SAM
My body is shaking with fury when I see Gabrielle at my apartment door. Those things she did to my relationship, to Phoenix, and to myself make me want to strike into her, grab her hair, and drag her down to the lobby, then kick her to hell.
I don’t know what stops me from doing things like that, perhaps I’m a better person than her? If this only happens before Phoenix is back into my life I already punch her face.
But she is not the bitchy Gabrielle-the insensitive, empathetic, and vicious woman. Right now, she cowers down while Phoenix is grabbing her and growling on her face.
“Let her talk, Phoenix,” I say calmly to Phoenix while rubbing his back. He is losing his temper on her, but I can’t blame him though because we both had suffered a lot in her hands.
“I’m done listening to her, Samantha. She almost ruined our relationship, and now that we are back together, she shows up again, and this time in our doorstep.” He’s breathing heavily, and I can feel him shaking with anger.
“I want to hear whatever she’s going to tell us. I think that will clear the issue, and I want to figure out myself if what she’s saying is true.” I steal a few glances to Gabrielle who’s wrapping her arms around her body-she looks terrified.
“I won’t stay long. I just want to let you know something.”
Phoenix snorts.
“Come in, Gabrielle. Are you sure you are not bringing explosives or a gun with you?” I ask cautiously.
She raises her arms. She has only a small clutch bag, and I think even a small handgun won’t fit into it.
Once we settled in on my new couch, Phoenix doesn’t waste any moment.
“Why did you say your mother is involved in sending flowers to Samantha?” He doesn’t look pleased with me for letting Gabrielle in, but he respects my decision. He’s still glaring at her most of the time.
“First, talk from the very beginning, Gabrielle. I have all the time to hear them from you,” I say with an unyielding tone.
“I found out Suzanne was sleeping with Henry two months before Phoenix found out that I was cheating on him. Mom let me do it because she wanted me to break up with Phoenix,” she says with a low voice without looking at both of us. I think she feels guilty.
“Why did you listen to her?” I ask quickly.
“She abused me since I was still young-mentally, emotionally, and physically if she wouldn’t be satisfied with what I did. I was so terrified to say no. Dad thought she was the best mother for me because she behaved like a perfect mother role when Dad was around. Dad saw some bruises on my skin when he asked. Suzanne answered it for me-that I fell or, got an accident at school P. E, something like that.”
I hug myself, feeling goosebumps erupt all over my body.
“When I started high school, she controlled the food I ate, I couldn’t drink sodas or eat candies or chocolate, sometimes I still sneaked out and bought and ate them at the store or in the coffee shop. She was toying with me-to dress like this, eat like that, wear like these, and even the guys I dated.”
“What about me?”
My head snaps to Phoenix who’s sitting at my right while Gabrielle is sitting on my left.
“She liked you because your family was rich and famous. She asked me to date you and broke up with my boyfriend in my freshman year. That was how I met you, but it wasn’t like I played with you, Alex. I really loved you, for almost two years everything was real until my mom met your dad. She would blackmail me if I wouldn’t break up with you. I was also brokenhearted when we broke up, I swear to God, I loved you.”
“Dad left my mom when he found out mom was cheating on him. Dad helped me with that apartment and all my bills, but Mom wouldn’t just let me go. She drugged me once and let some…”
Her tears fall like streams from her eyes. Her lips quiver, then she shakes to cry.
I freeze in my seat. Oh, my God!
“S-she. She let them rape me and took a video of me. T-that’s when I was still with Alex. She said she was going to send it to Alex if I would not do what she wanted. That was why I slept with Mark, that day was the first day I slept with him, I swear. I lied to you that I was going to my parents because I knew if I didn’t watch your game after that, you would come to my apartment.”
“So, it was all set up, Gabrielle?” I ask.
She nods, sniffing. I take the tissue box on my right side and offer it to her. I don’t know why I feel bad and just my brain told me to listen. My heart hurts. I don’t know if she is just acting all of these to get our attention, but she looks so broken and lost.
“She still has a copy of that video, but now I lost everything, and I don’t care even if she will spread it all over the internet.” She sniffs again.
“She has lost everything. Henry found out that she was cheating on him. Now that she has nothing but a drug dealer who let her sell drugs, she still holding grudges against your mom, and Sandra.”
Phoenix stiffens at mentioning his sister.
I grab his hand on his lap, squeezing it. How can that evil of a woman know everything about Williams?
“How your mother found out about Sandy?” Phoenix growls.
“She knew since before, but Sandy didn’t want to do with your dad. So, she leaves her alone until she found out that Sam and Sandy are friends.”
“What she wants from me?” I ask annoyingly.
“You are the reason why Phoenix didn’t take me back, duh!”
I chuckle.
“Like I will take you back!” Phoenix snaps.
“I know!” She snaps back.
“How did you know she was the one who sent the fake bomb to Sandy’s apartment?”
“She asks me to befriend Sandy. She knew Sandy is Williams and Henry left money for her.”
“So, it’s all about money, then?”
“Yes, Sherlock!”
“Stop being sarcastic, Gabrielle! You are in my building remember!” Phoenix warns her.
“Where is she now?”
“She left her old apartment since I succeed with the last assignment she gave me. I didn’t meet her last week when I refused to do what she asked me to.”
“Why are you telling us all these things, Gabrielle?” Phoenix asks and watches Gabrielle like a hawk.
“I want to do the right thing. I don’t know why I feel guilty these days that’s why I come here. I found out that she was not my birth mother.”
I gasp.
She snorts, “Yeah. Life is a bitch. After all those things I did, I found out she isn’t my real mother. No wonder she did what she did to me. My dad is an idiot too. He was afraid that I would hate him if I found out my mom was a drug addict,” She explains with all the pain in her voice.
“I’m so sorry, Gabrielle,” that’s all I can say because I am still too shocked at what I learned about her life.
Phoenix begins placing the pot with half full of water on the stove. He suggested cooking us a cheese Manicotti with fresh tomato sauce. I start chopping the red tomatoes into small pieces when I feel his gaze on me.
I stop and look at him. “What? Don’t you have other things to do?”
“Just sit, princess. I don’t wanna see you cutting your finger off because that’s not how to chop.”
I roll my eyes, placing down the knife on the chopping board with half chop tomato. “I did chop many times, and I haven’t cut my fingers even once. Show me then, and I want to learn.”
He guffaws, “We will be starved to death today if I will teach you now because I can see that cooking is not your cup of tea. You look good in the office and reading books and stuff like that.”
“You’re over-exaggerating it. I’m a quick learner, Phoenix. Don’t underestimate this beauty.” I gesture my hand under my chin.
He chuckles, shaking his head, “I am not, my love. We have the rest of our lives learning new things together, and I’d love to teach you how to chop, cook, bake, and everything you wanted to learn.” He moves closer, giving me a quick kiss on my lips.
After Gabrielle’s visit three days ago, our lives are back to normal. I heard Phoenix talking to Logan over the phone about watching over Gabrielle because being paranoid as Phoenix, he thought Gabrielle’s life was in danger.
“We didn’t talk about wedding plans, princess.”
I freeze in my seat. My heartbeat races a little bit.
I woke up lazily two days ago.
“Love, what time is it? Didn’t hear my alarm goes off,” I say in between yawns.
I stretch my limbs while his arm still draping on my waist. He doesn’t answer. I rub my still half-closed eyes with my fingers when I feel something heavy on my finger and it’s shining right into my eyes.
My half-closed eyes grow wider, and my mouth gapes open. I raise my hand to take a closer look at the engagement ring on my finger and laugh my ass out loud.
I feel him kissing my shoulder, and when I look at him over my shoulder, I see the most beautiful sunshine in the morning-he has the most beautiful smile on his face.
He hugs me tighter. “Samantha Lorraine Anderson, I’ve never been happier in my entire life until I met you almost five months ago. The moment I met the gaze of those beautiful blue eyes, I certainly knew that you were made for me-you are to love me, you are to fill the empty space in my heart, you are to grow old with me, and to be the mother of my children. I’m willing to take losses of our nonsense banters each day if we end up in our bed tangled together every night like this. As cliché-ness as it sounds, but I can’t live without you.”
I turn my body to face him and look at him straight into his eyes, and I know I look like an idiot because my facial muscles are aching for stretching so long. Well, it’s good to start a day with a smile, right?
“Will you be my life partner, my wife? Will you marry me, princess?”
I sigh slowly like daydreaming, still wearing a grin on my face and batting my eyelashes at him.
“Yes! King of cockiness, I will marry you.” I press my lips on him. “I love you so much. So so much, Phoenix. We are getting married or not I’m still willing to be with you for the rest of my life even we banter over nonsense.”
“I love you too, so much larger than the universe. So fuckingly in love with you!”
“Samantha?”
I blink. “Yeah?” He is groaning, moving to the front of the stove, throwing the manicotti pasta into the boiling water. Then he announces, “I wanna get married sooner.”
“How soon?”
“Very soon.”
“Why very soon?”
“Why not?”
“Changing your mind?” he asks with furrowed his brows, staring at me intently.
He swallows hard with a hint of pain in his eyes.
I stand up from the stool, move closer to him, and close the gap between our bodies. I cup his face and kiss him with all my heart, then I move my lips slowly, enticingly, and chastely until he kisses me back. Our kisses heated, turns hungrier, wilder, and fiercer.
I’m already pressed against the countertop, and I can feel him hard, pressed against my lower abdomen. Phoenix cups my ass, and I wrap my legs around his waist instantly as he moves and places me on the top of our kitchen island.
Without breaking our kiss, I unbutton hurriedly his jeans while he’s busy unbuttoning mine. In an instant, my shirt flies and also my bra, then his shirt follows.
“I want to eat you,” he says with a guttural voice.
“What about the food?”
“How about it?”
“Look?” I point at the pot with the half of my bra is cook inside. His head snaps to the pot, looks at me instantly, then barks out laughing.
He throws his head back and slaps my thigh playfully. “You love to ruin our moment with your lame jokes.”
I cup his face and kiss him again that’s when I hear his phone ring and mine simultaneously.
We stop kissing and groan together.
“Fuck-blocker!” We mutter.
He moves away with a still full-mast erection, then pauses when he notices me ogling at him.
“Don’t laugh!” he says, warning me.
I nod, biting my lower lip to stop from laughing.
“Stop it, Samantha, or you will not come later!”
“Self-service,” I tease.
“Try.”
“I will.”
“You’ll see,” he sings, picking up his phone at the countertop.
“You should have a good reason ruining my almost intense orgasm in the kitchen,” he says, placing his phone on his ear.
That must be Hawk because he won’t just talk like that if it’s Sandy or Anna.
“Fuck! Okay, okay, hold on. On it.” He signals me to turn the TV on.”
I immediately hop down from the island, pick up the remote, and press the power button on.
My hand is immediately on my mouth, and I feel the remote slip and falls to the floor.
“Oh, my God!”