Chapter 375 – Beginning with a Daring Encounter

She had no idea it was love at first sight for Benne. Celsie had said he caught a glimpse of her checklist, and she had assumed the feelings came after he took her home.

“I was seated there waiting for Anita to come in so I would end things with her and leave, but instead of Anita, Celsie walked in dressed for the occasion but looking so lost and out of place. My eyes were glued to her as she made her way to the bar, and like fate, Sam brought her to sit right next to me. If I tell you I remember every word she said to the barman even before I spoke with her, you’d call me crazy, wouldn’t you?” Benne asked, and Sonia just stared at him in disbelief.

“I’ve been with women in the past. But not once have I ever brought any woman to my home, but with Celsie, it felt so right bringing her here even without knowing much about her. The thought of taking her anywhere else was wrong. I will tell you something crazy… Although I had never said this out loud to anyone, when Celsie lay on my bed that first night and I watched her sleeping so peacefully, I thought of asking her to marry me the next morning when she wakes up, just because I didn’t want her to disappear from my life the next day,” Benne said.

This time Sonia’s eyes widened in surprise, making Benne chuckle.

“I know you think I’m crazy, don’t you? Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t do that. That crazy move would have certainly sent her bolting out of my life forever,” Benne said with a sad smile.

“You wanted to marry her from the first day you met her, and she doesn’t even want to get married,” Sonia murmured, feeling sorry for him.

She realized for the first time that she had never really thought of things from Benne’s perspective or tried to find out why he had been interested in Celsie enough to tell all those lies. She had always written their story mostly from Celsie’s point of view, but now she admitted that Benne’s viewpoint was just as important. She was going to have to edit the story again.

“If I may ask, why didn’t you do it? I mean, since you wanted to ask her to marry you, what stopped you?” Sonia asked curiously.

“I confirmed from Harry that she was our recently transferred director. So I decided that since she won’t be entirely disappearing from my life, there was no need to hurry. I wanted to take my time to know her better before asking her to be my wife.”

“Let me get something straight. You wanted to propose to her when you didn’t know her, yet when you got close to her, you were trying to see if she was a golddigger. Why?” Sonia asked, pointing out the flaw in his logic.

“Not exactly. Pretending to be her driver was to get to know her personally, not to see if she was a golddigger. I didn’t exactly think she was a golddigger….”

“If you didn’t think so, you would have walked up to her normally and gotten to know her,” Sonia countered.

“As Benedict Delgado? Her boss? I don’t think so. People generally pretend and butter up things when you’re as wealthy as I am. I only decided to test her to see if she would fall for the ‘CEO’ because she gave me a reason to believe she was looking down on me for being a mere driver and handyman, and when Bryan said she wanted me to know of her relationship with you, I thought she might be interested in the CEO. I desperately wanted her to prove me wrong because I didn’t think she was that sort of person,” Benne explained.

“What would you have done if she had fallen for the ‘CEO’ then?”

“I wouldn’t have been happy about it, but I would have married her regardless because I am in love with her. I understand that it is natural for most people to choose wealth over poverty. Even I would prefer to be rich than poor after all,” Benne said with an amused smile now.

“If you know that, why give Celsie a chance when you didn’t give Anita a chance?”

“First, I wasn’t exactly in love with Anita. Also, she didn’t even want to spend any time with me after I told her I wasn’t wealthy. Celsie, on the other hand, is someone I’m in love with. And although she did not like that I was a driver or a handyman, she didn’t let that stop her from treating me like a friend most of the time when she didn’t have her guard up. She even managed to fall in love with me,” Benne’s eyes lit up as he said that, and Sonia smiled too.

“I know I went overboard in trying to understand her kind of person and get her, but I did all I thought I needed to do to… And then when I found out about Jamie, I realized just how wrong it all was,” Benne explained, and Sonia sighed as she tried to process it all.

“Celsie is my soulmate, Sonia. And if what she wants is to stay by my side without officially becoming my wife, I will let her do so. It will be difficult for me, I know it. But Celsie is my only chance at love,” Benne said, and this time Sonia teared up.

“I’m glad I had this conversation with you. Thank you for loving my baby the way you do,” Sonia said tearily as she embraced him. Glad that she had been right to have trusted him.

Now she didn’t have to worry so much about Celsie ruining her relationship with Benne. He deeply loved her and was mature enough to handle things.

Benne sighed, “What is it with all the ladies crying on me today? I can’t offer you my handkerchief. I already gave it to Janet,” Benne said, and Sonia laughed as she pulled away.

“I love you, Benne.”

“Unfortunately for you, I’m taken,” Benne said with a wink, and she laughed again.

“I’m taken too. So I will have to settle for a secret affair,” Sonia said, and Benne chuckled.

“Talking about a secret affair, I hope this conversation can remain between us? I would still like to see if she can change her mind,” Benne said, and Sonia smiled.

“Sure. I would like to see her change her mind. One of my secret desire is to help her plan her wedding as the maid of honor and watch her walk down the aisle,” Sonia said with a sigh.

“Mine is to see her with a big baby bump. I can clearly picture it. Twin girls,” Benne said, and Sonia laughed aloud.

“I’ve been looking all over for you. What are you both doing here?” Bryan asked irritably from the doorway, glaring at the both of them like he had caught them cheating on him.

“Oh, no! He finally caught us in the act, baby. What are we going to do? I guess it can’t be kept a secret anymore. Go and tell him it’s over baby,” Benne said dryly as he kissed Sonia’s cheek, and laughter bubbled out of her as she went to meet Bryan while Benne looked around until he found Celsie’s phone.

After leaving her mother on the balcony, Celsie went straight to Benne’s bedroom, wanting to be alone for a moment to catch her breath and put her emotion in check.

She shut the door behind her and walked into the bathroom. She stood in front of the mirror and stared back at her reflection for a moment.

She wasn’t usually the confrontational type. She really hated misunderstandings and confrontations such as this, so why had she lost her temper and spoken so harshly to her mother?

Surprisingly it was the first time she was really showing an outward emotion and talking about her repressed grievance against her family, which she had always kept to herself, buried inside somewhere. In fact, she thought she had gotten over the feeling of hurt.

Although she would never say it out to her family, a part of her blamed them for what happened to her. Yes, it wasn’t their fault that Jamie had been a lunatic who abducted her, and although it might be unfair of her to blame them, she thought her parents had been too absorbed in their jobs and themselves to even notice that anything was wrong with her.

She had made several excuses for them, even when Benne had asked how her parents could not have noticed the changes in her following her discovery that Jamie was stalking her, but deep down, she knew they had been too careless. Even when she was barely eating as well as she used to during family mealtimes, no one had noticed.

And when she stopped joining them in the living room to watch the soap opera, they usually viewed together as a family whenever she wasn’t at Sonia’s, no one had asked why. They had been too focused on themselves.

She had desperately wanted one of them to notice and try to find out what was wrong so that she could confide in them, but no one had noticed. Lucas had been all about Rachel, and her parents had been all about each other and their job. She had felt so neglected, and the only person who had been there with her all that time was Sonia.

Maybe she was being unfair by blaming them, but she couldn’t help it. She had been seventeen years old. Her parents could have done better. She hated that her mother’s careless words had set it all off in her head, and try as she might to calm down, she couldn’t stop the bitterness and anger that was making her stomach churn.

She turned on the faucet and let the water run in the sink before splashing some on her face. Just as she reached for a towel to dry her face, she heard the bedroom door open, and so she walked out of the bathroom.

She forced a smile when Benne walked further into the bedroom while looking at her.

“Don’t do that, Celsie,” Benne said with a shake of his head as he studied her wet face, and she looked at him with questioning eyes.

“Don’t do what?”

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