Two weeks later
"When are you resuming work? I have missed you at work." Xavier muttered.
They had just finished seeing a movie and their gazes were still on the rolling credit when he had asked the one question Maya dreads.
He had refused her leaving his house until she was completely fine and now, she was more than fine she wasn't sure she wanted to leave his side.
But the decision she had made after long thoughts and careful thinking will make walking away from his house and she hoped, as soon as they could break the news that they broke up to the public space, his life too, easier.
"I know I did say, you could take all the time you needed but it seems like you are bored to death here all by yourself besides you have fully recuperated."
Maya took a long sip of the wine beside her bracing herself for one of the most difficult conversations she just might skip if that option was made available to her. It wasn't.
"I ain't resuming work any time soon."
He looked taken aback then shrug, an understanding smile on his face that almost made her want to yell and ask him to stop making what she was about to say way difficult "Oh, my bad then. You need more time?"
"Xavier, I don't want to work in an office where tongues will certainly be wagging. You don't understand how wince-worthy, this situation looks right? Let me spell it out for you. My fiance's father had kidnapped me and tried to rape me. He is even in prison because of me."
"Dominic is not my father." He said in a brusque, Curt manner.
"To the world and in the true sense, he is." She gulped down the remaining wine in her glass, knowing she will need more than that for the real hard part of this conversation that she was not looking forward to.
"Besides, I already have a job offer."
He gave her a long lingering glance and she could tell, he knew she was nervous.
"Maya, don't you think these offers are alarmingly suspicious. Of course, every establishment will want to seek a means to commercialize this, in any way they can and having you as their hire will put them in a vantage position where they could get as much information as they wanted."
She cringed. She had known the generous brow-raising great job offers that had come her way the past few days must have come from a source. She had her doubts but having Xavier spell it out made her feel bad, inadequate. Like he was somehow going to be a yardstick to measure her in every way possible.
"I know your concerns. This is an offer from an acquaintance of mine so you don't have anything to worry about."
There was a crease in the space in between his brows like he was trying to figure her out. He knew something was off.
She wondered if she should just rush the words and be free from the sickening conversation that nauseated her at the thought of the heated argument that would surely follow after.
"Xavier," she mumbled.
He met her glance.
"I need to live. I need to meet someone, fall in love, date, and this ring," she said raising her hand in the air, "Is more like a shackle holding me back from all this. Because even though what we have isn't real, the world doesn't know that and I'll just be labeled a cheating scum."
He clenched his fist to refrain himself from snapping and asking her to get used to being shackled. Just the thought of her with another man, happy without him rubbed him off in a manner he didn't even want to begin to imagine what that meant.
He had gone all out in the hospital and had expressed his desire to treat her right, make her feel loved, and care for her yet she had laughed hard at him. Throwing his efforts right back in his face.
He didn't do relationships. He had never thought he could be monogamous or want to go through that path with any body but just because he knew that was what it'll take to keep Maya by his side, to have her. He had offered her that chance and she had stomped on it and called it a good joke and now? She wanted to leave him to find the supposedly "one"
"How does that have to do with where you work?" He swallowed the bile that rose at his throat because of the words he was going to say next, "You could still work with me and date whoever you please."
"Even when we break up publicly?" She raised her brow, her voice low, "This was bound to happen either way. There is no way I'd break up with you, give you your ring back, and still come to work the next day. It doesn't seem rational."
"I don't care about rational." He retorted.
"But I do," she snapped, "And that's why I have decided to work with Tyler besides I was not trained to be a personal assistant but a computer expert." Her chest heaved even as she hurriedly added, "He is offering me the job of programmer and that has been my dream job since forever. He is working on this new app and doing this with him will give me some kind of fulfillment that being an assistant could never offer."
Xavier had stopped listening the minute, the name Tyler had escaped her lips.
"The Tyler you are talking about, does he seem to be in any way related to a particular Tyler you know I resent and have warned you again and again to avoid?"
She stood up, "Xavier, this is my dream we are talking about."
"Then I could get you a job with another tech company, not just that man."
"That man who is your stepbrother," she muttered feeling the need to remind him of that fact. He ignored her comment.
"You won't understand."
"Then make me. Tell me why you hate him so much then?" She whispered.
"I can't." He coldly said then stood up and desperately grabbed her hands, "Trust me he is no good for you."
"And you are? Why should I believe you and not him?" She fired back, "This is my life, Xavier and you are in no place to decide what I do with it, Okay?"
He shook his head, "Maya," he whispered warningly.
"I'll get the moving bus and will be out of your hair as soon as I can."
"Maya, don't." His voice was firm Making her chuckle maliciously.
"You seem to get it all wrong, Salvador. I wasn't asking you for permission, I was merely informing you." Her eyes flashed with anger as she stomped out of the sitting room angry that he felt like he had an authority of sorts over her.
"Maya!" He hollered, "please." He whispered a few minutes later, his voice as pathetic and helpless as he felt.