Loving the Necromancer's daughter

Chapter 12

In a world where women’s rights are discussed daily… It’s still not changed in her world! That is one of the reasons why she wanted to strike out on her own and get away from it all. But she has to bide her time…

Dremon is making sure that there is no way out for her, she just has to find one he hasn’t thought of.

After breakfast, he guides her to a furniture store, and she stands near the door with Stalos a couple of steps behind her. The furniture is beautiful, and she would have loved to put some of it in a small apartment one day, but it’s too expensive, and she would probably not be able to afford anything like this.

She looks around the huge showroom when Dremon comes walking closer to her with a girl who is smiling brightly… She almost looks creepy, smiling like that! Arora is convinced that if she wasn’t there, this girl would probably be sticking to Dremon like an octopus!

“Arora, this is Medira, our interior decorator. She is here to help us choose our furniture today. Medira, this is Arora, my fiancé.”

The woman hesitantly holds out her hand as surprise crosses over her face, but she quickly recovers. Arora shakes her hand, but she doesn’t pay much attention to the woman. She is not planning on getting involved with any of this! He has his interior designer to suck up to him, so he doesn’t need her.

***

Dremon carefully watches the interaction between the two women, and Arora’s indifference to Medira almost makes him laugh. Medira is used to being gushed over by possible clients. She is well-known for her taste and everyone who is anyone, wants her to do their homes, but she is doing this as a special favour to him, because of their close relationship.

Unfortunately, for her, this relationship is a thing of the past, and his fiancé isn’t the type of person who views someone like Medira as important in her life.

“You might try to smile. Shopping is supposed to be fun for most women.” He takes Arora by the back of her elbow, noticing that she is clearly not going to move from her spot.

“I’m not like most women, but if you knew me better, you would know that. I will wait here, thank you. You have your girlfriend to help you.”

“I want you to choose. This will be our home, and you will be the lady of the house, Arora. I want you to feel at home.”

“Fire that woman then. I’m not a complete imbecilic. I know how to match couches with lamps. Unless you have other alternatives in having her around?” She lifts her eyebrow, and he finds it interesting that she almost looks jealous.

Dremon walks over to Medira, apologizing for the inconvenience, and explaining that Arora wants to choose for herself.

***

Arora wants to smile when she sees the woman throw a tantrum in anger, then the waterworks open, and finally she stomps her foot and rushes out, almost running over Arora on her way out.

“Now, will you please come with me and look at furniture?” Dremon waves at the showroom and Arora nods.

She can at least experience how it feels to shop without a limit for once. As soon as she escapes, she will never be able to have an experience like this again. She chooses the beds for the bedrooms with different headboards and matching dressing tables. When she starts to run out of options, Dremon tells her not to worry. If she wants every room to be different, they can go to another shop to choose from there.

There are couches, coffee tables, dining room sets, appliances, cutlery, bedding, curtains, lamps, and surprisingly furniture for a home office for her to choose from, and she will never admit it, but she has fun.

It’s the first time in her life, except for choosing her car, that someone didn’t just ask for her opinion, but also gave her free range to choose what she likes. She will never admit it to Dremon, but she has fun once she starts to feel comfortable. Looking at the many choices that don’t include heavy velvet curtains and don’t have to all be either black, brown, burgundy, or royal blue!

At first, she wanted his confirmation that it is okay, and she kept hesitating whether she could and should choose certain things, but in the end, she was choosing things without even looking in his direction. From the corner of her eye, she noticed him take a call once, but he cut it short and sounds angry when stepping away from her.

She couldn’t hear what the conversation was about, but he sounded very angry, however, the moment he returned his attention to her, he was smiling and looked happy.

After all the things were chosen for the house, he takes her out to lunch and this time she is starving! She animatedly talks about the things they ordered and how she can’t wait to see it all come together, and is stunned when she hears that everything should be delivered by the time they arrive at home.

A sudden awkward silence falls nearing the end of lunch, and Dremon tilts his head.

***

He picks up on her sudden change in mood immediately.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m just… I’m fine.” She lowers her hands and looks down. It strikes him how much she was probably told to behave.

He heard about her father’s actions each time she rebelled against him, yet she still kept on being the rebellious daughter, and that is one of the things about her that intrigues him the most.

He sighs.

“Arora, I don’t want you to feel as if you are in prison. I know what I said.” He wants to put his hand out onto the table for her to take, but he knows her stubborn streak won’t allow her to take it.

“Arora,”

“Yes, Dremon.” When she looks into his eyes, his heartbreaks.

There are so many emotions running through them that he almost can’t look into them for fear that she might spontaneously combust, and he will be the collateral damage.

“What can I do to make you agree to this marriage?” He promised himself he would not beg her, but life would be so much easier if she will just let him get to know her.

“Nothing.” Her jaw clenches and her voice almost a soft growl.

“Are you kidding me? We just spent the last couple of hours buying a fortune’s worth of furniture for our home, yet to don’t see how much I’m trying to make this work!”

“I don’t want this! I didn’t ask you to fix my car, or buy the house, or take me furniture shopping. You had your girlfriend there; she could have chosen whatever she liked. You didn’t need me there. I’m sure she would have preferred to choose what is going to be her future home.”

“Excuse me?” He loses his patience with her and calls the waitress to bring them the bill. This is a conversation he would prefer to have in private.

***

Arora doesn’t wait for him this time. She gets up and leaves the restaurant, looking around outside for a way out. She does not feel like getting into a car with him and starts walking in the opposite direction of the traffic. That way, he can’t follow her in his car! Stomping, she mumbles to herself and nearly jumps when she feels a hand grab her elbow.

“Can we please discuss this in private?”

“Since when do you do things in private?” She glares at him.

“Everyone knows you have a woman waiting for you around every damn corner! This so-called marriage is just to humiliate me! I will never agree to it.”

“Dammit, Arora!” He grabs her by her arm and drags her to a waiting SUV. Opening the back door, he waits for her to climb in and slams the door shut.

She looks at it in shock as he walks to his car and Stalos takes a seat in the front of the SUV. Has he been waiting outside all this time?

She folds her arms across her chest and looks out the window.

“Miss, please excuse me if I am going to speak out of turn, but you will only make things harder on yourself if you keep fighting this.”

“You are speaking out of turn. Just drive.”

***

When they arrive at home, some furniture has been moved into the rooms, but they haven’t really been put into place, or at least not in the way she imagined it. Giles is standing at the ready, waiting for her instructions, but she storms up the stairs and looks from one side to the other.

Dremon’s room is to her left, so she walks to the furthest room to the right and slams the door shut.

There is nothing in the room, and she paces from wall-to-wall trying to calm her racing, angry heart.

A soft knock on the door makes her sigh and nearly rip the door from the frame.

“WHAT?!”

Giles keeps his face straight and clears his throat.

“I would like to arrange for your things to be moved into the room of your choosing. Mr. Daemonne said to let you choose whichever room you want. I also need to know which bedroom sets you to want to go in which rooms so that the delivery people can carry the furniture to the rooms…”

She holds up her hand to stop him. The poor guy is just trying to do his job and even though she doesn’t want to be here, she can’t punish him for Dremon’s behaviour. She walks out of the room, and he follows her downstairs.

Dremon is gone, and she breathes a sigh of relief, before telling staff where to take what. Curtains have to be hung, beds made and the rest of the furniture has to be put into place. At least it will give her something to keep busy with, so she can avoid the big bad dragon who is supposed to be her husband, and she will have somewhere to sleep tonight that is not the floor!

By the time she is done sorting out the furniture on the first floor, she is beat, but the house looks beautiful and is exactly what she would have chosen for her own place.

The cream curtains go beautifully with the dark brown leather couches in the living room. She chose an antique-looking cupboard and inside is a big screen smart television which is one of the few items Dremon picked. She has a little corner to one side with two huge comfortable chairs and a table and lamp in the middle where she puts down three of the books, she brought with her.

For now, she would be able to sit here and read when she doesn’t have anything to do in her office. Her studies are done, and she’s waiting for her results, so, she doesn’t understand why Dremon was demanding she has an office.

The Persian carpet in the living room mixes beautifully with the rest of the colours and gives the room a warmer feeling than the tiles did. The dining room is part of the open-plan area, and she checks on the candlesticks and table cloth to make sure they are straight.

She has terrible OCD when things aren’t perfectly aligned.

Checking in with the kitchen, she finds an elated Mrs. Pierce, who is their Chef. She is busy unpacking the last of the appliances, and it strikes Arora that they didn’t get around to buying food.

“Mrs. Pierce, can we please sit and talk about a menu in the morning. I would like to order the food you will require.” The woman smiles from ear to ear, before nodding.

Arora’s next stops are the different bedrooms to check that the staff made the beds and put the right dressing tables with the right headboards. All the bedrooms have built-in cupboards and some of them have walk-in closets with adjoining bathrooms. Dremon thought of everything if they were to have guests, but he didn’t think of how much work it would be to get everything ready.

She is just about to check on what is going on in what is to be in her office when she hears a door open and the one person she has been trying to avoid all afternoon steps out in front of her.