Arranged Love

Chapter 6: Dinner Prep

*Rafe's POV*

"Come in," The boys walked in. I didn't know they would be here already,"Is she here? Is she alright? Did something go wrong?"As the day wore on, I had started to worry more and more about their mission, and more than once, caught myself looking at the pictures Jason had sent to us.

 Dominic assuaged my fears by saying,"She is fine, but sleeping. We showed her to her room and she promptly fell asleep. You will see her at dinner,"

Coming around the desk I blurted out,"Did you hurt her at all?" I tried to cover for myself, "I hope you were careful, we can't have this being traced back to us." Jason quickly put his hand up,"Guys, I need to talk to Rafe for a few, can you step out?"

They shuffled out, and Jason turned to me,"Rafe, you and I both know you are not good enough for her," I bristled at that. "Be careful-"

"I think I'll be fine, thank you for your advice," I said trying to push past him. He put his hand on my chest, shoving me lightly,"No, You will not go anywhere. That girl in there will have the biggest bombshell in her life dropped on her in a matter of hours. She's already been kidnapped, there is no need for you to go in there and be dominating and intimidate her. You don't need to compound her issues-"

"But-" "Don't say a word Rafe. You will be the King and she is to be your Queen, enough pressure will be put on her already, you have to take things slowly with her."

"You have no right to tell me what I can or cannot do with my fiancee." I am angry now, he has no right to speak to me this way. 

"I do Rafe! You are the one that seems not to understand, she is broken, you and your inability to keep it in your pants will not help her at all. Especially with your tastes" I grit my teeth tightly, he had a point, not that I would ever acquiesce to that. "I think, I-I don't really know why I'm acting like this," ground out of my mouth,"I realize that, but you'll have to take it slow or not take it at all. She needs to be loved Rafe, and we both know you don't want that so don't go getting her hopes up for no reason."

I sighed heavily and sat back down, "Has Jenny arrived for dinner yet?"

"I heard from Teresha, that she'd be back within the hour, by the way dinner is at 7:30,"

"What time is it now?" He checked his watch, "6:00. Nick and I will go and wake her up, to give her time to prepare. Everyone should be there, I think,"

"Good, do you really think I have a chance Jason? I find myself wanting to know her and it disturbs me; maybe I'm just fascinated because she's new. I've rarely ever thought of a woman in any way but sexually, and I find this strange to me. I'm not sure why though," 

Jason's face looked pained, before he opened his mouth,"Rafe I-"

"Forget it. I know what you would say, but that won't stop me you know,"

"Actually I was going to say, you two would be a beautiful couple, but it'll take a lot of effort on your part. Please be careful with her, she seems strong on the surface but I don't believe she is," He put his hand on my shoulder,"Don't hurt her Rafe. She doesn't deserve anymore pain," he said , before leaving the study.

*Jason's POV*

I hope my little talk did him some good. She's a strong girl, but I truthfully don't know how much more she can take. I retrieved Nick and told him what we were going to do now. We made our way up to her room, and found her sitting at the dresser checking out what was in the drawers. She was in the sweatpants that we kidnapped her in, but she had opened her duffel bag and worn a sweatshirt.

She turned towards us as we walked in. Her face looked blotchy, but she had stopped crying. She got up and sat at the round table and gestured that we should join her. We situated ourselves, we had decided that Nick would speak to her,"Before you ask anything, we can't answer much, but we'll do our best,"

"Ok. Where am I?"

"Conagro, capital city of Cognac in the royal palace of the Qaderi family," he said quite proudly, Qaderis were always a proud family, and they had much to be proud of. They had single-handedly built this country through building their empire, but we'll get more of that later.

"When will I meet everyone?"

"At dinner, which is at 7:30. Dress formally, but not black-tie."

"Where will I find the clothes, I checked in my duffel bag, and there wasn't much there to work with," 

I finally spoke up,"If you go through that door to your left, you'll find a semi-full closet, with all the basic outfits you'll need, but tomorrow we're taking you shopping anyway, so you won't have to worry about that for long," She got up and went in the closet, after waiting about 5 minutes we followed after her, and she was just looking around in wonder,"It's so much bigger than I thought it was," 

"And you get to fill it with clothes," I assured her. "Well, since I'm new to this, I think I'll need you guys' help choosing something to wear," I knew Nick would be excited,"Yes! We would absolutely l love to help you! Jase, go pick up that lace black and white dress over there and the burgundy pumps and the jewelry! Oh, what I"m going to do to you Lanie!" My boyfriend tends to get excited when there's a girl to dress up, although he's absolutely horrible at dressing himself. 

He dragged Lanie back into her room and to the large dresser. Pulling out a towel and some lingerie, he shoved her into her bathroom commanding her,"GO take a shower, I expect you out of there in 20 minutes, Jase we should have come up here earlier, I'll only have 40 minutes. Why do I still see you Lanie? You're supposed to be in the bathroom by now," The poor girl looked bewildered, I just shook my head and said,"It's probably best to just go along with it,"

*Lanie's POV*

I showered as quickly as I could and put on the things that guy gave me, Nick I think his name was. 

I have to admit, I'm kind of scared of what this dinner's about. I mean it could be about anything, but my worst fear would to have it be about my Dad. Maybe they wanted to execute me and would do it in style or something, or maybe I was dinner, or maybe I really am being sold as a sex slave. I know Jason said that wouldn't happen to me, but then again I don't know if I should really trust him. 

After all, he helped kidnap me. That doesn't make sense, if they  wanted a sex slave, he definitely should've chosen my sister and I'm sure Hollis Perkins has more than one daughter that they could execute. I'm so confused, but I can hear Nick banging on the door of the bathroom threatening to come in. That's another thing, why give me clothes and a nice bedroom and an even better bathroom if I was brought here to die for the sins of another?

I came out in just the lingerie, with a robe. I didn't care mostly because they're gay, but also because if I'm a sex slave it won't be covered for much longer. Nick predictably dragged me to stand right in front of a mirror, there were three of them in the room. "Okay, you took like 40 minutes in there, this is a zip dress, so lets do your hair and makeup first." I let him do his thing, and Jase prepped me on the different table manners they used here. Everything was basically the same except in Cognac, wine was very important so you had to make sure that you had at least 2 glasses per meal. Strange, but I'm no lightweight in the alcohol department. I don't usually feel that drunk until I've finished like the whole bottle of wine, or bourbon, or... anyway back on topic, Jase had put on my shoes and my makeup was done. My eye makeup was pretty simple, but my lipstick matched the exact shade of my shoes. A deep burgundy color, which Nick explained as the country's official color, with champagne-like gold as the complementary color, but I only had burgundy today.

I slipped the dress on, and it hugged my curves in all the right places. I looked older, 21 at least, and at my tender age of 18 looking my age is very important to me especially with my height. We started making our way down the stairs. Jase told me that I would enter exactly at 7:30, everyone would have entered before me, and there would only be one seat left and that I should take it without complaint. Everyone would already have been standing waiting for me. Apparently this formal dinner shit was very important around here. Fuck.