gave me a look of understanding, before turning to look between my aunt and me, "You haven't told her? I thought you told her everything?" He questioned, as he smiled at me.
When he saw that I didn't say anything, he continued to speak.
"Well, what happened with the handcuffs…" He trailed off.
"Tell me what happened. Where did you find those handcuffs." My aunt asked, dully, as she gave me a sharp look, which caused my cheeks to flush as well. "Well, let's say you found them. Why did you handcuff Mr. Edward?" She continued.
"Good question." Edward mutters as he takes a sip of his drink.
I find myself unable to fight the sudden fatigue I feel, and whimper as I feel my eyes drop unwillingly, as I felt my body slump forward.