Betrothed for Rejection

Chapter 30: Blending In With The In-Laws

The arrival of the autumn season could easily be felt from the dusty winds, and the colored leaves that were falling in our garden, I stared out the window, the atmosphere within the mansion was exhausting.

Adrian sat their working on his laptop, surprisingly, he had returned the next day and our continuous bickering had stopped, the topic about Axcel was dead. I heard the main phone, ring, fearful of it being Axcel, I hurriedly grabbed it, "H-Hello".

"Hi dear how are you doing?"

"Emma I am so glad you called, how is Mr. Vittorio now? Is he better? What did the doctor say?"

"Wow, those are a lot of questions, Ailey, yes Devon is fine, the doctor actually said, that it's okay to take him home now, that is actually why I called, I decided to have a bit of a get together and welcome back home party since we couldn't have it when you two returned from Scotland".

"Oh thank God, its good to hear about Mr. Vittorio, I would love to be there, when is the party?"

"Well dear, I was thinking tomorrow, how about dinner?"

"uhh I think dinner is a great idea". I smiled.

"One more thing, Ailey, Devon's family is arriving from Italy tomorrow as well and let me just put it this way, Adrian's grandmother is a tad bit strict, I don't want her to hurt you in anyway, be careful around her".

Well, now that was just terrific, here I had planned to expose, Axcel and get help from Emma and now this, now I was about to meet another most horrifying tyrant in the history of tyrants, Grandma Vittorio. The Vittorios, were very conventional in some ways and had this legacy of awkward customs and norms, that made me doubt if their ancestors were a part of the Italian mafia, with the strict norms and secret lives.

" was calling?..."

"huh??"

"Great... back to being lost, I said, who was calling? Adrian replied a tad bit agitated.

"Your mother called, she said, that Dad is at home now the doctors decided to let him out, she is preparing a get together tomorrow.."

"Okay."

"Umm... Adrian".

"What?" He said turning to leave.

"Your family is coming from Italy, your grandmother will also be there".

It was as if the world, halted for Adrian, his shoulders got all tensed, he turned; his firm jaw, tightly clenched, his hands turning into white fists, as his lips formed in a thin line. I sensed that before, he starts breaking things in the living room I should leave, so as awkward it may have seemed I walked up to my room and started to take out the dress for ironing that I would wear tomorrow.

After rummaging through half of my closet, I agreed on a cream colored knee-length dress with a burgundy colour infinity scarf and nude wedges. Once that was done, I entered into the kitchen and decided to bake some marble cupcakes, for Dad, he loved them, maybe Grandma Vittorio would like them too.

While I mixed the batter I decided to turn on the music as well, Adrian had probably left and I was a bit bored listening to music while baking, felt like a good idea. Walking towards the slab where I had placed my phone, I picked it up, ten messages from unknown caught my attention.

My hands shook as I kept the bowl down and swiped to unlock my phone and check the messages, pictures, of me and Axcel, zoomed on the screen draining all the blood from my body.