A Trade Of Hearts |✔

|Epilogue-3: Do I?|

ADRIAN

4th January 2019

It was near midnight.

Except for Kevin, who was asleep in his room, the rest of my family was sitting in the living room.

I was next to dad, laughing as he narrated an anecdote about an employee who once wrote him a mail while he was drunk.It ended up being so hilarious that dad didn't fire him.

Right about then, I heard a car loudly whir outside.

I frowned.

Only Vanessa and I owned cars that made that noise and were allowed in the house, but she had decided to stay the night at Hudson Estate and I was here.

I got up and excused myself to go out and see who it was.

Was she home early?

Vanessa opened the scissor door to the red Lamborghini Veneno she bought herself before Christmas and stood by it, passing me a half smile.

I walked up to her and arched an eyebrow," Missed me too much?"

"I did.", she sighed, wrapping her arms around me.

I instinctively placed my hands on her stiffened back, sure that something had upset her.

"You wanna talk about it?", I asked, my head still resting sideways against hers.

"About what?", she drew away and looked up at me.

"Really?"

By now she should know that I could literally sense the invisible not in her I'm fine.

She buried her face back in my shirt and softly said,"Everything was fine...until...I started thinking about something that really disturbed me and I needed to come talk to you."

"Okay. Let's go upstairs and talk."

She nodded.

I loosened my grip around her and said,"Hey, when we go in there...um...don't mention the moving in thing yet."

"You have not told them yet?", her eyes widened.

"I plan on telling them once we find a house.", I gulped.

On our second anniversary, two days ago, I had gifted her with a golden key. It felt like the right thing to do.

However my parents would be happier if my taking-it-to-the-next-step involved me getting down on one knee.

Once they found out we were planning on moving in together, mom and maybe even Charlotte would coerce me into thinking about marriage.

Vanessa hadn't mentioned the word to me even once but I knew that was an important milestone she was really looking forward to and once my family begins talking about it, she would expect a proposal soon after but I was not ready to take that step yet.

I shook my head"Just don't say anything about it right now, okay?"

She frowned and I bet she had a lot of questions but I knew I couldn't answer any of hers until I found the answers to mine.

We went in and Vanessa was enthusiastically greeted by everyone.

She was the first woman I was allowed to bring home...well more like, asked to bring home to spend every weekend at the mansion which we both had made a habit of doing, by now.

To be honest, even though her family and she were really trying to be close, her bond was more genuine and effortless with mine.

She even spent her past two Christmases here. We'd go over briefly to the Hudson Estate where her family usually gathered, we'd greet them, exchange gifts, have brunch and then return back to the Greys Mansion to celebrate.