Chapter 46: Chapter 46

Dinner that evening was a noisy affair, with Belinda telling numerous stories about Carol and Victoria to everyone at the table, the same way that Mr. James had done when he came to visit Carol. For most of the time, Carol’s face was red from embarrassment, but Sebastian seemed to find the stories entertaining and funny.

“This isn’t as bad as I had thought.” Carol thought to herself in relief. For the first time since she came here, there was a lot of laughter and noise. It was the first time she had seen Sebastian laugh out loud many times. Looking at him now, she was once again struck by just how handsome he was. The man really had it all. Carol knew how easy it would be for her to fall in love with him if he kept being nice to her and she saw him regularly. In a way, she understood why he kept her at arm’s length as he had explained while they were in Paris.

He turned suddenly and caught her looking at him, but unlike before when he would have frowned or looked away, he smiled even wider, so that his dimples showed and the cleft in his chin was more pronounced. Carol returned the smile briefly and looked away, her heart suddenly beating for reasons unknown to her. All she longed to do was to take that handsome, smiling face in her hands and plant a tender kiss on his enticing lips, after which she would kiss him more passionately and run her hands all over his hard, sexy body.

Sebastian watched Carol’s eyes darken with what he could only term desire from across the table and felt himself harden in response. What he wouldn’t give to take her out of this dining room and take her to his bedroom, where he would make passionate love to her. He quickly caught himself, and took away his gaze, not liking the turn that his thoughts were taking one bit. While he liked to think that he could have a sexual relationship with her without his emotions getting in the way, he was not sure that he could say the same about Carol. She looked like the type of person who once they fell for someone, fell hard and he was surely not that person for her.

His heart belonged to Jessica, who was God knows where, and it was because of her that he was trying to hang on and not have anything to do with another woman. The last thing he wanted was for her to finally be found and then he would discover that he was having feelings for someone else.

“So I was thinking, Carol. We should go shopping tomorrow. In fact, we’re going to go shopping every day while we’re here. I have so many things I need to buy. I hope you know all the best places where one can find quality and classy clothes to buy.”

“Um, how long do you plan on staying?”

“Well, we don’t plan on staying for too long. We’re only going to be here for two months or so. It shouldn’t be more than that.” Belinda said, as casually as though she had said that they were staying for two days.

“Two months!” Carol exclaimed, startling everyone at the table.

“Why are you yelling?”

“Surely, you’re joking. What will you be doing here for two whole months?”

“Excuse me?” Belinda asked, her face darkening as though it was made of storm clouds.

“You can’t stay here for two months. In fact, you can’t stay here for a week. You’ll have to leave on or before Thursday. Sebastian and I are going on vacation.”

“Well, I don’t see what the problem is. How long are you staying on your vacation?”

“Two weeks or thereabouts,” Carol said carefully, wondering what her mother was up to now.

“Good. As I said, there is no problem. We’ll be here to welcome you both when you get back.” Belinda finished in a matter-of-fact way that suggested that there was nothing left to argue about.

Carol opened her mouth to argue fiercely and tell her that nothing of the sort was going to happen when she caught Sebastian’s eye. He gave a short shake of his head that told her not to pursue the matter further, so she kept quiet. There would be more than enough time to visit the topic.

The rest of the dinner went on without incident and then when they were done eating, they reclined to the living room with bottles of wine. They sat there, watching television and discussing. Soon, Sebastian made his excuses and retired to his room, saying he had some work to do while Carol sat with her parents and aunt in the living room, after all, it was her they had come to see.

“So, I did not want to say this in front of your husband, but what you did to your sister was very bad and in extremely poor taste.” Her mother told her.

“Yes, it was.” Aunt Alice agreed, nodding her head vigorously and taking another sip of her wine.

“What did I do to her?”

“Well, she called me sometime back crying and saying that you denied her from coming to visit you. How could you do that to your own sister, knowing fully well that you are enjoying the benefits that she is supposed to be enjoying?”

“What exactly did I do to her? One would have thought that I stole her kidney with the way you guys are carrying on about the whole thing. Besides, I only told her that I was not around, which was the truth. I was in Paris then with Sebastian on our honeymoon. What did she expect me to do? Ask her to come to join us?”

“Maybe not, but you could have at least called her to come over when you returned from the honeymoon. Family is everything, you know.” her father put in.

“I did call her, but she said that she didn’t want to come again. I could not very well force her. Also, I don’t like the way you guys keep saying I’m enjoying this and enjoying that. If memory serves you right, it was a big sacrifice I made taking this decision. We should only be thankful that Sebastian’s a nice man.”

“Oh, please. I told you from the start that he was a nice man. If only you hadn’t scared your sister off the whole thing, she would have been settled by now. I know that you knew exactly what you were doing. You have always been cunning, even as a child. Now you've deprived my Victoria of all this.” Her mother said scornfully, waving her hand around to indicate the house.

“Belinda!” Aunt Alice exclaimed. “That is not a nice thing to say.”

“Yeah, it’s not nice.” Her father put in.

“Whatever,” Belinda said, not looking remorseful in the slightest and casting a baleful look at her husband that told him that he had better shut his trap. Donald gulped and looked away without saying anything else.

“I’m going to bed. You know your rooms, so when you’re all ready, you can go to sleep. Goodnight.” Carol said, standing up and walking out of the living room, ignoring the call of her aunt for her to come back. She hated the pain that she felt at the fact that her mother always chose to take her sister’s side no matter what she did. She would have thought that she had outgrown it by now, but apparently, she hadn’t.