14 Chapter 13.

January 26th, 2016.

Ophelia's POV.

In....out....in....out.

Came my harsh breaths, my lungs exapanding and contracting, my heart pounding, trying to keep up with the strain, my leg muscles were on fire as I pushed my body past its limit.

My morning runs were always like this, lately I've been pushing my body past five

miles a day. I preferred the scenery of the forest surrounding the mansion than running on a tread mill like I did in London. Running outside was a chance to explore the mansion grounds, I loved the air, the animals, the trees, everything.

I stopped to catch my breath.

In....out....In....out

I could see the mansion coming into view. Conceding defeat to my body, I decided to walk the remaining distance back home.

The events of the previous days still on my mind. Luke refused to tell my father that we almost got killed or that I had endangered us by carrying a gun, Dad would have blown his fuse if he knew about that. Then all the paperwork we had to do the next day.

I collapsed when I got to the front door. Nicholas rushed to help me.

"No." I waved him off. "I- just- need- to- catch- my- breath."

I needed to stop pushing my body past its limit.

Few minutes later, I stood up on my feet, my breathing had resumed its normal pace.

I walked inside the house, Nicholas walked besides me.

"Your father wants to see you now, Miss Antonio."

"Why? Is something wrong?"

He shrugged. "He just said to meet him in five minutes."

I had already wasted more than five minutes outside but what was the emergency?

By the time I was through with my daily routine I had added 15 minutes to the wasted time. I was running down the corridor in my heels fixing my jewelry. I got to my father's office, composed myself, took a deep breath, knocked and opened the door.

My eyes landed on Luke standing in the corner, when he caught my eyes I asked him without using words what the problem was. He shrugged, signalling that he was just as confused as I was.

I looked around the the room and my eyes caught the second figure.

Daniel.

What was he doing here?

"My love, I'm glad you could come join us on short notice, I was just talking to Daniel and...well...why don't you tell her yourself, son?". My father spoke without making eye contact with me.

Strange.

"Sweetheart!" Daniel stood up, held my arms and kissed my cheeks soundly.

I was still too stunned to react.

"So...I was telling your father about our wedding that's coming up in two weeks."

What?

"And since you haven't made any preparations I decided to make them myself."

You what?!

"Our engagement party is this Saturday and the wedding the week after, that is next week Saturday."

I'm dreaming, aren't I?

"I came here to pick you up so you can try on your wedding gown. I had it made by one of the best designers in Rome."

No....No.

I looked at my father, he seemed to find his fingers more interesting than the matter at hand. I turned to Luke who was as astonished as I was.

Tears threatened to spill but no, I needed to confirm that this was a joke. It had to be.

"Dad?"

He couldn't even look at me.

"Dad?" My voice broke.

"Yes, Amore mio?"

"Can I at least take someone with me?"

He looked relieved at my request. He nodded.

I decided to take Luke with me.

Daniel walked out of the office, down the corridor and the stairs. He seemed to know his way around our home.

Which was suspicious to me, since he'd only been in the house once and hadn't seen the living quarters.

Outside, he got into his car and his goon held the door open for me to enter. Like a person possessed, I moved towards the car door until Luke pulled me back.

"We'll go in our own car." As he finished his statement, Nicholas drove a Lexus and parked in front of us. Luke opened the door and ushered me in before getting in himself.

I sat so still I wasn't aware of my surrounding, the trees I loved to watch anytime we drove out of the mansion now became nonexistent to me. I watched my life crumble before my eyes.

We stopped in front of an elegant shop. Luke literally had to pull me out of the car and into the shop.

When we got in, the first thing that grabbed my attention were the mannequins wearing delicate wedding gowns. The second were the occupants of the shop: a pregnant bride-to-be and her wedding train gushing over wedding gowns in the arms of shop assistants. The third was Daniel, he was talking to a lady and pointing in my direction.

She walked up to me and introduced herself. "Hi. I'm Rita, your wedding designer, you must be Ophelia. Daniel has told me so much about you, if you'd be so kind as to follow me I'll take you to try your outfits." She held my arm.

I reacted quickly and grabbed hold of Luke. "Please Luke, don't let them take me." I whispered, tears spilled out of my eyes.

"Shh...." He cleaned them away. I'm right here princess, nothing is going to happen to you. Please don't cry, you're stronger than this. Show them that they can't break you." He cupped my cheeks. Moments later he let go, when he did I was ready.

She led me towards the dressing room area and pushed me into a large one. She walked to the wardrobe and pulled out a peach dress that was designed like a corset.

"Strip and put this on." She said.

Thank God I had good underwear on today. I took off my dress and turned to take the dress from her.

"Underwear included. We made this with the dress." She held a peach strapless bra and a thong lingerie set.

I sighed deeply but did as she said.

By the time she was done lacing me up I looked like a street hooker. She gave me a pair of platform heels that matched the dress, they were over eight inches high! Then she gave me matching jewelry.

"This is your engagement party dress, isn't it absolutely gorgeous?"

I turned around to check the back, the material barely covered my backside. Yes, definitely a hooker. If this was for the engagement party then I wondered how my wedding dress would look like?

She led me out of the dressing room, back to the store.

"This is the dress we designed for the engagement party, Daniel. Just the way you wanted it." She made me turn around so they could see the back.

So Daniel was the one that picked this dress.

It did catch a lot of attention but I felt uncomfortable, I felt exposed. Well, literally I was exposed for crying out loud!

Daniel was smiling, clearly satisfied with his decision. Luke on the other hand didn't like the dress but chose not to say anything as he turned his attention back to his phone with a frown on his face.

"Come on, we still have the wedding dress to try on." Rita dragged me back to the dressing room.

Inside, she made me strip again into a White strapless lingerie set. When she brought the wedding dress I was rendered speechless. It was a delicate, white wedding dress, to say it was beautiful was an under statement.

She helped me into it.

It had a sweet heart top, the top was corset like, the full skirt started from my waist and gave an impression that I was wearing a fluffy white cloud instead of a dress. The lace was delicate and soft, the inside was made of a lot of soft material so I didn't have to wear whale bones or a cage. It was designed all over with diamonds, not glass, I mean the real deal.

She helped me wear my shoes, moderately high glass heels then she placed a tiara on my head. My jewelry was expertly designed, diamonds interwoven with silver.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like a princess, a real princess. I knew instantly that Daniel couldn't have picked the design for this dress.

"Who picked the design for this dress?" I asked Rita.

She clasped her hands admiring her work and my transformation. "Your father."

If I thought I was betrayed before, it was nothing compared to how I felt now. I had been stabbed in the back. My father, that's how she must have gotten my measurements.

She continued unaware of my change in my demeanour. "I came over last week to talk to you about the wedding dress, you know what you like, any design you would prefer or anything you would like to add. I talked to your father instead when he said you were indisposed. He showed me your mother's wedding dress and that's were we got the inspiration for the top. He said you reminded him of a princess so I made the skirt for a princess. The diamonds were his idea too, he got the inspiration from the glitter on your mum's wedding dress but he wanted you to look expensive so he got the jewels and a jeweler to cut the stones to any size I required. The tiara and glass slippers are borrowed ideas from your favourite Disney princesses, your father told me that. The jewelry belonged to your mum and your wedding ring belonged to her too. I spent a week, day and night working on this dress and it's my best work yet."

At this point I couldn't stop the tears from falling. I had never seen a picture of my mother, nor did my father talk about her because the memories always brought tears to his eyes but he could show another.

She handed me tissues and I accepted them. I cried, I cried even as she led me out for the others to see. When we got there, Daniel had disappeared only Luke remained. When he saw me his mouth dropped open and he ended the call he was taking. He stood and crossed the room when he noticed me crying. I couldn't help hugging him as sobs shook my body and he pressed me close as much as the dress would allow.

"Oh! Aren't you pretty." Someone gushed at my side.

I turned to the pregnant bride-to-be I saw earlier. She left her train to come admire the dress.

"I think you should take it. Congratulations, you have a beautiful bride." She said when she noticed Luke.

We were too stunned to correct her. She peeled me off Luke and hushed me herself. Before I knew it she started crying too. "I'm sorry. Its just these stupid hormones." She said between sobs. "But they're tears of joy."

If she only knew that mine were of despair and not joy.

"I can't wait to take you to the altar." Daniel said.

The girl was shocked when she registered that she had congratulated the wrong man. "I'm terribly sorry. I thought....Never mind." She apologised to Luke.

"Good luck." She told me before finally excusing herself.

Daniel and Rita sat down to finalize the wedding plans while shop assistants helped me out of the wedding dress and into the clothes I came with. When I got back to the show room, I had lost all my colour and I was hyperventilating, a panic attack was on the verge of causing a scene.

Luke quickly identified the signs and got up. "We're leaving." He told Daniel.

"You can't. Not right now at least, I have other plans." He replied, all the while looking at me.

"That's not what you told Antonio. We're done here." He said with a note of finality and dragged me out.

The panic attack came in full force when he deposited me in the car. I pulled my hair, scratched my skin with my nails, had trouble taking in air, I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. Luke tried to console me but I slapped his hands away when he touched me. I uttered words even I couldn't understand, I became someone I didn't know. The demons in my head were let loose and they tormented me well.

Midway through the attack I was shaking and forcing the car door open. Later, I thanked the Lord that Luke told Nicholas to lock the car doors before we started the journey back home.

When he couldn't take it anymore he pulled me onto his lap, restrained my arms when I tried to scratch his face off and endured the blows and bites I gave to him. He hushed and spoke softly to me although I couldn't decipher anything he said.

When the attack had run its course I was weak but the floodgates were still flowing.

"I can't do it. I can't do it Luke." I looked at him then I noticed we were already home.

He cupped my face and kissed the tears away. "No one said you're going to do it alone, I'll be there to help you get through it. Remember our promise to each other? I'll never leave your side."

My hand unconsciously went to the chain around my neck that held my promise ring on it. The chain itself had the promise words engraved on it. Both were gifts from Luke and I knew underneath his shirt he wore his around his neck bearing the same words.

He was about to say something else when his phone rang.

"No, I'm downstairs, I'll be up in a second." He ended the call.

"I have to go princess, your father wants to see me." He didn't put me down.

"I'll be fine, Luke. Go." I looked away.

He turned my chin back to face him. "I'll come back as soon as I can, I'll meet you in the garden."

I nodded because I lacked emotions at present.

His blue eyes were showing all the emotions he couldn't express all at once. He implored me not to harm myself anymore than I had already done.

He put me down and left the car.

I sneaked a peak at the rearview mirror and I couldn't recognise the person I saw. My neat hair was now a bird's nest and my face was tearstained with mascara running down my eyes. My skin, I had scratched myself raw and some parts had little trickles of blood. I left the car and went into the mansion.

_________________

I cleaned myself real good and was dressed in black, the colour of grief. I was on my out of the room when something caught my eye. On my reading table was one novel and I hadn't noticed the book until now. The book title gave me an idea, suddenly I knew what I had to do.

When I got to the garden, Luke was already there, sitting on the bench under the large oak tree. He smiled when he saw me coming and patted the bench, signaling me to sit.

I did so silently. He took my hands in his when I sat down. "I thought you ditched me." He gave me one of his award winning smiles.

My tongue itched to ask him what my father had called him in for. I didn't, instead I told him what I had been thinking as I cleaned myself.

"I'm not going to do it Luke. I'm not going to marry Daniel."

His smile vanished instantly and he looked away. "There's no way out if it princess, your father already made his choice. There's no backing out now."

"That's the thing! He made the choice, not me!" I stood up and walked away. "I can not guarantee that I'll walk up to that altar and not disgrace him because I'm not going to take a vow I don't intended to keep."

He walked up to me. "So what do you intend to do?"

I turned to look at him. "I'm going to run away."

His mouth hung open.

"No, not like that Luke. I mean I'm going to stay away for sometime until things die down."

From the look on his face I knew I had made the wrong choice by telling him. I should have just disappeared.

"I knew it! I shouldn't have told you, now you're going to run off and tell my father."

I walked away in a fit of rage.

"Princess?" He got up and pulled me back.

I slapped his hands away.

"Ophelia! For the love of God! Just hear me out!" He pulled me to him.

I stopped struggling.

"I'm going to help you. If its what you want to do then I'll help you run away."

What?

"Thank you. Thank you, Luke!"

I hugged him, he was a true friend even though what he was about to do would get him into big trouble.

"It's okay. Now, what's your big plan?"