"So, do you want to marry my brother?" Harvey asked as he leaned forward towards me across the coffee table.
The saddest part perhaps was the fact that the only person who I could enlist to help me on the matter was someone who was supposed to be dead. After forcing myself to get out of bed, I dragged myself through the shower and threw on some clothes before heading straight for Harvey’s wing of the mansion.
Since Harvey had nowhere else to go, he was there reading a book when I waltz into his sitting room. To my surprise, Little Hayden was there as well, curled up at Harvey’s feet while looking more like a cat than a dog.
If the boss was right, which he most probably was, Hayden was out right now which meant that I needed to get my act together before he comes back. Today was already the first day out of the measly 7 days that I had left.
"I don’t know...I’m confused..." I admitted honestly.
Harvey looked at me like I was the most pathetic human being that he had ever seen before he sighed loudly and shook his head in disappointment. I could tell why he would feel that way but why did he have to show it so painfully clearly.
"How is it possible for you not to know?" Harvey asked exasperatedly.
"What about you? How did you know that you wanted to marry Amelia?" I asked enthusiastically.
It must have been complicated for him back then too because he was the heir of Torex. He was born to be the next leader of the Torex gang and yet he decided that he wanted to marry Amelia, a woman who was engaged to be married to the heir of a rival gang. It must have been hard for him to decide.
"It was the simplest thing ever. I woke up one day after having sex with her and she was laying there next to me. Then, I suddenly realized that I wanted to spend my life with her and no one else," Harvey replied without pause.
Well, that was easy. Way easier than what I had imagined. I mean, what about all the potential conflict and all of that?
"Did you...worry about anything?" I asked.
"Of course, I did, but once my mind was made up, I thought that we could figure everything else out later," Harvey replied casually.
"What do you mean?" I asked in pure confusion.
"Who do you think you are?" Harvey asked again and this time his face was dead serious, all signs of his pervious laughter had died down.
What does he mean by that? Who do I think I am?
I gave Harvey a blank stare as I waited for him to explain what he was trying to get at.
"Sorry for laughing at you just now. It’s just very unlike you to get so conceited even if unknowingly. If you think that you can force Hayden into anything, you better think again..." Harvey said, and his face suddenly turned dead serious.
"Force him?" I said, cluelessly.
"You did say it just now that you didn’t want to force him into marrying you if he doesn’t want to, right?" Harvey asked to remind me of what I had said.
"Well, yes and I mean exactly that..." I replied.
"That’s the funny thing because, you see, no one can force Hayden into doing anything that he doesn’t want to. Not the boss, not me, and definitely not you. No one can force Hayden into doing anything if he was really against it," Harvey said with absolute certainty.
"But..." I mumbled softly.
Isn’t he forced to do so many things already against his will? It didn’t make any sense...
"There are no ’buts’. If you see Hayden doing something, it means that there’s a part of him that is willing to do it although the reasons may vary. You think he was forced to act as the heir of Torex? Not at all, he’s willingly bearing with it to help out a selfish brother like me. No one can really force Hayden...not really..." Harvey explained as if he could read my thoughts.
--To be continued...