Chapter 13

Minerva didn’t know if what she’s feeling right now is part of carrying a child or just a normal feeling of a woman who was paid to a billionaire by his late fiancé. 

Tears began to form into her eyes every time she beheld the face of the man she’s leaving with now. He had prepared her a sunny-side egg and granola bars for breakfast before lunging himself to the shower.

            “Darwin…”

            “Hmm?” Darwin just got out of the shower. And Gods above…his body is so wet that she could just dry his entirety with her lips and kisses. Minerva just buried that thought deep into the pit of her consciousness once Darwin found her eyes meeting his..

            She looked away from him as he dried his hair with a white towel.

            “Will you really be my child’s father as soon as my little one comes out?” Minerva frankly asked.

            He halted, as if the entire world froze in time. He looked Minerva in the eye and said, “If only you’ll marry me and your child under my surname, then yes. Yes, I will be your little one’s father.”

            She blinked. Not because of shock. Minerva blinked so that her eyes would not yield those watery sorrows that had wet her face for the past few days. 

            “What if I refused?”

            Dismay shone in his eyes. “Then you will just be mine for two years. You will just serve me in bed for twenty-four months. I will treat you more of a mistress and a whore rather than treat you as a wife. And after those two years, you will be left alone with your child to raise—”

He paused, then held his chin up high as he muttered, “All alone, Minerva.”

A gasp escaped from Minerva’s mouth. “You will be all alone. To live. To raise your child. To exist in this very planet that the people called Earth.”

            Her head just casually nods in understanding. In short, she’ll have to marry him if she wants her child to have a good life—if they want to have a good and prosperous life.  Minerva’s situation is like those crouch novels that she had been reading since teenage years. Technically, she has no choice but to marry Darwin.

            But the fact that she’ll just marry him because of a stack and stack of debts is a wound to her pride.

            “I see…” That was all Minerva declared as she left the table and locked herself inside the bathroom, crying all alone.

***

“I already told you many times, Minerva. Derrick left you to me,” Darwin’s disappointed sigh was pretty much vivid.

            “I know but…I don’t need to be with you forever. I don’t like to be in a living prison until my last breath,” Minerva uttered as she walked beside him in the lush garden of the city’s town square.

            “Living prison? You call me being with you and providing you with all the lavishness and luxury and needs and wants of your life a living prison? Do you have a heart of stone, Minerva?!”

            Anger. It was the emotion that has been flooding and filling Darwin’s entirety by now. Minerva stepped back as she began to be afraid of him—to the man she had once blowed during the late hours of the night.

            “You’re afraid now? I thought a woman with a heart of stone can never feel fear or love or any emotions. How come you start to display one, huh?”

            “Because I do not have a heart of stone!” She wiped her tears with the sleeve of her blouse. “I-I don’t deserve you, Darwin. You’re too rich and handsome and generous and I am just a lonely, destitute pregnant woman who was left with a stack of debts by her former fiancé!”

            Minerva fell to her knees on the ground, still weeping. “I am intimidated by you. Everytime we go out, people look at me as some sort of a gold digger who is just after your money. I may be beautiful but this is my only asset, my only wealth. And you…” 

            She tried to meet him in the eye by lifting her head. “You are full of luck, of rich, of wealth. You intimidate me, Darwin. And I don’t even think I can be a good wife to you, considering that I am only paid to you because of Derrick’s debts. Technically, I am the pregnant gorgeous woman who was paid to the billionaire. I guess it’s much more acceptable than being branded by the society as a gold digger, as an individual who is only thirsty for a man’s money. I am only a young woman who is in a delicate condition who doesn’t even know of her late fiance’s addiction and myriad debts. Our story may sound like a fairytale but I am enough of those. I know that you also don’t have feelings for me as I am not your type, Darwin Dennis Gray. I am only Minerva Miriam Miller, a woman who was left with a child to raise and debts to pay.”

            Minerva lowered her head to the concrete ground again. She can only see Darwin’s expensive leather shoes.

            “Stand up,” he commanded.

            “What?” She tried to not look him in the eye as she hoisted her head.

            Darwin bended and buckled. He met her stare. “Get up.”

            Minerva blinked. Darwin smiled, a delightful one. “Stand up or I’ll kiss you, love. Or would you like me to kiss you as I help you stand up?”

            He was still smiling in that way. Minerva blushed. Her baby kicked but she only flinched. “What? Did our little Hemera kick?”

            “Hemera?” Minerva couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Darwin just gave her daughter a name.

            “In Greek mythology, she’s the Goddess of Day. And she is our light. The light that made our relationship brighter despite the unpleasant beginning of our story.” His smile widened. Her blood thickens.

            “Do you love me, Darwin?” There, she managed to spit that out without dropping her tongue to the ground.

            “I already told you, Minerva. In order to call it love, it must be both of us. So…” Darwin then caressed her nape. “Do you love me, Minerva?”

            She was speechless. Her answer seemed to be swallowed by her and she couldn’t spit it out. He kept on stroking her nape, that means he was waiting for her answer.

            “Yes.” Minerva’s throat bobbed. The sun was shrieking. Her heart was on the brink of exploding as if a firework was inside her chest. She tried to not look like a shaking, delicate dove who can no longer hold the embarrassing confession of her to the city’s sexiest and richest man. Still, she seemed to be a quivering, delicate dove to the eyes of Darwin.  

            “Then I do too.” There you go. They are now confessing to their emotions to one another. Darwin seemed so calm whereas her…she felt like falling from the peak of Mount Everest and a pack of wolves was waiting on the ground for her to land.

            “Really?” It was all Minerva’s mouth could utter. “Well, it’s best to validate if your answer was true and not just to embarrass me under the bright rays of the sun.”

            “Embarrassing you?” He stood on his feet and looked down at her. “You’re the one embarrassing me. We’re in a public place and it looks like you’re the one proposing to me…”

            That teasing smile was replaced with a sweet grin. Minerva took his hand and she rose from the ground. She brushed a soft lover’s kiss on his lips. “Thank you. For loving me.”

            She could ride him on this very spot if he didn’t yield an answer. “Thank you too, Minerva. For accepting me in your life.”

            And this time, they both kissed in a passionate one despite the judging eyes of the people. But the people clapped instead, thinking that this was a wedding proposal.

            Minerva and Darwin just let them clap their hands as their kiss turned into a making out under the shade of the blazing noon sun.