So, Shall We Get Married?
Chapter 24

Alma didn’t say a word, she just played with her doll, while Olivia did the same.

Talia walked slowly behind Olivia’s back, who seemed oblivious to her approach. As she waved her hand at her sister not to say a word of her arrival, in her other hand she carries a rather sharp and very shiny metal scissors.

The teenager thrusts her hand with the bladed weapon in the direction of Olivia’s hair. Very carefully, and with the same scissors, she takes a good chunk of hair and cuts mercilessly. Talia stifles her laughter as she realises that Olivia has felt absolutely nothing, picks up the cut hair and carefully retraces her steps.

She runs down the corridor laughing, hoping and counting on the woman to quit now. If she didn’t leave with that new look she had given her, she would have to take more drastic measures.

Suddenly the blonde heard the echo of the door of the house being locked, followed by her father’s bunch of keys. With her heart pounding, Talia throws away her hair and the scissors and locks herself in her room.

[…]

-Your father has arrived, do you want to go downstairs to greet him?

-I don’t think so,” the girl replies, looking mysterious, which the chestnut girl replaces strange.

-I thought you liked to go downstairs when he came home,” she says, standing up and being watched by the blonde.

-I’d better not come downstairs.

Olivia looks at her half smiling and doesn’t understand the strange change, she wondered if she and her sister were planning something against her. Even though all day they had done absolutely nothing. Still, it didn’t mean they weren’t going to do it before she left.

-In that case, I have to go now. I’ll be seeing you.

-Bye, Olivia! -The little girl smiles at him as she looks away.

Caleb tosses his keys on the table, followed by his briefcase, and just then he senses someone coming down the stairs. Looking up, he sees Olivia coming down. A rush in his heart made him freeze in place as he watched her come down the stairs.

Something wasn’t right with him, and those very strange emotions…

-Hello, Mr. Palmer. The girls are in their rooms,” Caleb blinks and thinks he should react before he looks like an idiot, just as he’s about to do so, he frowns as he spots a slightly unusual anomaly in Olivia’s hair.

-But what’s happened to her? -he asks, puzzled.

-What’s wrong? -She answers, her ears feeling hot.

-Her… her, well, her hair….

-My hair? -He answers, grabbing it. -Oh my God!

Her whole body tensed up and froze, she even felt like her b***d pressure had dropped or something. Olivia looks down at her hair and notices that a big chunk of it is missing.

-Oh my God, my God, what happened? -She wonders in exasperation. What happened?

-Calm down, please, there must be some kind of explanation for this. But please calm down. I…” He tries to approach her, but the brunette recoils.

-Your daughters, your daughters did this…” She looks at him angrily.

Caleb was embarrassed, too embarrassed. That prank had gone too far, they’d destroyed that woman’s hair. How was he going to fix that problem?

The CEO runs both hands over his face… that was a mess, Talia and Alma were so inconsiderate.

-Let me talk to them so that they…

-For what? For them to apologise to me? Your daughters have no respect for anyone, least of all you. You’re so delusional to think they’re going to come down and apologise to me for this.” She points to her hair. “And if they still do, my hair is beyond repair.

-Olivia, please…

-Don’t say a word to me, you can’t control your daughters, and you hired me to take your anger and frustrations out on me. This is too much.” She makes to leave, but Caleb stops her by the arm.

-Don’t go, please let me fix this problem.

She looked into his eyes, and was tempted to stay. To listen to him, to trust him… but her hair was beyond saving, and neither were those girls.

-I give up, Mr. Palmer.

She jerks out of his grip and walks away from him, slams the door of the mansion and leaves the mansion immediately….

Caleb stood there, watching her go. If it were just another situation, he wouldn’t care so much. But it was Olivia, and for some reason, and damn it, he cared a lot about her quitting.

The CEO looked up at the stairs clenching his jaw, those girls had been naughty. Now they’d really outdone their tasteless pranks. He walked up the steps in a fatherly rage.

[…]

-This is unbelievable, those bratty girls have cut off my f*****g hair. I’m practically f*****g bald, that’s all I needed to end my day.

Just as she got out of the car that was taking her home, Olivia ran to her building… it didn’t take her long to get to her flat and lock herself in.

She’d had bad jobs, but this was the worst of them all. Those girls didn’t like her at all, but thank goodness that was over, although she regretted her hair deeply. But that tasteless game made her realise that she would never win over those spoiled brats.

And there was no turning back, he resigned in the face of his boss. All that was left was to give him back the bonus he had and he would be rid of him and those devilish girls.

He detailed the damage to his hair in the mirror, there was no remedy. The only solution was to cut it off. Olivia lets out a sigh.

-My hair…

Suddenly, a light knock on the door made her look up, her heart going crazy in a matter of seconds.

-Caleb! It can’t be him… Oh my God! It can’t be him!” She clasps both hands together and pleads to the heavens.

With fear and trembling hands, he opens the door, but the person behind the door is not his boss. Rather, it was the building manager.

-I can no longer postpone your delay, Miss Millán. If you don’t pay now, you’ll have to vacate the flat tomorrow.

-What?

-What you heard, I gave you a few days, but that’s enough. She’s the only one who hasn’t paid, so you tell me.

She was going to be on the street, she had nowhere to go, she had no job… Olivia flattens her lips and lowers her gaze. She was hitting rock bottom, at which point she looks down at her hair.

[…]

After the scolding to his daughters, Caleb went down to his office for a drink. His daughters were grounded for a whole year if possible, but they were aware that what they had done was very wrong. And now he had no one to look after them while he worked.

Things got bad for him, Talia, who he knew had been the instigator of the prank, had no qualms. She was out of control, and he could no longer replace a way to talk some sense into her.

He thought about Olivia, no doubt she hated her family. Those pranks were too much, and it was no wonder she quit. The CEO picked the bridge of his nose, now what the hell was he going to do?

His personal phone rings, and when he sees that it is his secretary, he frowns. He didn’t want to answer it, but it had to be office business. She didn’t call him unless something important happened.

-What is it?

-Sir, your private plane will be ready to leave tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. Remember, your meeting is scheduled for three o’clock in the afternoon, and the next day’s meeting is at….

-Wait, wait a minute… What meeting? What plane? What are you talking about? -He sits back in his seat.

-Well, the trip you have for tomorrow, at the meeting it was discussed, and you said there was no problem with that. You called him to remind him to take the trip to Los Angeles.

-Trip? -Caleb blinks. But…

-Any problem? They’ll be expecting you tomorrow.

Of course, he had a very serious problem, he’d just run out of a nanny and in the absence of Olivia, he’d have to take his daughters on this trip. But who would look after them while he sorted out his work?

-All right, I’ll be there on time.

-Perfect, I’ll mail you his itinerary.

After hanging up the call, Caleb bites his l*p. What the hell was he going to do? He couldn’t just travel with the girls… He looks at his phone and thinks maybe he could ask Olivia for one last favour, at least for a few days. Then she’d pay him double, and he wouldn’t demand back the bonus he gave her.

But the phone rang and rang and she didn’t answer, it was logical that she didn’t want to hear from him. However, he opted to leave her a voicemail. Explaining and leaving instructions on what he needed from her.

If she didn’t accept, then, he had no idea what to do in Los Angeles with his daughters and work….

[…]

The plane was ready to take off, Caleb waited impatiently for Olivia’s arrival on the tarmac. But she was nowhere to be seen, and he was already losing hope that she would agree to help him these days.

Despite sending a car for her that morning, neither of them had arrived. He looks at his watch for the third time, noticing that it is only fifteen minutes to take off. The CEO denies.

-She’s not coming.

-Mr Palmer, we have to take off now.

-Only ten minutes, you can wait that long.

-The runway will be occupied by another plane, we need to move.

-I said we’ll wait. -Decrete.

He was being a fool, who in their right mind would go back to work and risk their wellbeing? Her daughters saw to it that she never came back, and they did it with all the nannies.

She closes her eyes, and thinks it’s time to go… she turns around and gets on the plane, giving orders to take off. He’d see how he could manage to keep his daughters occupied while he worked.

-We’re ready, Mr. Palmer.

-Go ahead.

-At last we’re taking a trip, together. You never take us anywhere.

-It’s not a pleasure trip, Talia. You two are grounded, so you’ll be cooped up in the hotel.

-Dad, it’s not fair that… -It’s not fair that…

-Silence…

The older girl kept silent as she turned her eyes to the window, and it was there that she noticed one of her father’s cars pulling onto the runway and approaching the plane. Talia was aware that her father had asked the woman for help again, but she didn’t think she would be able to go back after doing what she had done to him.

She would have to be a masochist to go back… and if the person in that car was her, it would be much worse for her.