Chapter 7

“Minerva!”

            Before Minerva could turn around who called her, she was seized by someone who has powerful force and a well-built body. He grabbed her by the arm and brought her back to the street that almost tore her right arm apart.

            “What the freak are you doing? You’re gonna killed yourself and your baby!”

            Minerva was panting, catching for breath. She was shaking, quivering and still processing why she ended in the middle of the street in the first place earlier.

            “I…I—I got lost. I was so boiling in anger inside that I did not manage to think that I was already one step closer to death.”

            Darwin pitied her, but at the same time angry at her. His chest was in rhythmic oscillation. She watched his powerful and strong chest go up and down, and it made her go wild…secretly.

            ‘God, he’s so handsome…’ Minerva thought as he touched his chest with one hand, then with another hand until both of her hands were now on Darwin’s beautiful chest.

            She breathed his scent. It was sweet and soothing for a male scent. For a time, she laid his head into his chest and just went along with that up-and-down of his chest.

            After a couple of seconds, or minutes, she did not know, Darwin broke the silence. “Minerva?”

            “Hm?”

            “Minerva, what are you doing?”

            She opened her eyes and didn’t notice that they were situated in the very middle of the hotel’s lobby; an enormous lavish, brightly-lighted chandelier was hanging above them.

            “Sorry! I—I got carried away again. Your perfume is very cozy and addictive and—”

            “Calming?”

            Minerva nodded her head. “Yes. It’s calming.”

            A smile tugged on Darwin Gray’s lips. “So do I.”

            Her eyes widened. “What?”

            “I like what you did too. You, in my chest.”

            Minerva swallowed her words and held all the strength that she wouldn’t end up shouting, ended up yelling like a k-pop fan that was just given a hug by a famous korean singer. But her cheeks…they blushed, heated and stained with red.

            “Oh…” was all her tongue managed to say.

            “I-I’m sorry for scaring you, for suddenly telling you about that. My tongue just slipped and I did not know that you'd react like that.”

            Minerva brushed off the strand of her hair on Darwin’s shoulder. “It’s alright. I sometimes go nuts and end up storming away absentmindedly often.”

            “I understand. It’s just that…” Darwin then sighed.“Are you hurt?” 

            “No. I-I am fine,” Minerva was stuttering.    

            It was the truth. Minerva doesn’t know why her body was aching for him, yearning for him. In fact, her heart began to do the same. But, she couldn’t bear to fall for another man aside from Derrick; most importantly to Derrick’s half-brother who was just standing in front of her.

            She just stared at his chest and he just gazed at her lips. Perhaps Minerva should accept that a bee always craves for another flower when the current one withers away.

            It may be hard to move on, to let go for Minerva. But she will try it. Learn it if she must. There is always a bigger fish, and she is currently being stalked by the biggest fish in the ocean at this very moment.

            She jerked her head and their eyes aligned, their eyes met. Some sort of spark had flickered inside her. Minerva only experienced this once and it was the time she first laid eyes on Derrick’s. It seems she began to feel the same for Mr. Darwin Dennis Gray as soon as their eyes met each other’s stare.

            “Let’s go to the car. I’ll take you home.” He was the one to break the deafening silence. Minerva could have drowned her lips in his if he didn’t speak.

            ‘Damn, Minerva! Why are you thinking such things about him!’ She scolds herself through thoughts. Thank God, Mr. Billionaire here is not a mind reader. Because if he is, she would totally be embarrassed of him knowing that she had been imagining being entered and come by the one and only Darwin Gray.

            Out of nowhere, Minerva began to cry as he was about to open the car’s door. They are alone in the basement, only the wind could hear their conversation if they have one.

            “What’s wrong, Minerva?” Darwin patted her in the back, rubbing it to make her know that she is safe with him.

            “I don’t know. Maybe because of preggy stuff, I just suddenly cry…”

            Darwin scowled, looking wholly confused. But he opened the car and let Minerva sit in the backseat to calm her down.

            “You’re safe with me. Derrick wouldn’t leave you in my care if I was not good with handling women.” He then winked at her

            Minerva gazed at him, a smile tugged on her lips. “Oh?”

            “Yes.” Then he smiled as well. A sexy, masculine smile.

            And just like that, she kissed him. Soft at first, but it eventually became deeper.

            Darwin locked the door and pinned her down on the backseat; him on top of her. Her huge belly could feel his hardness.

            They kissed. As if they were thirsty for each other’s waters, they kissed passionately.

            She didn’t know what got into her but she liked it, liked this. Never mind the ‘Derrick-loyal’ side of her. She’ll put that aside for now.

            Today, she will do what Derrick had made her do even before he passed: to be a debt payment. 

And Minerva Miriam Miller did exactly what a woman being handed over as debt payment: quenched the thirst of  her wealthy buyer.

***

Minerva woke up with her head heavy as before.

            “Feeling good?” Darwin beamed at her, a sweet smile on his face.

            She roams her eyes around and her shout could have shattered all the glass in this penthouse.

            “WHY ARE MY THINGS HERE?!”

            Darwin’s face shifted in a heartbeat; from a tamed sheep to a ferocious wolf.

            “I asked for them to be here because of your condition,” his voice was calm but deadly.

            “I suppose you do not want to come here and go home again every day  with you a few months away from giving birth?” Darwin shows a poker face, a gravely serious face.

            Minerva’s throat bobbed. “Am I supposed to live here from now on?”

            “As I have said, Derrick left you in my care, Minerva.”

            She tried to tear her gaze away from his piercing and dominant stare but she couldn’t, she wouldn’t.

            Those sexy, masculine eyes are like quicksand: it keeps pulling her deeper down until she can never escape.

            “Why don’t you be a nice, obedient girl and marry me?” Darwin’s left hand then caressed her chin. Then it touched her lips. His fingers are cold due to the room’s temperature but his touch radiates warmth. And it stirs something inside her—’down’ there.

            ‘How could you yearn for sex with this man?!’ She scolds herself again.

            Minerva swallowed the words she could be yelling. Instead, she spoke calmly. “Just give me a job and I can live on my own. Unless you gave me a bigger and deeper reason to marry you, Mr. Darwin Dennis Gray…”

            He stood. towering over her. 

Darwin was so tall and muscular and sexy. His voice was pretty much sexier. “Aside from the fact that you have been the payment of Derrick’s stack and stack of debt, you have been spending my money even before your Derrick died as well.”

She was gaping, astonished. He continued, “So tell me, Ms. Minerva Miriam Miller. Tell me why you should not marry me when, even before you swept yourself in front of me, you have already been spending my money like how a wife spends on her luxury…”

            Minerva wished she never said that, she should not say that. She found no words to counter him, words to let him know that she wasn’t a delicate dove. That she did not know any of those—of her spending his money all this time all along. Yet, because of her speechlessness, she just proved that she was indeed a fragile little dove.

            So, Darwin kissed her. It was his turn to initiate a blazing, powerful kiss. He drowned his lips into hers even before she could think of an answer to counter him.