ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVEN

ANISHA'S POV

Seven days were up. She commanded me to meet with her. I walked meekly into the overly decorated room and looked around. Right in the centre of the room was a huge table and six chairs, one of which Mrs de Milo sat on. I walked over to her, greeted her and took my seat. She pulled out of her bag the two car keys and the title deeds, and shoved them right into my face. I got hold of the items and placed them on the table in front of me.

"Take those things, Anisha!" she ordered.

"Thank you but I don't need them, Mrs de Milo. Tell me, is this what Dylan is worth to you? Your son is worth a house and two cars, and a fat bank account?" I asked her.

She looked at me with a strange, annoyed look, before she laughed out a little and said, "you're asking for more, are you not? Well then, state it! State the amount and I will give it to you!"

"No." I quickly corrected her assumption. "I'm not asking for more. All I am saying is, Dylan is your son, and if you think that he is worth a home and two cars, then clearly you don't value him enough. To me, he is not worth anything, I could never sell him for anything. He has no material value, so I can't possibly trade him with anything. If you were to offer me the whole world, I still would not trade," I watched her facial expression getting gloomier and gloomier. I had made her very angry, that much I could easily tell, but then I had no intention of backing off.

"Does Dylan know that I offered these to you?" she asked.

"He doesn't. His happiness means a lot to me, so I cannot trouble him by letting him know that his own mother believes him to be worth two cars and a house."

Immediately after those words left my mouth, I started to feel like I had overdone it. Was I not too hard on the woman? I was not sure, but surely there was no turning back. The words had already been spoken, and they could not be reversed.

"Anisha, don't play games with me. You don't talk to me like that. Surely you don't want to know what I am capable of."

I remained silent, although in my heart I was saying of course I know what you are capable of. Are you not the one who sent me a fake note as you tried to separate me from Dylan? And were you not involved in arranging for me to be raped? And just now, did you not offer me two cars, a home and some money, just so I could leave your son alone?

"Are you going to take the cars and the house?" she demanded angrily.

"I am not going to take them, Mrs de Milo. If I must tell you, I love Dylan, and he loves me too. I know I don't come from a rich family, but let me prove myself. I will work hard and prove my worth."

She let out a mocking laugh and stared hard at me, "of course my son will just spoil you with his money. That's all you want from him, so you must be very happy."

I decided not to respond on that, for I felt that if I responded, I could have said some words which I would later on regret. So I just let it go. I slowly pushed the keys and the title deeds towards her, and stood up.

"I am leaving now, Mrs de Milo."

"Not so fast!" she snapped.

I looked at her and waited for her to say something, but she did not.

"Why don't you tell your son about the offer that you're making to me?" I asked her.

She gave me a deathly stare but did not say anything. What she had not known all along was that I had received a message from her son, in which he asked where I was, and I told him that I was meeting with his mother at a café. She also was not aware that he was on his way to come to us.

A waiter brought in some glasses of juice but I dared not touch any, for I feared drinking it in case something had been done to it. I just waited until Dylan walked in.

Happy to see me and his mother seemingly becoming 'friends', Dylan ordered a lot of food for all three of us. He looked very happy and he spoke a lot, more than how he usually spoke. Mrs de Milo managed to keep up with the pretense, for she spoke and laughed. Well, that was only until…

"Mum, I bought something for Anisha. I always drive her to the university, or I send Chris to do so, so I guessed she might need a car of her own. We should not inconvenience her, she must be able to drive herself around."

Mrs de Milo's smile started to disappear, until her lower lip just hung low.

"You…you bought her a car?" she asked in utter shock.

Failing to read his mother's reaction, Dylan flipped though the pictures in his phone gallery and showed his mother a clear picture of the car. For a long while she stared at the picture, without saying a word. It was difficult to tell what could have been going through her mind, for her face was purely expressionless. After a long stare, she sighed and asked, "it looks expensive. What kind of car is this? It is a Benz, is it not? Is it one of their latest models?" she asked in a cold tone.

"It is a Mercedes Benz Maybach Exelero. Don't worry mum, it did not cost that much," Dylan had picked that his mother was upset by his gift to me. He took my hand in his and squeezed it to reassure me.

"How much did it cost?" Mrs de Milo asked again, her voice a bit louder and the anger in it starting to be detectable.

"Not much," Dylan would not divulge the price.

Mrs de Milo looked at him in anger. She looked at me and picked her bag before disappearing out of the room.

"Sorry about that. She will come around, don't mind her," Dylan said to me.

"You shouldn't have told her about the car," I said, not knowing what else to say or do.

"Well she must know that I love you, and even if I keep secrets from her, she will soon find out. It's best that she hears it from me anyway, so that she won't think I'm trying to hide anything from her." Dylan did not seem to care a lot.

My heart shattered into pieces. I did not want to imagine how it really felt for him, to have to always convince his mother to like me. I hated the place that I was in, but I was not willing to let go. I had fallen head over heels in love with Dylan, and it was impossible for Mrs de Milo to do anything to change my mind. She had no idea, but she had helped to bring us even closer to each other by her plan to have me raped. Because since the time it happened, Dylan had become overly protective of me, checking on me every once in a while, making sure I had enough security guards around me, and doing anything and everything to make me happy. So in other words her trick had backfired, because while it was meant to separate us, it had brought us closer and closer to each other. I had never been in love before. Dylan was my first love, and I was sure he was the one for me. His love was more than enough; he made me feel special like I had never felt before. He made me feel worthy and in his arms I felt at peace with everything. I wished to be able to share with Mrs de Milo how I felt about her son. If it were possible for her to feel ,for a moment, how I felt about him, how happy he made me feel, how lonely and miserable I felt in his absence, and what joy I felt whenever he came back to me…if only Mrs de Milo could have had a chance to experience those feelings, then she would have known that no matter how hard she convinced me or how seriously she threatened me, there was no way I was sever going to accept two cars, a house and some money in exchange for letting go of the love of my life.