Leticia [The ADAMS Family]

03

THIS TIME, I find Bale already seated at the same place as last night, waiting for me. My heels click loudly against the marble floor but to the people around, it's slightly silenced because of the music and the murmurs. As I approach him, he looks dashing with a heavy black trench coat over his three-piece suit and the front strands of his slicked back hair fall on his forehead as he looks down at something on his phone.

My heels give me away since he looks up and eyes me up and down. I smile and sit down on the chair across from him. "Hello,"

"Hi," he responds, and clears his throat. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. How about you?" I ask, and he smiles.

"I'm also alright,"

An awkward silence fills the air after that and I let out an awkward cough but he thinks that I choked on my saliva since he passes me his glass of water to drink. I don't refuse since it will worsen the situation and take a small sip but my movements freeze when I realise that I am drinking from his glass meaning that around the rim I'm looking at, a side of it had welcomed his lips and I'm not sure if I had placed mine in the same place.

I glance up at him and see his eyes focused on my lips and that makes me put down the glass quickly on the table and clear my throat. "I have something to share with you," I divert the attention by grabbing the file that I have carried and stretch it out for him to take.

His brows furrow but he slowly accepts it. "What's this?" he asks.

"Our marriage contract,"

He stops opening the file and stares up at me with wide eyes. "Marriage contract?"

I shrug. "Of course. I have a few rules that I need you to abide by,"

"Rules?"

I point at the file. "See for yourself,"

He does and I watch his eyes move across the printed words and his face immediately scrunches up in confusion before a small smirk forms on his lips and releases a short chuckle. He looks up at me and lifts one of his eyebrows. "I find it unfair that I wasn't given the chance to create my rules,"

"You didn't ask," I tell him.

"Because I thought that it would be a normal marriage,"

I scoff at his remark. "Normal? Our marriage is anything but normal. It's a contract. An agreement. Normal marriages are for people who are already in love with one another," I point at the two of us. "We're not in love,"

I see that that hit him straight to the gut because his eyes twitched as if he was withholding his outburst.

"Don't you think you're being too harsh?" He grits out and my eyes widen before a mocking smile is plastered on my face.

"What? Did I hurt your feelings?"

I know that I'm being quite rude but I don't sugarcoat things. It's not who I am.