All I Need

Chapter 44 - Promise

Kaia

"What do you want?"

"I can't even get a hello from my beautiful daughter? Don't be mean now, Kaia."

He was drunk. There was no way in hell he would refer to me as his beautiful daughter if he was sober.

Why was he calling? Interrupting my time with Elias? The time that I valued so much. The time that was being wasted by the second. The time that we didn't have because my father was taking it from us.

"Do you need something?" I looked at the door of the library. He was probably wondering who called me. I didn't want to have to lie again, so I started down the hallway. "Actually, whatever you need, forget about it. I'm not helping you."

"Do you think Elias loves you?"

"What?"

"Do you think Elias is in love with you?"

That was the last question I was expecting. Does Elias... love me? I didn't think so. We had only been together a handful of days. I mean, how long does it take someone to fall in love? The last time I searched it up, it said the average time for a man to fall in love was eighty-eight days. It hadn't even been fifty yet.

And besides, he was getting suspicious. If this conversation in the library proved anything, it proved that he was getting impatient. It bothered him, that he didn't know anything about me. He wanted to know about my family, he wanted to know my fucking middle for god's sake.

What would my father want to hear? If I said yes, that I thought Elias loved me, then maybe he would come sooner? Speed up the time? But in reality that didn't matter. We didn't need to get married because he already agreed to sign over the hotel. If we were being honest, I didn't even need to be here anymore.

If I said no, then would he be upset? Disappointed that I didn't manipulate this man into loving me faster? It all depended on what Elias's true feelings were, but I definitely wasn't going to ask him. I was far from ready to have the love talk. It was too soon for me.

I did wonder though. Was I enough for him? Did he think I was as beautiful as he said I was? Did he mean all the compliments? When he smiled and laughed with me, was he faking it?

That was in my mind a lot, along with my feelings that I hadn't even confronted yet. I cared for Elias, more than I had ever romantically cared for a man before. I felt happy when I was with him. I felt like I could be myself. Even though I was always lying.

"I don't know yet." I stepped into the elevator and pressed my floor. "It's too soon to tell."

"I remember when I fell in love with your mother." Nathaniel chuckled, reminiscing about his late wife. "Do you want to hear the story, Daniel? I've told it a hundred times, and I wouldn't mind telling it again if you want to hear it."

Daniel?

"Are you with him?" I opened my room door and sat on my bed. "Is he there right now? Let me speak to him."

"If you must, Kaia." I heard the cell door open. His footsteps were heavy as he walked across the concrete floor. "I'll give you five minutes."

"Daniel? How are you?"

"I'm just peachy." He sounded sarcastic and tired. Who knows what they've been doing to him. "I've spent the last two years telling Nathaniel to go fuck himself. So, the usual."

"Have they been hurting you?" Even though there was nothing I could do to stop it, I wanted to make sure he was genuinely okay considering the circumstances.