The Italian's proposal

Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-four

Timothy

Timothy saw her standing in the entrance and his heart began to try to escape from his chest and embrace her. She was simply beautiful in her wedding dress. She was without doubt the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and at that moment he was sure, that he chose the best person to be his wife.

Even if it was all a sham.

His parents had freaked out when they found out that she was pregnant by another man, for him, that was not relevant: even knowing that their union was nothing more than a means to an end, he did not feel uncomfortable because Melody was carrying another man’s child in her womb, the fruit of another relationship.

Jealous? Of course, he was. But after she confessed to him that she had never felt that way with anyone. He couldn’t blame her, he himself had been surprised when they made love, it was new, different, transcendental, and magical. He had no idea that he was so in tune with Melody, until that moment.

“You must be crazy!” his mother yelled at him that same night they came home from dinner at his parents’ house.

“Mom, please don’t overreact,” he grabbed the bridge of his nose and wanted to disappear as long as he didn’t talk to his mother that night.

“She’s pregnant! Pregnant!”

“I know mom, you’re not talking about a stranger. I know her. I...” saying anything else was still complicated for him. But he made love to Melody, it stirred something inside him, something in his heart, and he wasn’t yet capable of interpreting it.

“She’s a pregnant woman with another man’s child. I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish with this Timothy, I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“Me? Am I getting at something? Mother!” once again he was raising his voice at his mother again. “I resent you talking that way about her. She’s not damaged by being pregnant.”

“I’m not saying that son,” she lowered the intensity with which she spoke to him a little, “I just don’t understand what the hell you’re looking for. This is not what your father and I want for you. You don’t understand what goes with marrying a woman who carries someone else’s child in her womb.”

He hadn’t thought about it, maybe he had, but he didn’t want to give it any second thought. To do so would mean, that he intended to be in the future with Melody, that he intended to bond with her and her child, that he would actually watch over her and be there.

Which was precisely what he promised her.

“Let’s not talk about the future, it’s still many months before the baby is born,” he also couldn’t tell them that the wedding was a complete sham.

They wouldn’t accept her son faking a marriage.

Giving Melody whatever she wanted was easier than eating a red apple at Christmas.

For her he would do anything, and after a month of living with her, of seeing her smile every day, even though her parents and her sister were not part of her life as she was used to, Melody was still looking for a way to smile at the world, at life, to be happy with her son and with what she had at that moment.

That’s why when he saw her looking at veterinary brochures, he thought of helping her to start her own, even if she didn’t graduate, she could start with the premises and then, without hurry, prepare it and get it ready to receive all kinds of clients.

That would help her for a long time, give her a job where she could spend all her time with her son and a better quality of life.

“Timothy,” Hamlet tapped him on the shoulder, causing his thoughts to focus on the now “What’s going on? Something’s going on with your fiancée,” his cousin prompted, looking toward Melody.

He watched her exchange a couple of words with her father, she looked at the chapel, but didn’t see him, it frightened him for a moment.

Then he watched as she turned around and walked out again.

He couldn’t believe his eyes, even what his instincts were screaming, shouting at high pitched voices.

She was getting cold feet.

She was leaving.

His mother, who was sitting next to his father in the front row of chairs, stood up to face the door, as did all the other guests.

He faithfully believed that after the argument he had with his mother, they would not show up. Instead, there they were, watching Melody leave.

The wedding march Melody chose started to play, as she turned and walked away.

Timothy ran regardless, half the room was filled with people he did business, with whom his family had done business and transactions. He didn’t think about how many reporters and gossips were there,

people who only came to see what the mysterious woman he was going to marry looked like. No one knew Melody, and that made him happy, because in a way, all that month they spent together, he had her all to himself.

Even though he never touched her or tried to seduce her again.

He desired her every day of his existence, thirty days of uncertainty of getting under the cold stream of the shower, of doing hours and hours of exercise, as long as he did not arrive at the penthouse and see her there, with her t-shirts without bra, with her loose hair reaching her waist, moving to the rhythm of the music she played on her headphones, dancing as if it were a sensual dance of procreation.

He really wanted her.

More than any other woman. But he respected her position. To become more involved, to make love again, would be to dig his own grave, and what he least wanted, was for her to believe that he was taking advantage of her hospitality, that he wanted to cash in with her body, or that he simply wanted to take advantage of her involvement, without thinking of what they would both suffer when they parted.

Six months. That was all the marriage was going to last.

Six months and he would make sure she had a house of her own, money in the bank to support herself and her unborn child for several years.

“Melody!” he shouted as she opened the door of the limousine, she had arrived in. “Clark! Don’t you dare start the damn limo.”

“Sir,” Clark stepped away from the driver’s door.

“Clark, please,” he listened as Melody called out to his driver. It was an annoying, different, frightening situation.

He walked over to the door where Melody entered and opened it.

“What are you doing?” there was nothing more to ask.

Although his heart wanted to scream out a million questions, they held even more terrifying answers.

“I’m leaving,” she told him without looking at him, though he, despite her turning her face away, could see her tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Amore mio, mia piccola farfalla. che dici?” he didn’t understand. Fear? That would be normal, she had gone through many disappointments in the last few months, starting with an unwanted pregnancy.

But she was not a coward. She stood up to him, on several occasions. She slapped Devina when she thought Devina was setting her up. She defied her entire family by leaving with him, by choosing to leave home and have her son alone.

Melody Redford might be many things, but she was no coward.

“Piccola, why are you saying that? You can’t leave. You can’t... Melody... you can’t leave me.”

“I can’t, I’m sorry Timothy. I thought I could, but I can’t do it,” she was broken, he could tell it in her voice. She has been this defeated, when she returned from his parents’ house, a chaotically silent dinner, a chronicle of an announced death.

Just like the title of the famous writer Gabriel García Márquez, he knew that dinner would be a disaster.

Still, he agreed to go.

Risking Melody and causing her to feel inadequate.

But he couldn’t blame her for wanting to forget everything and go. Even he, with all the money and comforts he had at times wanted to just disappear off the map, to get away to a place where no one

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Because, at the end of the day, that was what he was doing with her.

“I know you need the inheritance; I know you need me. God! The press must be going crazy!” he looked up at the chapel, certainly reporters were scattered about and taking pictures of him.

He was so focused on Melody; he didn’t notice them.

So, he grabbed the door handle and slammed the limo shut. Then he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Clark.

“Don’t let anyone dare to approach this car. Not my cousin,” he immediately thought of Hamlet, who always had worried about him, even when he didn’t even want his help, “let alone my sister-in-law,” he knew Devina was capable of anything she wanted.

That redhead was something to watch out for.

He closed the call and refocused on Melody, who was wringing her hands, anxious and sad.

He learned to read her in those days together. When something bothered her, her eyebrows furrowed so much that she looked like she might have a worm over her eyes; when she was happy, her gray eyes sparkled with the same light that her smile cast. When she was anxious as she was at this moment, she would wring her hands and bite her lower lip until it went from a rich shade of light pink to an almost white pink.

“Melody, honey. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me and we’ll figure it out. Was it too soon to marry?” he didn’t want to rush her, he couldn’t. Melody was the kind of person, who, if he badgered her with questions, insisting for answers she wasn’t ready to give, she would easily take the easy way out... run away.

She looked up at him then, her eyes, just as he imagined, were full of tears to be shed, and others furrowing her cheeks.

“I can’t marry you. I honestly thought I could, but I just can’t. I saw myself standing there in the entrance, heard the music, and realized the reality.”

“What do you say Melody? Where do you want to go?”

“I can’t marry a man who doesn’t love me. I don’t care if I lose all the benefits I was going to have with you, I don’t care if I have to beg Doyle for a new job, I even know that, if I talk to my father, he might... I know he could help me.”

“I don’t understand...” he ran his hands over his face in despair. This was not how he pictured his wedding to Melody. Not like this. Not stuffed inside a limo, arguing about whether it was right to get married or not.

“Your mother...I don’t know if she came,” she said wiping away tears, “I ruined everything. My son unknowingly ruined the relationship with your parents...”

“No!” he exclaimed. She had misinterpreted everything. “What a thing to say, woman! Nothing was ruined. Everything is all right. My mother is there, in the chapel. She came, my father too,” he was starting to despair. His hands were sweating, and the suit was bothering him.

He was dressed in a blue suit and a white shirt; he wore his suit handkerchief in his pocket and a bow tie around his neck.

It was cold outside, he should feel cold, but there was only a terrible fear that made him sweat.

“It is not just that! Your mother looked at me like I was broken down, I know! I’m pregnant by another man who is not her son, I know! I’m a disappointment even to those who don’t know me,” after saying

those words so painfully, he watched as she burst into disconsolate tears.

He gently approached her and hugged her.

“You are not broken. You are without a doubt, the most complete person I know,” his heart was beating fast. Even the thought of pronouncing what his mind had ripened was even harder for him. “Don’t marry me. Don’t. Decide for yourself. Do it for once in your life. I’m not going to force you into anything else.”

She sobbed in his arms, pressing herself against his chest. She trembled uncontrollably, he held her without understanding the magnitude of her pain.

“Your inheritance...”

“Fuck my inheritance, fuck my parents’ ideas of marrying me off! I’m not going to involve you or force you to be with me for six months. I can’t if you can’t. “

“I don’t mind being with you for six months.”

“No,” he said understandingly, “it bothers you to just marry me. That I’m making you do it.”

She was silent for a moment. He almost believed that she was going to regret it, that she was going to decide to join him, that she was going to agree to be by his side, at least for those six months.

“I’m sorry Timothy. I’m really sorry. I wanted to be...” she paused, pulled back a little from his arms and looked at him, just as she had done on several occasions, “I really tried to be what you needed.”

“You don’t have to try anymore.”

He admired her for being willing to go without money, without the benefits he promised her for agreeing to pretend to be his wife for six months.

That skinny girl he’d met in Doyle’s coffee shop was a real gem, a diamond unpolished. But not because she wasn’t worth discovering, but because people have been too cowardly to see it.

Including him.

“I hope you are happy Melody Redford. With my heart in my hand, with my soul on my lips, I wish you the best in this life, because you’re worth it. And don’t you ever...” he put his hands on her face, as she let a couple more tears fall and her makeup finished smearing, “don’t you ever think you’re not worth it. To me, you’re the best thing that could have happened to me.”

“Don’t tell me that, please,” she begged, “don’t tell me that, because, at the end of the day, you don’t love me. Let me go. I hope you can find that woman to be your wife.”

She took off the ring that a few days earlier he gave her, to make their story of being a couple about to be married more believable.

“Here,” she said handing it to him.

She removed the pearls that adorned her neck and handed them to him as well.

She never had ever been interested in his money.

“Thank you for making me feel like the most beautiful woman on the planet, at least for the time you were with me,” Melody reached over and surprised him by kissing him briefly.

He didn’t avoid her, he couldn’t even, even if his life was in danger. He wanted her so badly that, the surprise of her being the one to make the first move, left him paralyzed for a second.

He wrapped his arms around her neck, while he tightened the garments, she gave him, those that meant more than an ornament, they were part of their union.

He kissed her back, frantically, eagerly, with a love he didn’t know he felt for her.

But just the same, Melody pulled away and ended the kiss.

“Timothy...” she whispered looking up at him with eyes reddened from crying and a pleading gaze.

But he couldn’t figure out what she wanted. He was giving her the freedom to choose, the opportunity to leave, even though he would have to show his face to the media and all the guests, including his parents and her father.

“I’ll tell Clark to take you wherever you want,” and he opened the limo door.

He paused to look at her a second longer before walking away.

“Be happy, cara mia.”