Bound by Tension
32

"Whoa, a visitor." Nikita said, referring to Lila and shut the door behind her.

"Oh, she's here." Lila rolled her eyes, crossing her legs on the couch.

"Of course I'd be here because I live here." She scoffed, walking up to us on the couch and dropped her bag to the floor carelessly.

"Oh, right. She does. I think I forgot that." She replied sarcastically.

Nikita sat on the couch opposite to the one we sat on. "You definitely forgot that." She turned to me. "How's your boss now? Should I be expecting to be an Aunt to a Millionaire baby now?" "Nikita, jeez." I picked a throw pillow and threw it at her.

She burst into laughter. "What? I should expect that, you were literally living with him. By the way, when did you arrive? I was out with my sugar daddys." She winked.

"Wow, such a statement to announce proudly." I replied sarcastically. "I arrived yesterday."

"Oh, so... your boss-don't tell me you haven't agreed to give him a chance." Lila drew her eyes in askance.

"Yes, yes, I have." I rolled my hands around.

A grin appeared on Lila's lips as she jumped to give me a tight hug, almost choking me. "I'm so happy for you!"

"Too tight." I breathed out, gently pushing her away from the hug.

"I'm happy for you too. We'll finally be rich!" Nikita threw her balled hands upwards with a smirk playing on her lips.

"I'm really excited." Lila beamed.

"It's so obvious you are."

"Whoa, my best friend's dating a Millionaire."

"No. She's dating a guy who has loved her for two years or whatever, and is giving him a chance." Lila frowned.

"It doesn't change the fact that he's worth hundreds of Millions of dollars, babe." She returned her gaze to me. "And she's dating him. He should definitely help us out with the house renovation or something." "Nikita, let's forget the money for now." I held up a hand.

"Exactly!" Lila sighed.

"You can but I'm not. Anyway, I'm outta here, I have to have a nice bath to be clean again." She rose to her feet and picked her bag from the floor, shambling out of sight.

"How did you ever become friends with such a bitch."

"Lila!"

"It's not a lie, she's crazy."

"She's crazy but I love her for who she is, as well as I love you for who you are."

She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me for a while before a smile slowly returned to her lips. "I'm still super-excited you're dating Hames now."

"We're not dating, I'm only giving him a chance to prove he's worthy enough."

"Oh, you are. Mom would be so happy to hear this news. Speaking of Mom, her final surgery would be completed the day after tomorrow and we'd be able to visit her. We should create a surprise mini-party to congratulate her on her restoration of good health. What do you think? I'll order cake, and anything Mom would love."

"The day after tomorrow?" I winced.

"Yeah. What's wrong?"

"I'd have to return to work."

"Return to work? You're home now. Don't you have a week break or something?" She winced too. "No, I don't. It's just a 2-day break. It'll end tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" She groaned. "That's so bad. Mom would've definitely been excited to see both of us." "Can't we do it during the weekend?"

"Nah, she'll be home already and she would be rather angry that you didn't visit her on time."

"Hmm... the day after tomorrow..." I trailed off, placing my index finger on my chin.

***

"What's this obviously expensive dress doing in your wardrobe?" Nikita asked, taking out the red dress I had worn to Mr. Carter's company party. "Oh wait, I think I saw you wearing this in the weird party you were with your boyfriend. You aren't married yet and he's already spending this much on you? You're so lucky."

"Nikita, stop searching my wardrobe without my permission." I said nonchalantly, knowing fully well that she wasn't going to ever stop doing that.

"No way I'm stopping that." She chortled. "I need good clothes to wear, I have to attend a party with my girls."

"Don't you have about a billion clothes you buy with the money from your guys and sugar daddys?" I rolled my eyes, applying blush to my cheeks. "Yeah, duh. I can't wear the same cloth I've worn to another party, when I'm going with the same people." She scoffed.

"Whatever you say." I started applying lipstick on my lips.

"Why are you applying makeup?"

"I'm going to the movies or somewhere with my boss." I informed her.

"The movies." She chuckled.

"Yeah."

"Found one!" She exclaimed. I turned my head to her, noticing she had picked one of my clothes. For a moment, I thought she would've taken my fancy red gown.

I rolled my eyes at her. "You're going to pay for the dress if it gets ruined, and ensure no alcohol gets on it, or anything stupid."

"Boring." She replied, walking past my pile of clothes she had dropped on the floor. Gosh...

"Pick those up." I said, finalizing my makeup and rose to my feet.

I sauntered to the bed to pick my purse from it. "Hames should be here anytime soon." I said to myself.

"That's good." She commented.

"Bye," I waved at her, took my leave from the room and strolled down the stairs.

I slipped my phone out of my purse to take a few photos of myself again, hoping to post it on my social media accounts later. I was definitely going to post one with Hames today. My followers might go crazy, who knows? I strutted to the door and unlocked it. At the exact time I turned the door handle, the doorbell rang.

I pulled the door open to reveal Hames wearing a blank expression.

"Hi." He said, glancing at me from head to toe then returned his eyes to my face. "You look amazing."

"Thank you, you look..." I trailed off, only noticing that he looked... hot! His biceps were almost bursting out of his shirt which hugged his well-defined body that was quite disturbing to stare at, "...good." I completed my sentence. "Thank you too. Can we leave now?"

"Yeah, sure."

"After you," he stepped back.

"Oh, thanks." I replied indifferently, stepping forwards and shut the door then started walking towards his car sitting right in front of our building. I could tell he was walking behind me. I thought he didn't like people walking in front of him. I stopped by his car and he helped me out with opening the door before I could. Was he always like this or what?

I got into the car, then he followed suit and shut the door.

"Drive," he said to the driver who simply nodded and started the car.

I was seriously going out with this man? I still prayed this wasn't going to be a harmful choice.

Okay, no harm in trying.

***

"Wow, dinner. Cool." In an obviously CLASSY restaurant. It was actually cool, though I had expected to go to the movies.

"I know it's not where you expected. I don't watch movies, I get bored while watching them so I decided to have this restaurant for two of us only, for the entire night."

"Oh," I muttered. How could a human being be bored of watching a movie? Was he human?

"But if you still want to watch a movie, I ensured that the restaurant installed a center where we can watch one together, alone, for tonight."

"Really? That'd be nice. I'm craving for a movie."

"What genre?"

"Romantic, duh." I picked my glass of juice and connected it to my lips to drink its content.

"Oh yeah." He nodded, also picking his glass of wine.

We dropped our glasses simultaneously and resumed eating our meal for the next couple of minutes in total silence.

Once again, another boring dinner with this weirdo.

The silence still remained till we finished our meal then a Waiter was called to clear our table.

"You're very boring, you know?" I commented, resting my elbows on the table and intertwined my fingers to rest my chin on my knuckles.

He still remained silent for a while then chuckled. "I definitely know."

"And I don't like boring men." I maintained a straight face.

He furrowed his forehead. "I can be not boring for you." He shrugged. 'Not boring?'

"Really?" I scoffed. "How can you be on a date with a woman and not utter a single word, that's very boring."

"Uh... it's—it's not I'm... wait, you didn't utter a word either." He shrugged again.

"Duh, I'm not the one who claims to be madly in love." I rolled my eyes.

"Fair enough." He nodded. "Okay, what would you like to know that'd be convincing enough for you?"

"I can't make you speak, you should know what to say, I shouldn't force words from your mouth."

He went poker-faced again then rose to his feet and lifted his chair to drop it beside mine and sat on it again. My breath seized at his extreme closeness.

I tried to shift my chair from him but he stopped me by holding my hand. "Don't move." He said and surprisingly wore a smile. His smile was quite inviting. "Okay, I won't." I exhaled.

"So..." his smile became even wider, and my heart was beating faster at the uniqueness of his smile. "I'm Hames Hendrix, I'm 26, your boss. I've loved you for almost two years." Could he just skip this? I already knew all of this. "I've always been boring but I assume I was more fun as a kid.

"I once had a girlfriend, Lorraine Asher," he chuckled. "You won't believe she was beautiful but very crazy. We only dated because she was a supermodel and I'm rich, so due to internet matchmaking, we became a couple."

"Due to the internet? So you didn't love her?"

"Definitely not."

"We always fought and-" he paused. "I shouldn't be discussing this about my ex-girlfriend with you." He laughed. "Definitely not." I chuckled.

"Okay, something different. When I was young, Kade and I always thought we would build a ship that can fly then put our parents, mostly my Dad, in it, so it could take them to space without anyone knowing."

"A ship that can fly?" I laughed. "To take your parents to space? That's crazy."

"I know that." He joined me to laugh.

"Why'd you want your parents to leave?"

"My father was terrible." He began fiddling with my fingers, only reminding me that he was still holding my hand. "He was the most terrible human being I had ever seen but lucky for us, he died." He smiled. Whoa, how terrible was his father?