Chapter 21

“Are you two alright?”

            Darwin and Minerva just finished it, as well as their argument, when Damon came pounding at the door, worried of their whereabouts.

            “We just have a slight argument, dad,” said Darwin Dennis Gray.

            A smile crept on Mr. Damon’s face. “Slight argument? I see you’ve both already solved it then…”

            Minerva blushed at the smirk on Darwin’s father and tried to wrap her body with a blanket on the nearby couch.

            “Ahem…” Damon looked at his son, then to her with that teasing smile, knowing of what she and Darwin just did. “Your room is upstairs, the one with a private Jacuzzi. You can ask the maids to take you there.”

            Then he closed the door with a wink at Darwin’s direction. The latter just shook his head with a grin on his rugged face.

            “Enjoyed it?” He turned to Minerva, and the pregnant woman just mouthed a yes. He rubbed his hair and touched his jaw, “I guess we are a bit loud then.”

            Minerva turned to him and said, “You are the only one loud.” 

Then she vanished at the door.

            Darwin can’t help it but smile. Between the two of them, he’s much noisier than her as the latter can just bite her lips. But Darwin…he can be as loud as he wants. This is Chateau Bellerose anyway. He bet that they’re not the only ones making fondue amidst the coolness of the night.

            As soon as he went outside, the maid immediately informed him that Minerva went to their room first because her stomach was aching. An in-house old maid that has experience in midwifery was currently soothing the soon-to-be Mrs. Gray’s condition.

            “Thank you,” he breathed and immediately climbed upstairs to where Damon said their room is. It indeed has a private Jacuzzi as soon as he bursts open the door. The room is bathed in decadence and luxury, not to mention the expensive stones and crystals found on some of the furniture and even at the ceiling.

            “What took you so long?!” Damon’s thundering voice startled Darwin that he almost knocked down a human-size vase.

            “I-it took me a while to look for my underwear.” At least he wasn’t lying, though the dismayed sigh of his father sent his knees shaking.

            “Sit down,” his father commanded.

            “What is it?” He asked as he reached for a wooden oak chair.

            “What the fuck is wrong with you, Darwin?!” His father’s query  was accompanied by a repetitive striking of magazines at his shoulder.

            “I don’t know what you mean, Paps…”

            “You—how dare—son of a bitch!” Damon was panting, hands on his waist. “Can’t you see that your fiancée is pregnant? Why do you keep on fucking her?”

            “Because I want to.” It was a safe answer, and an excuse.

            Damon slapped his other shoulder with an encyclopedia. “Just because it’s not your child that she carries, it doesn’t mean that you’ll just do whatever you want to do to her just because you want to! Remember, if anything happens to the baby, it happens to the mother.”

            Sorrow flicked on his father’s eyes. And he can also feel his eyes, too, surrendering in the grip of sadness.

            “Minerva and I fought because of you.” Well there it goes, he finally managed to spit it out. “I thought that something was between you and Minerva because Jocelyn kept on hinting that there is ‘something’ between you. And the fact that…”

            “That what?” Damon demanded.

            “That you kept on staring at Minerva’s picture every night as if she was mom…”

            “Did Jocelyn really tell you that I may have some romantic attachment with your fiancée?”

            Darwin nodded.

            “I’ll skin your stepmother alive!” Damon groaned.

            “Didn’t you?”

            Damon’s eyes returned to his son. “Didn’t I what?”

            “Didn’t you have feelings for Minerva?” Darwin braced himself for whatever his father’s answer is.

            But Damon just cackled. Soft at first but it suddenly became a giggle, then a boisterous laughter.

            “It doesn’t mean I married your stepmother, I will ruin you and Minerva’s life.”

            “I’m utterly serious, dad,” Darwin breathed.

            “No, your name is Darwin, son!” Then Damon chortled again, as if laughing was more of the atmosphere that surpasses the stern ambience.

            Damon ceased laughing as soon as he beheld his son’s still-grumpy face. “Look son…love isn’t just about sex and lust and blowjobs. It’s ninety percent trust and relationship-building and responsibilities. Not to mention the duty you have for each other.”

            The coffee’s aroma refreshed him, and when he lifted himself from the cup, Minerva’s glorious essence made him straighten his back.

            “I will now leave you two…” Damon remarked as he gave Darwin a pat in the back. “Don’t forget to forbid the snake in the cave.”

            Damon was still laughing even when he reached the hallway. Minerva, too, was smiling—blooming. Glowing.

            She was his morning star, the light of his gloomy life. The sunshine of his storms, the smile of his pain, the water of his fire.

            “I love you,” he declared as he wrapped his hands around her waist.

            “A hopeless romantic doesn’t suit you, Darwin,” she teased, a smirk on her face.

            “Don’t I ?”

            Darwin was so much focused on Minerva’s body for the past days that he forgot that her lips taste the most. Her plumpy, kissable lips were the reason why Minerva was pretty much attractive to anyone’s eyes—women and men alike.

            Never in his life had he felt so crazy in kissing a woman, tasting her lips as if it was the main course of a fine dining restaurant.

            Darwin finally realized that love is more than just asking your doomed half-brother for his girlfriend as a debt payment. Rather, it’s how you managed to keep that girl. To the point that she—both of them—barely even remember that she was just an alternative to money.

            Money may buy someone happiness. But, it was also only him who could decide that—whether it’s a perpetual happiness or just an ephemeral one.