Marriage by Bargain - Book 2

Chapter Seven

Naia

"You trifling, no good, secret keeping booger!" Lia yelled at me as she waddled into Zandre's penthouse, "how dare you not tell your heavily pregnant, highly unstable, emotional best friend that you're shacking up and bumping uglies with the super hot millionaire we use to hate?!" She sat down on the couch with a huff and glared at me.

I sighed knowing she wouldn't accept the fact that I had honestly forgotten to tell her. I was two days into my living arrangement with Zandre and it turned out we were getting along amazingly well. I mean even our fights were great! I was actually pretty annoyed things were so perfect, I mean how do you even pick a good fight with someone as thoughtful and attentive as he was. I had taken the day off to go talk to my old landlord and make preparations to move back home at the end of the week. It was the only thing I could think of to ground myself and bring my head out of the clouds. He was seeping under my skin and there was nothing I could do to stop it, so I needed to at least do something to slow it down or I was going to fall hard and fast for him. However, my plans were foiled when my very pregnant, very angry best friend came storming into the apartment building. Luckily I had only just gotten out of the elevator so I was able to intercept her before she tackled the poor receptionist who was just doing her job and caused an even bigger scene. I had apologized on her behalf and made the excuse that it was her pregnancy that was causing this disruptive behavior, but the truth was that even if Lia hadn't been pregnant she would have still tried to tackle the receptionist and would have succeeded too. I quickly took my fuming friend into Zandre's private elevator before she threw another tantrum.

Fortunately, she waited until we were inside the apartment before she started her verbal attack on me since she had used up all her physical energy on the receptionist. Thank goodness for that but now she was wearing the scowl to end all scowls. I knew there were only two things that could make her forgive me right now; dessert and details.

"How about some chocolate fudge ice cream with crushed cookies and Herseys chocolate syrup before I give you the dirt?" I asked sweetly, I could see her shoulders relax a little so I knew I was on the right track.

Two cartons of ice cream later I was finally wrapping up the story because Lia kept exclaiming, interrupting, commenting or asking me to go into greater details. By the time I was finished she looked dreamy eyed and happy; definitely not mad anymore. I also had the feeling she was a teeny tiny bit dairy drunk given how she tore through the ice cream just now.

"That was so sweet of him!" She said, "I mean the date by the way, not the kidnapping all your stuff and using it to manipulate you into living with him part," she clarified.

I laughed and nodded in agreement. We eventually lost track of time talking and bringing each other up to speed on the happenings in our individual lives. At some point we both fell into a light food coma but were soon awakened by Lia's really loud, really annoying phone alarm. I grumbled and turned my head into the couch cushion fully intending to continue my nap. That was made impossible when Lia started poking my side.

"Whadyawant man?!" I grumbled grumpily, barely cracking an eye open.

"I have a doctor's appointment at one thirty today to check on the babies, wanna come with?" She asked.

The thought of seeing my two little unborn mafia munchkins woke me up immediately. Seeing that we were already dressed we just cleaned up really quickly and left. Lia's driver had been waiting for her downstairs so we didn't need to wait for a cab, we hopped in and were on our way.

The appointment went smoothly and the boys were doing just fine. We were on our way back to Zandre's apartment and discussing baby names when I recalled that I had planned on going to speak with my landlord about renewing my lease. I mentioned it to Lia and she had her driver make a detour to take us there instead. As we pulled onto the street, I saw thick black smoke rising from a building that no doubt had to be engulfed in flames to give off that kind of smoke. The sinking feeling in my stomach told me exactly which building it was.

"Naia I think that's your building," Lia whispered in a shell shocked tone.

I nodded and gulped past the lump in my throat as my heart started to beat erratically. I found myself praying and hoping that no one had gotten hurt but as we drew closer to the scene, the massive crowd told me that the worst had indeed happened. Without even thinking I got out of the still moving car which had slowed considerably and started moving towards the disaster.

"Naia no!" I heard Lia yelling somewhere behind me but in my current state of shock it sounded as if she was talking through a thick closed door.

"Ma'am you can't go in there," a fire fighter warned me but I was too deep into my daze to really understand what he was saying to me so I continued moving forward.

"Someone stop her," a distressed person, whom I later realized was Lia, yelled.

Someone did indeed grab me from behind preventing me from going any further. This immediately snapped me from my daze and threw me into a panic.

"Was anyone in there? Did anyone get hurt?" I asked desperately as I tried to fight against the person restraining me.

"Lady please just stop," the man asked, struggling to keep me contained.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a gurney carrying a bundle covered in a white sheet coming from the building. In a sudden burst of strength, I twisted out of my captor's grasp and ran towards it. Without thinking I reached out and grabbed the sheet away from the person's face before anyone could stop me. I choked back a sob and my knees gave out as I saw the face of the sweet college girl that had come to spend Thanksgiving with her offer sister who lived right across from me. She was so badly burnt that I could hardly recognize her. Her unique gold ornament earrings were what identified her for me as I distinctly remembered telling her how much I absolutely loved them when her sister had brought her over and introduced her to me.

Kacey.

I felt my body crumpling to the ground but didn't recall falling as I was held up by a pair of strong and very familiar arms.

"Shhh, baby I'm here," Zandre said, it was then I realized I had been crying, he picked me up and started to take me away from the scene.

"No!" I screamed, "n-no, we c-can't leave yet, not until her sister gets here." I sobbed weakly into his chest.

Reluctantly he complied and sat with me in the back of an unused ambulance. As we watched the authorities go through their rounds I discovered that none of the five persons that had been in the building at the time survived the fire, including the landlord.

How could this have happened? I wondered in distress.

A high pitched, heartrending scream dragged me from my thoughts as Kimberly, Kacey's sister arrived at the scene. She looked up at the utterly devastated building and fell to her knees, no one needed to tell her what had happened to her little sister. I extracted myself from Zandre's arms knowing I needed to comfort her since her sister was the only family she'd had left. I kneeled next to her waiting until she realized it was me before pulling the sobbing woman into my arms, my heart broke for her and the others who had lost loved ones in the fire.

Damian had come as well to be with Lia who was unwilling to leave me in my current state. Eventually we all realized Kimberly had nowhere to go so Lia invited her to stay with them. I knew she would have refused otherwise so I also offered to stay and Zandre didn't want to be away from me so he insisted on coming as well.

We were being ushered over to the SUV by Damian when Zandre, who had gone to speak to a police officer, called out to him, indicating he wanted to have a word. For whatever reason my curiosity was piqued and I lingered a bit to see if I could catch anything from their conversation.

My eavesdropping was proving useless until I picked up the words "arson" and "warning", at which point I decided it was best I didn't hear anymore. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear anymore but I knew it wouldn't be long before my curiosity started to nag me again and I badgered the answers out of Zandre.

For now Kimberly and helping her cope with her loss was my only concern.