A Wrong Surrogate for the CEO-Chapter 85: A fresh start
Curtis could not believe his ears.
His heart stilled, and the world came into sharp focus.
Lara’s gaze didn’t waver from him. She stared at him, letting him see all the emotions he had awakened inside of her.
"What did you just say?" Curtis asked. He didn’t mean to, but his words came out as a whisper.
Lara swallowed past a lump in her throat and spoke again.
"I just...I know I rejected you when you first told me you love me, and I know we have had quite some...bumps in the way. But you staying with me at the hospital? Massaging my legs in the car? Making dinner for me? All of those small actions made me feel so warm. I realised that I loved it a lot when you do stuff like that for me. It makes me happy. It makes me feel safe. You make me feel like I could be anything and you would be right behind me. With you, I don’t have to be scared of anything. I just have to be... myself. And knowing that, I don’t want to ever spend the rest of my life without you. I love you. I don’t know when it happened, but it did. " 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
Lara stopped speaking, pausing for breath. Her hands trembled slightly as she watched for Curtis’s reaction, and for a long, unending moment, he didn’t say anything.
Lara’s cheeks burned with embarrassment.
This was it. He was going to reject her, despite the fact that she had just poured her heart out to him.
A wave of embarrassment flooded through her veins, and turned away from him.
"I’m... sorry. You don’t have to say anything. It was stupid of me to conclude that just because you were in love with me before, that you would still feel that way. Feelings change. Your feelings have changed. Got it. That is a very valuable feeling, by the way. Not being in love with me anymore. We can just... go back to the way things were. You don’t have to..."
Lara knew that she was rambling, and that she should stop. She also knew that there were tears in her eyes and that if words stopped coming out of her mouth, she was going to crumble down on the kitchen floor and cry.
Lara didn’t want to cry, so she continued to speak. But at the sight of the tears in her eyes, at the panic coating her words, Curtis was snapped out of his head. The surprised fog that had descended on him at the start of her words cleared away.
He walked towards her in two giant strides, grabbed her by the face, and slammed his lips against hers.
Lara gasped into his mouth. Curtis kissed her, hard. And after recovering from the suddenness of his actions, she kissed him back.
The kiss dragged on, and Lara gave herself to it. Her tears slowly died away, and her body was coaxed out of its shell as Curtis took over her mind, body and soul.
When he eventually broke the kiss, they were both breathing hard.
"I never stopped being in love with you, baby. You are the only woman for me, and you know it," he whispered.
Lara smiled at him, and she gently wrapped her hands around his waist.
"Thank you. I was kind of worried when you said nothing, and I thought that...well... you didn’t love me anymore," she poured.
Curtis flicked her on the nose slightly.
"How could I not love you, Lara? You are everything good and pure in my life. You are the one thing I will be forever grateful for."
A red tint stained Lara’s cheeks at his words.
"Stop exaggerating," she muttered, shyly averting her eyes from his.
Curtis raised his eyebrows at her.
"Who said I was? Every word I say is the truth, darling. And you know it," he insisted.
Lara smiled, unable to find words to quantify what she was feeling.
Happinesses threatened to drown her as she placed her head on his chest, and he held her gently.
"Thank you, Lara. Thank you so much," he whispered.
"This means that our contract is void now, right?" she asked.
Curtis pulled away from her, and there was a slight frown on his face.
"Why would you even bring up the contract now of all times?"
Lara shrugged at his words.
"Because it was the agreement we came into when we started this entire arrangement?"
Curtis shook his head at his wife.
"Come on, baby. You and I know that the contract has been nullified a long time ago." There was a little bit of reprimand in his words, and it was Lara’s turn to be confused now.
"What do you mean?"
Curtis’s brows shot upwards, and he looked at her like she had just sprouted two heads.
"What do I mean? Look at everything we’ve been through together and tell me if we ever planned for any of that to happen. We didn’t, and a lot has happened. We both broke the rules we promised not to, and look at where we are now."
Lara nodded at his words. He was right. She had never thought about it before, but now he pointed it out, his words were true.
"But this does count as the first day of our relationship, yeah?"
Curtis leaned down to kiss her on the nose.
"You want us to be in a relationship? How scandalous," he teased.
Lara slapped his chest slightly.
"Come on, don’t be silly. You know what I mean," she retorted.
"Do I?"
"I mean, I know we had some, okay a lot, of good memories, but I would like it very much if we, you know, start all over," she said sheepishly.
Curtis grew serious, and he leaned in closer until he was staring right in her face.
"Is that what you want?" he asked.
Lara nodded, her mind made up.
"Okay. We’ll start over as much as you want us to. As long as you are with me."
A smile broke through Lara’s face, and she leaned upwards to kiss him.
He kissed her back.
He liked the sound of them starting all over.
A new start.
A fresh start.
A new beginning.
