So, Shall We Get Married?
Chapter 27

The meetings ended late that day, and as much as Caleb tried to hurry things along, it was no use. He had returned to the hotel too late to make it to dinner with his daughters. So he went straight up to his room, took a bath, and then went to see Olivia to see how it went with the girls today, and, well, to make sure his daughters hadn’t been up to any mischief.

With a fresh change of clothes and a little more relaxed, Caleb leaves his room just as Olivia leaves her daughters’ room.

-Mr. Palmer, I didn’t know you had arrived.

-I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead, I was on my way to your room,” he says, stepping toward her. I wanted to know how it went with my daughters, the bodyguard informed me that he took them to a shopping centre.

-Yes, your daughters wanted to go and buy some things,” she looked away.

-Something happened? -The CEO frowned.

-No, everything was fine. Do you know when we’re going back to the city?

-We’ll be a couple more days,” Caleb replies, but he’s unconvinced by her answer. Have you bought any clothes? My daughters will want to go out these days, and….

-I haven’t bought anything.” That really surprised him.

-Why not, you can’t spend all these days in the same clothes.

-I’ll manage.

Olivia makes to go back to her room, when out of nowhere, her arm is grabbed by her boss’s hand. Her whole body tensed, and her heart went completely crazy. It was beating frantically inside her chest, she closes her eyes and bites her lips as she feels Caleb tugging on her.

-Olivia, I’ve authorized you to buy clothes. Why didn’t you? – He spins her around so she’s facing him.

-I don’t think that’s wise,” she replies barely.

-What did my daughter tell you, did she tell you not to do it? -She looks him in the eye, and instead of speaking, she flattens her lips.

-I’m very tired, I’d like to go to sleep.

-Tell me.

Caleb speaks to her slowly as he holds her other arm and pulls her closer to him. They were close enough together to look to others like a pair of lovers, but they were in the hallway, and there… there was no one there.

-Olivia, I wish you’d…” Caleb slides his hand down her arm to the base of her neck, slowly runs his fingers up to her chin, and with the tip of his thumb, lightly touches her lower l*p. I… I… I couldn’t believe it!

I couldn’t believe it! Was he thinking of kissing her? No, no, no, no, in the middle of that corridor? They could even be discovered with the girls sleeping in the room next to them.

If Talia saw that she was kissing her father, it would give her grounds to assert her accusations that she just wanted to get into her father’s bed. And she wasn’t that kind of woman.

As attracted as she was to the man, he was her boss, the father of the girls she was looking after. It wasn’t right to get involved with her boss, she was aware that nothing good would come of such relationships.

But that light touch of his lips made her shudder, to the point of closing her eyes. Who could be so hard as to not feel anything… suddenly, she senses Caleb’s breath very close to her, the scent of his cologne got under her skin, Olivia opens her eyes in surprise when she notices that he was just a few centimetres away from her lips.

Wisdom made her recoil at once, she looked at Caleb nervously and then ran off to lock herself in her room.

-Oli…

Caleb tried to stop her, but chose not to. She looked scared; trying to k**s her hadn’t been a good idea. It was just, he was so confused; first she let him caress her, she even closed her eyes to his touch and when she thought he was allowing him to k**s her, she recoiled in terror.

It was quite possible that he had misunderstood her. But… it’s not possible, something inside him told him that she wasn’t entirely indifferent to him. If it were that way, she wouldn’t have let herself be touched the way he did.

The CEO shoved his hands in his pockets, not sure if he had made a grave mistake in trying to k**s her or, failing that, had let her slip away.

-I’ll have to replace out…

[…]

-Shit! Shit! What the hell was I supposed to do? Are you out of your mind, Olivia? You were going to let that man k**s you, he’s your boss.

The brunette put her hand to her chest, her heart was pounding, it was crazy to feel that way about a man she had absolutely nothing to do with.

-This can’t happen again, I can’t be alone with Caleb. If that happens, I probably won’t be able to get away next time.

She leans her head back from the door, thinking she can’t do that to those girls. If they already hated her, if they found out that she had feelings for her father and that he was apparently hitting on her, they would hate her three times as much.

Her contract was for two years, she did not intend to spend that time in constant argument with those girls. Besides, the degree of viciousness of their games was tremendous. They were going to end up killing her if she ever had anything to do with her father.

-No, that closeness won’t happen again. I won’t be alone with my boss again.

[…]

In the morning, long before Olivia gets out of bed, there’s a knock on her bedroom door. There is a knock on her bedroom door, she jolts up in her bed and looks up at the door with her heart pounding.

She doesn’t dare open it, she was so afraid it was her boss standing at her door.

-Who is it? -He shouts from the bed.

-Hotel service, Miss Millan.” The brunette lets out her breath and hurriedly gets up to open the door. We took the trouble to bring the things to your room.

-Things? -She looks at the bags in the young woman’s hands.

-Mr. Palmer left us an order before he left.

-What order?

The woman holds out some bags with printed names of famous clothing shops, the brunette takes the packages in amazement.

-Thank you very much.

-We are at your service.

After closing the door, the brunette places the bags on the table and looks at them as if they’re going to infect her or something.

-This man, why the hell did he do this? -She eats her fingernail as she looks at the packages.

She had no choice but to wear those clothes, the reality was that she had nothing to wear that morning. And she couldn’t spend it locked up in her room, since she had to take care of the little devils.

[…]

While Tom tried to pay attention to the meeting that morning, his mind kept thinking about the look on Olivia’s face when she looked at the clothes he had picked out for her. But most of all, the underwear. No one could blame him, she had no desire to buy anything with the credit card, so he’d gone to the trouble of choosing for her.

Including the underwear, he wasn’t just going to buy her clothes. Underneath she had to wear something too, didn’t she? He half smiles, he would have given anything to see that woman’s surprised face. She denies something amused, she didn’t even know why she was doing that.

At first he told himself he wouldn’t try anything with his daughters’ nanny, but there he was, looking for ways to get to her. She was very surly, and she was always trying to run away from him. It was ridiculous of him to do that, he was her boss, they had to see each other all the time.

Suddenly, he frowned, the fact that she was running away made him very curious. Why was she running away? Was she afraid of him? Or was it that… at that; Caleb went away, sitting up straighter in the armchair. She was nervous when they were alone together, and the night before he’d given her to understand that he wasn’t indifferent to her.

If that was true, he needed to replace out why she was trying to get away… her motives had to be strong enough to keep her from wanting to.

It wasn’t like him to be like that with a woman, but from the moment he met her, it seemed like a challenge. She was so rebellious, so haughty and her pride was sky high. It was hard to get her to agree to work for him.

Olivia Millán was like a challenge, one that he was ready to win…

[…]

-Where did you get those clothes? Did you steal them? -Talia accuses Olivia in the middle of breakfast.

-Keep your voice down, you don’t have to shout it. You’re spoiled.

-What did you call me? -The young woman stands up, drawing the attention of everyone present.

-Talia! Don’t make a fuss, please sit down and finish your breakfast.

-You are not my mother, you have no right to give me any kind of orders. You’re just a tramp, my father’s dirty mistress, the one who got into his bed as his own slut. It’s because of women like you that my mother doesn’t come home.

Olivia couldn’t stand such humiliation, especially in front of all those people she didn’t know. They had no reason to know such things, and besides, they weren’t true.

The brunette stood up and without measuring the consequences slapped Talia’s cheek… but after doing so, Olivia realised the grave mistake she had made. Retracting her hand, blinking a couple of times she looks at the blonde in front of her. Talia was about to cry, but being exposed under all eyes she held back the tears.

-Talia, I…

The blonde looked at her with such hatred, but at the same time, Olivia could see some sadness in her eyes. She was having such a hard time, and now that she ridiculed her in front of everyone, she was probably worse off than before.

Her words were very cruel, and unfair, but she was just a child… and she shouldn’t have slapped her, it was true, she was nobody in those girls’ lives.

-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… -Shut up!

-Shut up! -He interrupts her, continuing with his hand on her cheek. You’re going to pay for this.

And with that threat, the blonde ran out of the restaurant. Olivia pretended to follow her, but it would be useless, she was so angry that she was probably capable of anything. In return, she asked the bodyguard to follow her. She would stay with Alma, who looked at her dumbfounded.

-Alma, I think you’d better finish eating.

-I think we should go,” the girl replies.

She was too mature for her age, Olivia thought she wasn’t cut out to babysit these girls. She was too hard to control. She felt so bad, she should never have hit Talia. She was the child she was babysitting, Caleb trusted her.