HER ITALIAN BABY...

CHAPTER 1

*edited*

It had been a really long day at work and she couldn't wait to get home and have a hot bath and jump to bed. The customers today had been unbearable, starting with a blonde bimbo who couldn't count to save her life and complained that Cara had shortchanged her and that led to a crazy argument with the manager because he had these policy that "you have to be polite to the customer no matter what" and Cara had quite a temper on her. She got it from her mother, her father always told her this.

She didn't know her mother, apart from the pictures and stories she was told by her father. Her mother, Rose Winters, had died when Cara was about 7 months old and as a result she did not get know her. She had died in a car accident on her way home from doing grocery shopping , when she was hit by a drunk driver , she had left Cara home with her father because that was his day off from work. Now all Cara had of her mother was a necklace that had a moon pendant, that her mother gave to her when she was still young and she never took it off.

When Cara got home she found her father seated on the couch with his head on his hands and some documents on the table before him. This surprised her because she always found him in the kitchen preparing supper because the last time Cara decided to try to prepare anything in the kitchen she almost burned down the house.

"Daddy? Is everything okay?" Cara asked as she sat down beside him. He lifted his head and Cara could see the pain behind her father's eyes. "Hey is everything alright?"

"Oh sweetheart!! Am so sorry about this I promise I didn't know?!" Paul said with deep remorse. Cara couldn't understand what her father was talking about.

"Dad, what are you talking about?" Paul couldn't bring himself to look at his daughter' as he told her the devastating news.

"Sweetie, you are getting married in two weeks." Paul said with his eyes closed, for the fear of the emotions he would see on his daughter's eyes as a result of the revelation. Cara looked at her father as though he had grown another head and a tail. Then she started laughing uneasily.

"Daddy this isn't funny. Last time I checked I was single with no potential boyfriend whatsoever in sight let alone a husband-to-be." She said this looking at her father in hopes that he would look at her and start laughing and tell her that this was one big joke and he was trying to prank her; but the sadness in her father's eyes told her that what he was saying was nothing but the truth. "How?" that was the only thing she could manage to say, or should we say ask.

"Your grandfather, Robert Winters had made a deal with someone he was borrowing money from and this deal entailed that his first grand daughter would marry David Morreti's first grandson and it so happens that you my dear are the one and only granddaughter. And if you refuse to cooperate with this marriage then we have to pay back the Morreti family a sum of 500 million dollars." Paul concluded.

Cara could not believe her ears, she was going to get married to some guy she did not know and to make matters even worse she couldn't back out because that sum of money was not something that she could come up with even if she had five lifetimes to spare. She looked at her father who was staring at her with tears in his eyes and a look that was pleading with her not to hate him.

"It's okay daddy, I don't blame you for this. I don't say that I'm ok with all that is happening because I'm furious, who the hell arranges a marriage for someone who is not even born yet? But I don't blame you for anything because it is not your fault, this is all grandpa's doing and if he was around, I would have given him an earful about what I thought concerning this arranged marriage issue." Cara said to her father and they both chuckled at this.

Zander had just finished his day's work and was about to leave the office when his father called him into his office for an urgent meeting. He tried to think of what he might have done to cause his father to call him, because that is all he ever did. The only time his father called him was to complain about one thing or the other, Zander never felt as though he ever did anything right with his father, ever since he was young he father always found something wrong in everything he did. One time when Zander was five he drew his father a picture and instead of how he expected his father to be happy with it, he father said that the colors he had colored with did not match. He was five! How was he supposed to know what colors matched?

Zander took a deep breath before walking into his father's office, it was a way to brace himself for the attack that was about to happen.

"Yes father, what did you want to say to me?" Zander asked as he took a seat. He had never called his father - Dad, the one time he did that when he was three, he got a severe spanking from him.

"Well I wanted to say to you that you are to get married in two weeks" his father said without looking up from what he was doing on the computer.

"What are you talking about?" zander asked looking at his father as though he had gone crazy, "I don't have anyone I'm seeing, how could I be getting married?"

"Well, Zander, its arranged obviously, your grandfather arranged with a friend of his that his first grandson would marry the first granddaughter. So yeah, you are getting married in two weeks." His father said still not looking up from whatever he was doing on the computer.

"but....." but his father interrupted him before he could say anything else.

"there are no buts, you will marry that girl or else you won't be able took take over this company," his father said finally looking up from the computer.

"WHAT?!!!" Zander could not believe his ears. An arranged marriage, and if he doesn't do it he won't be able to take over the company. Zander had no more to say, he just couldn't understand why his father hated him, because that is how he always felt, his father always made him feel like a puppet.

"Okay father," Zander said with a sigh. He left the office feeling as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. He never imagined himself getting married but now not only was he getting married but to a girl he had never met in his life through an arranged marriage. He got into his car and drove to his favorite bar where he planned on getting pissed drank and forget his troubles at least for a few hours.

He sat down at the bar and ordered for a drink, and as he was drinking out of the corner of his eye he saw a beautiful girl seated drinking looking as though she too had the weight of the world was on her shoulder and so he decided that they should drink their troubles away together.

"Hey mind if I join you?" Zander asked as he sat on the empty bar stool next to her. She looked up at him, he noticed she had beautiful brown eyes that made him think of hot chocolate, and sadly smiled at him.

"Sure, but I won't be much company." She said to him and went back to her drink.

"That is no problem, I don't mind, I also want to drink and just forget my troubles for the day at least before I have to face them again tomorrow." Zander said and he also went to drink, and that is how most of the night went.

He didn't know who did what first but sometime in the night they were kissing heatedly and couldn't seem to keep, their hands away from each other. "Your place or mine," Zander asked breathlessly as they pulled apart.

"Yours." the girl who he still didn't know the name. He quickly paid for their drinks and they stumbled out of the club and hailed a cab because even though they were pissed drunk, the little sober potion of his brain reminded him that he should not drive when drunk.