Dimitri hasn't uttered a single word to me in the elevator. He leans rather bored against the mirrored walls, has his foot propped over the other with his arms crossed against his chest.

Since the outlast in the restaurant and me ruining one of his and his biggest investor's relationship, and the time between getting home and him discovering Hugo is my father – Dimitri hasn't spoken a single word to me. I think he's taking his time to process it. I stare at him in the mirror elevator doors, he's awfully tall compared to me and his face is blank. It's not pissed or stormy per se, just unusually calm.

Why isn't he screaming at me? Why isn't he asking me a string of thousand questions. His chilled out demeanour is scaring me more than his angered one.

"Dimitri," I call, finally finding my voice.

"Bells," he replies. His eyes flick up, meeting mine in the mirror. I walk closer to him, trapping him in the tiny corner.

"Are you angry at me?" No reply. Dead silence. "Dimi–"

"I don't know? Should I be? How would you feel if you found out the woman you've married is the daughter of one of Barcelona's richest man and is the future heiress of Antolin Corp. Shocked too, right?" A lump squeezes in my throat, painfully slow.

I cross my arms over my chest and his gaze darkens as his head turns down. Despite the subtle gesture, he remains cool and collected. Meanwhile, I'm a panicked mess of anxiety. "I tried telling you at the restaurant. I tried telling you the day I came back from Kent but you never listened."

He rolls his eyes at me, not buying the excuse a single bit. "Why didn't you tell me when we met." Although a question, it's a reprimand. He's telling me off.

I give him a flippant shoulder shrug and sarcasm drowns out my voice. He doesn't miss the hot flare at all. "When we met? Do I need to remind you that we met when you crashed into my car." Upon the mention, he inwardly cringes. He absolutely hates being reminded of that night. Good, sometimes he does need a reminder to ground him.

"No, we also met in your classroom."

"Yeah? And I was supposed to blurt out that my father is one of Barcelona's richest man? Be reasonable." The elevator door opens and I step into the penthouse, kicking my heels off. All the pressure mounts onto the balls of my feet and I rub the pain away.

Dimitri hovers behind, shrugging his blazer off before he throws it onto the sofa. "I'm just really disappointed you didn't trust me enough to tell me, Bella. So fucking disappointed." His veins slowly reveal as he starts rolling the sleeves of his white shirt up. "I'm still trying to get it around my head. That man is my father-in-law? If I had known I would have approached the situation and partnership with him differently. I would've wanted to impress him because he's your father."

Something inside of snaps like a brittle peice of lead. "Listen to me very carefully. I don't want a single thing to do with that man. Ever. I couldn't care less if he's your business investor, that's between you and him. But don't ever, mention him to me again. You don't need to impress him, he should be trying to impress you. He's a vile, cruel man who murdered my mother to exploit her. End of."

Dimitri inhales a sharp intake, "Wait, everything Anwar told me something about him. Everything I heard you utter at the restaurant about your mother? It's all true?"

"Yes." I reply on beat.

He threads a hand through his hair. That one lone strand falls over his eyebrow. "You don't know that. You never heard him through when he was explaining himself in the restaurant."

"Evangelía asked him for a divorce that night. He returned with a warning. Do you know what he said to my mother Dimitri? I heard it all, I was standing outside the door." Dimitri doesn't reply and waits for me to continue. There's a huge lump growing in my throat.

"He stated that if she was to leave him, something terrible would happen to her and he would never be held responsible. Then her brakes magically stop working and–" I stagger with a hiccup, the sentence hardly forming past my lips. The hazy memory of screaming and shouting, vases being broken sear through my mind and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

Dimitri senses the dread in my demeanour immediately and looks insanely guilty. He wraps his arms around me as a protective gesture before murmuring apologies after apologies. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have never taken you with me. I apologize for putting you in that uncomfortable situation."

The foggy haze beats on, my voice a strain of ache. "He got away with it and my mother paid the price," his torso wraps around me, so tight that I feel like all my broken pieces are being held together. He's so warm and addicting and understanding. I hated keeping him in the dark.

"I'm so sorry, baby. I know this is hard for you to talk about and I'm so proud. She didn't deserve that. You should've told me all of this," he places a soft kiss on my temple.

"I thought you would hate me for it." My eyes are pricking with tears from the confession. My heart squeezes and Dimitri frowns at me before stepping closer. His thumbs lay flat on my cheeks and he's wiping the salty dew away, his gaze a tender affection.

"How could I ever hate you?" He asks, his voice a gentle husk of adoration. His touch warms the coldest depths of me. "If anything, I've fallen in love with you." I blink before it settles harshly what he's uttered. I stare into his eyes again and the blue encapsulates so much love that he's not joking.

Dimitri Asterio is not joking. My heart beats like a drum.

"I was afraid to say it earlier because this marriage started out as a facade but now, you're everything I've been searching for. We might not have met under ideal circumstances but I'm so so glad I met you. " with that said, he closes the distance between us and plots a tender heated kiss on my lips.

"I swear I couldn't love you more than right now, and yet tomorrow I will. Even more than today."

His thumbs caress the ridge of my jaw, his confession a humid buzz in the air.

Oh my god. Dimitri Asterio just confessed he loves me. "I just don't want the whole world knowing about this." I utter pathetically then reprimand myself for it. I should be telling him I love him back but can't bring myself to do so.

"I promise you, no one else will find out about this." At that moment, the lie sounded so sweet from his mouth. His hands wrap around my waist and he pulls me into him.

We undress with urgency - with desire storming the cloudy depths of our mind. There's simply no time to take this slow. We both need this urgent, quick and right now. His large hand reaches behind and zips down my dress, it pools in a puddle at my feet. I kick it some place and Dimitri's shrugging out of his shirt as I make quick of his belt buckle. Our kisses a joint, humid mess.

He takes me the first place he can find. The fucking marble floor of the penthouse. The cold marble meets my back but he's keeping me warm. With his lean and muscles torso outstretched over me, my legs bent around him and his mouth leaving a wet pathway down to my navel. This is crazy and I don't think we've covered the marble floor on our list before. I don't complain because we're both shrouded with need.

A sharp gasp escapes my lips when he slams into me without warning and the rhythm is punucating and lowly grinding. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I wind an arm around him, merging him into me while the other draw jagged lines into the skin of his back. He's going to stare in the mirror later on and remember me for days.

The pressure builds and builds and builds. I'm a sweaty mess on his marbled flooring with knees hiked to my torso and him simply taking it all.

His hands twine into mine, holding my arms over my head. He plays it perfectly – his mouth on mine distracting me from the override of pleasure surging beneath. I'm struggling to kiss him back and moan into his mouth.

Every thrust of his hips, everything feels too high, so intense. What makes my stomach quake with heartbeat even more is the fact, the penthouse is still dark and simmering with lamp lights. We're shrouded in the moonlight and us coming together is sticky, slick slap – again and again. Oh– I wind my eyes shut, bite my lip to hold out his name. The darkness heightens everything and the only thing I can think about is the movement of his hips instead of the ominous ticking of the clock in the distant.

"God, Bella, I love you so much." My heart beats, not from how good he's making me but because he keeps reminding of it. I'm still getting used to it and it makes me feel funny in the pit of my stomach. Dimitri moans into my neck, purple flourishing as a aftermath.

Me too, I can't think clearly to confess it.

Friction, too much damn friction. Every inhale, every moan and repeated murmur of my name topples me further over the edge. His hands crush mine, his breath hitches and the final hit in my knotted gut tears him apart. I meet him all the way there as he fills me with hot white. His hair is a wayward mess, his brows and back slick with sweat before he's rolling into his back still trying to collect himself from the aftermath.

He just fucked mine, and his brains out.

His muscled chest heaves in a steady rhythm and I listen waiting for the clouds to simmer away from my eyes and when I roll over, snuggle into him more and ask,"If you could go any place in the world right now, where would it be?"

It takes him a while to reply, so I bask in his presence a little longer. This is what home feels like. And I want to be here for the rest of my life - beside him, with him, loved by him. His eyes are closed but he's listening and cranes his neck towards me, passes me a lazy smile before calling me crazy for asking him such a thing after he gave me the best sex of my life. I jab a manicured nail into his rib and he fake winces.

"The Maldives. I need a vacation, I'm overworked and overwhelmed." He slides me up, and I wobble a little. My legs still feel hollow from all the action. He bites back a proud grin and promises me a deep tissue massage. He helps me back into my dress and kindly zips up my dress before propping a small kiss on my shoulder. "Where would you go?"

"Barcelona – Terressa specifically."

"That's oddly specific, why?" Dimitri's sentence is silenced by his phone ringing. He quickly props his shirt and trousers back on before kissing his teeth at the non-stop buzzing. Ring after ring.

"Someone's eager to get a hold of you," Displeasure strikes across his face, it's 11pm in the night and no one ever rings him this late.

Dimitri peers at the screen before he frowns, "It's Nav. He never ever calls me this late." I haven't heard from Nav since the agreements between us. My heart sinks. I have an odd feeling something terrible is about to happen.

Despite the unusual occurrence, Dimitri answers and helps me up on my feet. I straighten out my dress and listen in. "Hey, what made you think of me at 10 in the– what?" His eyes shift to me. Dread encapsulates his face, he swallows hard.

Disappointment blasts to his centre core. "Are you sure? Nav, there has to be some mistake. That's not possible... oh, what?" he glances out of the window before drawing the curtains back. His pulse quickens and it almost pops out from the side of his forehead with heated anger.

What's going on. I've never seen Dimitri this angry. "Right now? No!" He bellows, ends the call.

"What's wrong?"

Dimitri doesn't reply, his thumbs fiddling over the screen. Then he finally meets my gaze, so detached and ruined. He gulps before finally slurring out, "Where's your copy of the NDA, Bella?"

I freeze up, a cold bead of sweat trickles down my arm. My heart decides to train for a marathon, each breathe uneven. Shit. "I was going to tell you but I forgot about it. We've been on a rollercoaster these past couple of weeks and –"

He steps closer to me, each step sends anxiety knotting inside me. Right now, he's not playing the loving husband. He's morphed back into the ruthless businessman that isn't afraid to crush anyone. His large hands wrap tightly around my arms, his fingers will leave lasting impressions – it hurts.

Dimitri leans forward, his face glowing virulently underneath the dimmed lights. "Where the fuck is your copy of the NDA, Bella?!" He asks again, his voice raising an octave. His harsh tone sends chill racing through me. I never feared Dimitri before but right now, I would make sure to sleep with one eye open. I don't like this version of Dimitri.

I barely scrape a sentence out before I'm confessing, "I lost it!"

He lets me go instantly, disgust budding over his face. "Are you fucking kidding me!" He pushes a finger through his hair, sweat forming on his head.

"How long ago was this?"

I stammered out, "Two weeks ago."

He looks disappointed then he turns the volume up on his phone. "A Whistleblower has come forward with information regarding the marriage of Dimitri Asterio and Isabella Romero. A leaked NDA between them states Asterio has hired Romero to play his pretend wife for a duration of eighteen months and he's been sending her monthly payments of a hefty amount. They've faked the entire thing and not only that but Isabella Romero is the daughter of hospitality mogul Hugo Antolin. New conspiracy theories state that Dimitri Asterio was using–" the voice is a slur in the background. I've blacked out, I'm not listening.

Everything is moving in slow motion. Dimitri's pacing back and forth, repeating "It's over," with his hands buried in his hair. "I've just lost the company. The board will most likely fire me for this ruse and Grandpapa will get his last word. It's fucking over!"

I ruined it.

The tension builds and builds and builds. Dimitri's voice slurs away in panic about him losing the company. The reporter's voice buzzes and pulsates about faking it.

This was all me.

The room grows hotter and hotter. It shrinks and shrinks and shrinks until my body is conformed into an uncomfortable angle. I've been pushed harshly into a 4 by 6 tiny white box with nowhere to go. My vision is blurry with tears. Outside the window, there's a crowd of paparazzi forming in the cold night. Dimitri says something to me. I haven't acknowledged it. It sounds like a nasty reprimand. I've just ruined his life. I've just ruined his work. I've ruined his months of hard work.

I don't move one inch, the beating of my heart is sounding in my ears. It all comes crashing down, as if I'm crushing underneath the weight of the chandelier. Shockwaves of terror quake through me then I do the unthinkable.

I run for my life.

I repeatedly jam the elevator button close, it shoots down and I run out into the lobby in a disarray. Adam bobs his head up and he stares at me in a confused gauze. Dimitri burst through the emergency exit with his shoulder. He's a breathless mess with sweat coating his face.

"Adam stop her!"

Adam launches towards me. I stumble over and rush through the sliding doors. Flash after flash. I wince at the impact, the tears blurring down my face.

A mic shoves in my face. "Is your marriage fake?" Yes.

"Is Hugo Antonlin your father?" No.

"Your mother was murdered and–" Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP!

"Bella!" Dimitri pushes through the crowd, almost sending a cameraman hurling. I feel like I'm fucking surrounded with no where to go. I need to leave. I need to get out of here. I pick my dress up and struggle through the lights and humid closeness of the strangers. I start running, the cold air swoops past me, slamming into my face.

The flashes, screaming, yelling - the nasty comments grow in tenor behind me. I ignore it all with the blurry vision of London's desolate street in front of me.

I run and I run. My legs are numbing beneath me, my side stitch slicing into my ribcage. I don't stop, I can't stop. All my nightmares are colliding into a huge wreckage. My lungs are burning with acid from the tragedy and I'm the weakest I've ever been. I run down the road, along the mile of the curves.

I keep running and I don't stop. Then finally, the voices shrink and shrink and quiet. It's all too damn quiet and I'm out of breath. Despite it all, I can't force myself to pause. I can't risk them seeing me like this. I can't risk it! I need to disappear – NOW.

So instead, I shoot down a narrow neighbourhood like a madwoman with liner smearing down her face. I don't know where the hell I am but it feels good. It feels liberating. Dimitri Asterio is a distant memory now and the media can't bother me.

I know two things for certain: one, I've ruined Dimitri's life and two, I'm never coming back.