Chapter 41 Real life
Sparklers and applause go off everywhere, after Ben puts the big solitaire diamond on my finger, then my family and his step out of the shadows.
God, everyone is here, my parents, my aunt and uncle, the triplets with their wives and kids as well as Ben's parents and stoic grandparents.
I laugh through the tears just because I'm so fucking glad my support system is here, but so remorseful that they're involved in this farce.
If they knew what I did, what would they say? Would they condemn me?
Ben gets up from his knee and proceeds to kiss me like he's supposed to. Then everyone is around me.
"Oh, I'm so happy baby girl!" Mom hugs me first with tears in her eyes. "Dario already has a ton of designs for your dress!"
A dress.
I'm getting married.
I have to plan a wedding.
"She just got engaged, Phoebe, give the girl a break." My aunt, ever the savior rolls her eyes before hugging me next. "Congratulations baby girl, I hope this is what you really want."
Thunder goes off inside of me at her words, but I just smile and nod. My mother romanticizes everything, my aunt is a realist. She's also the person I have to hide my true feelings from, because she has the talent to see right through a person.
Those are definitely not words you tell someone that just got engaged to the love of their life.
Alessi's daughters run to me and hug me around my legs and wherever they can reach.
Love from my family is all around me, making me laugh through happy tears.
I made them happy by saying yes.
A cold hand takes mine and I turn around to look into Caroline's cold grey eyes.
"I'm so happy I can finally call you my daughter." She smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes.
I hate the sound of that, but like always I just smile and nod like a fucking puppet. Not for the first time I wonder how someone like her could be Ben's mother.
Ben is always warm and kind, and she just looks cold and calculated. I have to endure her, for Ben's sake.
Arcangelo and Lola continue to give us our own private concert that people would pay millions of dollars to see. Again, guilt consumes me like an old friend.
I should be happier. This is what every girl dreams of. The white dress and the amazing wedding, and I know I would have it all.
So I pretend the whole night that I'm over the moon ecstatic. I discuss wedding dresses with my cousins' wives and how they decided which was the right one.
All of it fucking fake.
And I drink way too much champagne, way more than what I normally drink, and when everyone starts leaving, I'm definitely drink.
"Time to get you home, beautiful." Ben takes a still full glass of champagne out of my hand. "My place or yours?"
Ben still lives with his parents because their house is huge, he could never understand why I don't just live with mine where there are constantly people to pick up after me.
There is no way I'm sleeping at his house.
"Always mine."
In the back of the limo, he shifts as close to me as possible, and lay his hand on my leg while he starts kissing the exposed skin of my shoulder.
I'm going to throw up, but I swallow it back down.
"I've missed you so damn much." He whispers in my ear while his hand starts bunching up my dress to be able to reach underneath. "Every moment without you has been torture. Now I have you forever."
It's on the top of my tongue to tell him we're not married yet, we have yet to say I do.
I can't sleep with him, not tonight. Not when I'm still wet from his brother this morning.
I never thought I'd be caught in this position.
When the limo stops in front of my apartment building, the alcohol must have really gone into effect, because I nearly fall when I get out, but Ben catches me with a chuckle.
"Easy girl." He holds me steady in his arms and kisses me.
I let him lead me through the front of the apartment building, and he helps me key in my code to get inside.
I must be really drunk, because when we enter, I can still smell Miguel as if he imprinted himself there.
I trip over my own feet, but again, Ben is there not to let that happen and he steers me to the bedroom.
Images of Miguel and me bombard my thoughts, and I fall headfirst onto the bed. At least I changed the sheets this morning.
"Let's get you undressed baby." Ben turns me around and takes off my high heels before his hands feel up my torso to find the zipper of the dress.
"Look at you." His hands go over my bare breasts after he managed to get the dress off. "You're so beautiful, I can't believe you're mine."
Somewhere in the back of my drunken mind, I hear Miguel's words saying he will kill Ben if he touches me again. But he wouldn't do that anymore, right? We are over, I ended it.
Miguel won't kill Ben.
I see Ben getting undressed quickly, but my limbs won't move. What was I thinking, drinking that much?
My eyes closed, but then opens on a slit when I feel my panties being dragged down.
"Ben, I'm not feeling well." I manage to mumble out, and I try to turn over to drag my body up the bed, but he stops me by pinning my shoulders down and coming down over me.
"Don't worry, baby, I've got you." He kisses me hard on the mouth, and I try to turn my head away, but then his hand is on my cheeks to keep my head still and my mouth opens, allowing him to push his tongue inside.
I'm pinned down, and I'm feeling trapped underneath him, but I have no energy to push him off me.
"Missed you so damn much, please don't ever leave me again, baby." He kisses me softly on my mouth, then on my forehead. "I would die if you ever leave me again."
This is my life, right? Ben is my future, but again I'm feeling nauseated.
He lifts his torso from me, and opens my legs wide. I try to close them, because I'm sore and sensitive and it's not right having sex with him on the same day I had sex with his brother.
"The condom." I croak out. If he's gonna do this, he has to wear a condom.
I feel the head of his cock at my entrance pushing through my swollen folds.
"But you feel so good." He groans, his hands punishing on my thighs. "I want you pregnant with my baby."
Alarm bells go off, and I try to lift myself, but my eyes drift closed just after he seats himself fully inside me and starts hammering into me.