CHAPTER SEVENTY
I'd spent the entire day with my family in the hospital and although Xavier came to visit, he left after kissing me passionately in front of my parents.
“Girrllll, you were not going to keep me on the loop?” Anna buzzed the moment Xavier shut the hospital door, the flowers he'd brought falling off the table. The man doesn't understand the word, gentle most times and it makes me giddy and terrified.
“What loop?” I responded to Anna, trying to put on my most innocent face possible.
I was probably doing a terrible job because she gave me a look that said, ‘spill or I'll tickle you to death which was my sister's secret weapon. Even if you weren't ticklish, she'd find that weakness and exploit it somehow.
“She's got a point though, the other day you were near tears at his attitude and now your cheeks are still red even after he's been gone for five minutes,” my mom added, making me groan.
“It's not been up to five minutes!” I protested.
“Of course, four minutes. So? What's happeningggg?” Anna gushed.
“Fine! I'll tell you but I don't want you smiling like that,” I deadpanned.
“Like howw?” She asked, laughter escaping her.
“Like that Anna. Calm down so I can hear this,”
Awesome, my Dad was in on it too. He was already awake by the time we got here and I couldn't believe how fast these drugs worked. It was like magic or something. If we ever got to a point where we collaborated fully with these aliens, I believe we'd be really great.
“Okay, so remember how he was all about making me fall in love with him at the beginning?” I started.
“Yea, I was already picturing my grandchildren after Anna told me all about it,” my mom responded, shocking me.
“Anna!” I whisper-screamed.
“What? Our mother loves gossip, okay? I had to come through,”
I shook my head and continued with my story, a giddy feeling spreading through my chest.
“So, his father actually attacked me and tried to rape me before killing me so I won't make his son soft or whatever and when Xavier stopped him, he put him in jail and woke up the next morning, a whole different person,” I explained to them and with each word, I could see the confusion I'd been feeling all these while play out on their faces.
Afterwards, a thought occurred to me. I should be angrier, I should be pissed and I should demand for him to win my trust back instead of just laying over for him to do whatever he wanted and then coming right back to tell me about us being together for real. I mean, that was the best case scenario but what was the guarantee he wouldn't do it again?
“I mean, I love all of this for you and maybe I'm not mature enough for such an opinion but isn't this a little bit too soon? Like, why did he flip all of a sudden?” Anna said, voicing out my earlier concerns.
I sighed.
“He kissed me before dinner and he said he wants to be selfish and love me regardless of the consequences,”
“In other words, even if loving you would hurt you, he'd still do it anyway?” My Dad asked, his protectiveness coming in full bloom.
“I mean, what could happen? I still feel he's just exaggerating the whole thing or his father really beat him too hard and he's made himself out to be this despicable monster,”
“Babygirl, this isn't beauty and the beast, he's not going to get you to fall in love with him and your love will transform him into a handsome, albeit average man,” my momma said, rolling her eyes at the end.
“What's beauty and the beast?” My sister chorused.
“Oh, you guys are in for a treat. You know, we've never thanked you enough for your sacrifice. Now, we can watch anything we want at any time without all of those bans and restrictions. It's like we're living in a better world than before the aliens came,” my Momma said to me, her warm hands touching my cheeks affectionately.
“Come on, Mom. You've done so much for us these years that if all I needed to do to make your life easier was to marry a bipolar and confusing alien, I'd do it without thinking twice,” I joked and we all laughed, my dad shaking his head.
“Let me put on the movie so you can see how to deal with temperamental beasts, hm?” My Mom said and stood up to go put it on.
We all piled up near Dad's headrest as we watched the movie, a feeling of joy settling in my heart for such a beautiful moment.
***
I finally made it to the office the next day and I met my new personal assistant who was going to put me through the responsibilities of a queen.
But from the looks of it, she seemed to be as clueless as me since the former queen didn't really do much.
“Ma'am, are you sure you don't want to just hire an event planner to sort all of this out? Your hair needs more attention than all of this,” she commented.
Not in a rude way but it seemed she wasn't expecting me to want to be involved in the nitty gritty of the job.
“My hair isn't that bad, Ethel and I will have one but I still want to be a part of it. I went through the previous parties and I just don't like how much waste and misappropriation of funds was happening right under the former queen’s nose. So are you gonna help me?” I asked, staring at her pointedly.
“Of course, whatever you need,”
“Great. First of all, find me another event planner. I don't like the former one,”
“Are you sure?” She asked, looking at me like I'd asked her to cut my head off.
“Yea, what's wrong?”
“It's just that she's the King's sister and removing her from such a position would cause a lot of problems,” she explained, wringing her delicate hands.
I smiled, bringing out the files and magazines that had pictures of the parties that they hosted in the last six months.
“Do you really believe the Royal princess would get her hands dirty with all the work these things entail? I mean, you walked in here expecting the same of me. Now, compare the input and output and let me know if you notice anything different,”” I told her and I waited as she went back and forth, her eyes widening with each page she turned.
“This was more than stealing a few thousand dollars or something, they were buying items worth $1k for over a million!” She exclaimed in shock.
“How didn't you notice any of these though? You worked with them,”
“My work didn't involve anything here. I helped schedule appointments and logistics for the queen’s personal activities. No part of this was within my view,” she answered, still going back and forth on the files.
“Well, that won't be the same with me. How long did you work for her?”
“I started about two years ago. I was surprised when she said she didn't need me anymore because she didn't want reminders of her past life only to turn on the TV and learn about the takeover. We still don't understand why the King was displaced so suddenly,”
“You prefer him to Xavier?” I asked, shocked at the emotional attachment she had with someone so cruel
“Of course not but it's in our nature to be deathly loyal to our king so uprooting that out of the blues kind of left us in a weird state as a people. But it's no biggie, we'll adjust,” she replied, her mood feeling weird to me.
“Anyways, that's what we're working on for now. I'll deal with the princess and whatever she decides to bring at me when she finds out she can no longer steal from the royal Treasury,” I told.
We shared a secret smile that showed we knew and anticipated her reaction. I was giddy at the thought of letting her know she'd been caught in the act of stealing.
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