A Bride for a Merger
Chapter 15

The whole dinner thing was thrown upon me all too sudden. I didn't have much time to mentally prepare myself for what was going to happened or what was suppose to happen. Actually, I didn't even get much time to prepare myself whatsoever. I had gotten home about ten minutes after five, and then I had to get ready by 6:30. That wasn't much time, and because we had a little distance to drive, we had to be ready by then so that we would be able to leave home and get to Christopher's family house for dinner at 7pm.

Considering all the rushing, I couldn't help wondering, how on earth I was suppose to get ready in such short amount of time. With all the things I had to do before I'd be able to be fully ready, the time was really too limited for me. I had to replace a suitable dress and shoes, I had to fix my hair, shower, brush my teeth, do my makeup and how could I ever forget about the mini pizzas that I've just heated up in the microwave? There was no way I was going to leave those alone even though we were going for dinner. I was already starving, so I was going to eat them and drink my orange juice, and I was definitely not going to rush eating and risk choking or feeling sick. Christopher had said 6:30 but I was determined that If I wasn't ready by 6:30 and Christopher was, he is just going to have to wait or better yet leave without me.

I really wouldn't mind the latter.

After I've finished ffilling my stomach with the pizza and juice, I headed upstairs to my room. I went to my closet and began looking through the clothes' rocks on different dresses. When Tori was here, she had my entire wardrobe renewed with different sets of clothing. My eyes caught three different dresses that I really loved. I have never worn any of them before so I took them out and placed them on my bed --to try and decide which one seemed more suitable to wear. The first dress was a blue sleeveless dress which actually looked like a blouse and skirt together, with gathers in the waistline and a high neckline. The second dress was a spaghetti strap black dress, which flared off at the waist. And the third dress was a black lace straight dress with elbow length lace sleeves. After much debating with myself, I decided I was going to settle for the lace dress with the elbow length sleeves. The blue dress seemed a bit too flashy for a dinner occasion, and the second dress I realized was probably not a good choice to wear to a family dinner. It was a bit too short and exposed, as it would probably show a bit too much skin.

I went straight to take a shower after deciding which outfit I was going to wear. After I had finished my shower, I got out and after putting on my undergarments, deodorant and lotion, I started on my hair. My hair already had a few curls from in the morning when I had curled it before work, so I only re-curled the ends of my hair and added some hairspray to help keep my curls in place and give it an added sheen. I wasn't much of a makeup fan person that would cake their face with makeup, so I just applied a little foundation on my face then added some eyeliner and mascara to my lashes as well as a natural shade pink lipstick.

I got dressed in my black lace dress, and admire myself in the mirror. The dress reached about mid thigh and hugged my body perfectly. I simply paired it with some black suede pumps. I decided to just wear my diamond earrings and a bangle. After checking my appearance in the mirror once again, I took up my purse with all my necessary items inside as well as my phone, and a black blazer in case I got cold. I looked at my phone and noticed that it was actually 6:43. Christopher is going to love this, I thought to myself. I've made him waited thirteen minutes extra, and I was already mentally preparing myself for his ranting for when I reach downstairs.

Christopher was waiting on the couch in the living room when I went downstairs. As I entered the room, he finally looked up at me and stood up. Okay, here goes his wrath now, I thought to myself again as I saw Christopher opened his mouth to speak.

"Are you ready now?" He asked me surprisingly calm.

His calm reaction and expression shocked me. This was definitely not the reaction I expected from him, especially knowing I took longer than the time he had told me to get ready, and was late.

"Yeah," I nodded cautiously. I was still awaiting an outburst.

"You look really nice." Christopher said to me with a little smile.

What? Was that a compliment I just got from Christopher Lee?

I was convinced that something was wrong with him. I mean who was this guy? And what did he do with the asshole Christopher that I had come to know.

"Uhm... Thanks." I replied confused. "You look good too."

He definitely looked good as usual, even though he was dressed plainly. He was wearing a maroon coloured fitted button down shirt with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, as well as a black fitted pants. "Let's go then?" he smiled at me. "Nathan is driving us. We're probably going to be a bit late but I don't think they'll start without us."

"Oh? Okay." Was all I said as we exited the house and headed towards the car.

Surprisingly once again, Christopher opened the door for me as I entered the car, before climbing in after me and closing the door.I didn't know what has gotten into him of late but I was sure that I have never seen this side of him before. He didn't seemed so bad when he wasn't busy being an ass towards me.

During our ride to his parents house, I was a bundle of nerves. I was extremely nervous about spending the entire evening with Christopher and his family. I kept silent the entire time and let out an inaudible sigh from time to time as I tried to prepare myself for the evening. I didn't know what to expect or who exactly was going to be present at this dinner. At the wedding, I had met a few of Christopher's family members that flew over to Chicago for the wedding, but I just had a feeling that tonight I was going to meet some more that wasn't at the wedding.

"You okay?" I heard Christopher asked beside me.

"Hmm." I responded looking towards him as I was brought out of my thoughts. "I'm fine".

"Are you sure?" Christopher asked again looking genuinely concerned.

'Why the hell do you care?' I wanted to snapped at him but decided to be the bigger person and not stoop down to that level of arrogance.

"Christopher I'm alright, okay?" I said to him.

"You seems nervous." he said to me.

*Well thanks for pointing that out captain obvious!*

"You don't need to be nervous. You've already met my parents and some of my family members before, and they aren't horrible people Allison." Christopher said.

'Really? So its just you then.' I thought to myself.

"I deserved that." I heard Christopher said which caused me to look at him wondering what the hell he was talking about.

"You know, being a horrible person?" Christopher said to me causing my eyes to widened in realization that I had thought out loud. "You said it out loud."

"Well, you are a horrible person." I finally had the courage to say. "You're horrible to me."

"I'm not a horrible person Allison," Christopher replied. "I know it might seems that way but trust me, I'm not".

"Well, you could have fooled me Christopher." I scoffed at his words.

"You can call me Chris, Allison." Christopher chuckled. "And are you always this feisty and witty? I don't believe that I've ever seen this side of you before."

"That is because you don't know me Christopher. " I said rolling my eyes.

"Well how about we change that? You could tell me more about you and I'll tell you more about me. And maybe we'll get to know each other more and we could get to be friends?" Christopher suggested.

"Wow, the great Christopher Lee is interested in knowing me? I'm honoured." I said sarcastically. "But that's okay, instead of me, maybe you should spend more time trying to know the skanks you go about hooking up with at the club at nights."

The look on Christopher's face when I said that, was as if he had eaten a really sour lemon. 'Good.' I thought to myself with satisfaction as Christopher opened and shut his mouth looking like a fish as he tried to come up with words to say. "Don't worry, I know all about that. So you being an asshole to me because you thought being married to me was going to tie you down somehow, was pointless because it certainly didn't stopped you from going around sticking your tongue down different girls throat's did it?" I added, feeling a whole new level of confidence.

"That was only two times," Christopher replied. "It never happened more than twice or again."

"You're unbelievable," I scoffed at him. "But don't worry about it, my knowledge of your little affairs and escapades isn't going to compromise your position as CEO or handling my Dad's part of the company alright?"

"Allison I..." Christopher tried to say but I cut him off.

"Christopher please, let's just go back to us ignoring each other huh?" I said to him.

"Allison you know that isn't going to work." Christopher replied.

"What? It has always worked before." I said to him.

"I'm talking about tonight at the dinner. If we continue acting like this, you know things aren't going to look good and the rest of my family is going to suspect that this marriage was an arrangement or business deal." Christopher said to me. That did make sense. The deal was that no one was to know that our marriage wasn't one of a real thing but a business arrangement. The only person who knew about this being a business arrangement was me, him, my Dad and His Dad, Tori, his mom and I guess his friends. And I had told Bryan a bit of it too. Everyone else in both our familis, thought it was a real marriage of love and we were supposed to keep it that way.

"Well how about we ignore each other until we get to your parents house we figure it out?" I said to him hoping he would get the message to stop talking to me.

"If that's what you want." Christopher replied with a nod.

"Yeah, it is." I responded.

For the remainder of the ride both of us kept silent and Christopher didn't bug me anymore--for which I was thankful for. After a couple more minutes of driving, we finally came to a stop as we arrived at the house. "Well, we're here now. "I heard Christopher said to me.

I sighed heavily as I tried to get my nerves under control, it was time now to face the music.

"Alright. "I nodded. "Okay, I'm ready."