Chapter 4

• Gabriel pulls the car to the curb and when the car stops I get out, I look to the side looking for a cab and pull out my hand stopping one.
• I helped him out of the car and without any help from Gabriel who was just watching me, I put him in the cab and gave the driver his address.
• The cab drove away from me and then I collapsed, letting out the crying I was holding in, the anger, the rage, the love for the man who was walking down the street thinking I was a heartless bitch.
• I don't know and I don't want to know at what moment Gabriel got out of the car and took me in his arms, that filled me with warmth and a feeling of comfort, he hugged me, I was a little surprised by the intensity because of the feeling of being in his arms, they were so warm that it fit perfectly, I hid my face in his neck, I don't know when I stopped crying but for a moment I wanted to stay like that, hugging him.
• This... This was so wrong.
• "I know I told you this would be a business marriage, Ana," Gabriel said, searching my eyes, caressing my cheek with one of his hands, wiping away my tears. "I'm going to try to make you happy, to make you feel good being with me and not suffering, Ana, I'm going to be your friend."
• His closeness paralyzed me and I felt the brush of his lips on my forehead, which somehow paralyzed my heart.
• "You promise?" I looked for something in his eyes that would tell me not to trust him, but the truth told me otherwise.
• "I promise, because when you are my wife, you will spend many nights and days at my side, we will sleep together, Ana, we will be like all married couples."
• The night ended with Gabriel taking me home, one that felt totally strange to me, the closer the car got, the less I wanted to set foot in that house, maybe I'm selfish for hurting Lían, maybe I'm accepting this marriage too quickly, I really don't know what to think of all this.
• Andres, knowing this will make him hate our parents even more and I want to show him that I am doing this of my own free will and not because they are forcing me, because the last thing I want is for my brother to suffer more.
• I just know that if I leave this house dressed in white, I will never come back! I will make my parents regret all the harm they have done to their children.
• Gabriel's POV
• I found myself at a time in my life with a big financial crisis, the banks denied me a good amount of money for a credit and my pride as a perfect son would not allow me to ask my father to help for the bank loans or that he will assume the debts of the lawsuits, I was born in a well off family, my father was a rich boy since he was born, mom was a princess and still is, my father never let see a bad image of my mother and more he kept her as a queen since I was a child. I used to think that my father was born to be the cog in my mother's wheel.
• The Thais say that if you give your cog to the person you love, that love will last a long time.
• They showed me that with love, trust, affection and a lot of communication they were able to move their marriage forward, not that I want to get married, although I don't deny the idea that it could happen in the future.
• But dad was very astute and did not let my mother escape him, according to his own words, to say in front of dad that my company was going through a crisis and that at any moment if I continued indebted as I was so far I could go to jail, I tried to explain to them that mom was exaggerating but obviously dad did not believe me because if dad had anything it was that he trusted my mother's word first.
• When I decided it was time to talk to him, to be honest and tell him the truth, Dad was so angry with me that I wondered if it would have been better to keep the whole mess from him, but it was too late, Mom had opened her pretty little mouth and betrayed me.
• No son wants his father to know that he is bankrupt, especially when he promised that his company would be number one as the largest construction company in the country, but it was for a long time, it was number one, until this guy came along with whom I thought of doing business, receiving betrayal and deception, buying second hand materials that were not suitable for the construction of one of the largest hotels that had been built in the east of Caracas, creating total chaos in the middle of the city.
• I wanted to leave everything and run away with the little savings I had, but I couldn't, my father hadn't raised me to be a sissy, so I accepted my responsibilities and took that wretch with me. I locked myself in my office for days to do the calculations with the administrator and lawyers to study the damages we had to pay, but then this man, Maldonado, came out and said that he did not have a dollar more and I was in a real panic, his company was in total bankruptcy and he hoped to save himself with the help of some business the phone did not stop ringing, I did everything I could to keep my name out of the newspapers and newscasts.
• Anyway, Dad already knew what was going on, so in the middle of my busy day, Dad came up with a brilliant and beautiful proposal that benefited me and the company a lot, I had to get married or he would have me jailed and with that I would be sued for fraud, I could not pay the debts by myself, he would take my company from me, he would take it back and restore it. Then I asked myself, where would my years of work go? I could not let my hard work go to waste, I had invested a lot of time and money and I would not let it all go down the drain.
• I call myself a smart man, so I took Dad's offer and accepted it, a moment of crisis that we all go through in this life, so I kept quiet and accepted whatever Dad had for me.
• Because if Dad did not invest, my company was bankrupt, totally bankrupt.
• Fabio, my best friend, I asked him for help, that bastard may invest some of his money, but it is so little that I do not think it will be enough to pay the debt, because Fabio, my classmate and best friend, had been promoted from 0, he was not a boy born in a golden cradle, Fabio had his own problems just like me and the least I wanted was to pass my problems on to him.
• I did not like the news at all, but what could I ask for when my life was in the hands of my parents, with my mother looking at me so happy to know that her son was getting married, so I asked her to make a list of blind dates of future candidates, my mother was very good, but she said she already had the perfect girl for my marriage and the truth scared me, mom might have special tastes and my intuition did not fail me.
• Ana Maldonado.
• The girl had brown hair, hips with pronounced curves, legs neither too chubby nor too thin, she must have been about 1.60 cm tall, she was neither pretty nor ugly and there was something in her eyes, the way she smiled and the way she pulled her hair back that caught my attention.
• According to the information I had in my hands, Ana Maldonado was a young woman of 23 years, she was the owner of a smile that would make any man fall in love, her dark skin attracted my attention, her beautiful eyes, the way she walked, those curves made me make the decision to say yes to my parents.
• I told my mother that if they liked her and they were sure that she was the person they wanted for him, then she would not object, my mother replied that she was very happy that it was her, since her mother was a friend of hers and always spoke well of her sweet daughter.
• The big surprise was not the decision to marry us without telling anyone, because what surprised me was that my father said that the wedding would take place in only two weeks, shit, the truth was that I wanted more time, I had to solve some things and dad was not helping, besides, without such a rush she and I could maybe go on dates, go out to eat, have a drink, get to know each other better, be friends.
• Because I was okay with this loveless marriage, but at least I would offer her my sincere friendship. To be friends with or without right, because I could do what Dad would decide, but not everything would be done as he said, and if I married this girl or any other, I would ask to remain the CEO of the company, because I did not want to lose everything I had invested, all my money, time and effort.
• The effort is mine and Fabio's.