Papers for Roses

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Megan

7 TIMES IN A ROW BACHELOR OF THE YEAR AND 2017 SEXIEST MAN ALIVE SECRETLY TIED THE KNOT WITH THE UNITED STATES' DARLING - People

NEW YORK'S YOUNGEST CEO IS MARRIED! SERIOUSLY! - The Wall Street Journal

MEGAN CARMICHAEL GOT OUR MOST FAMOUS BACHELOR SETTLE DOWN? SINCE WHEN?! - Rolling Stone

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"When were you going to tell us?!" Autumn's high-pitch voice was like scorching knives in her ears. She automatically put the phone away as her friend continued yelling through the speaker. "We are your friends! How could you be so inconsiderate! Did you just wake up one day and decide that we don't deserve to know what's happening in your life anymore?!"

She chuckled. "Kind of."

Her head lifted as movers came into the room with a smile on their faces; their huge arms carrying boxes that contained her not-so-pricey and too-out-of-place personal belongings. She had a mug of herbal tea in her hands, her legs splayed sideways, one leg over the other, on the sunken living room inside Wade Simon's million-dollar penthouse. She didn't have time to take a look at it the first time she was there, but now that she could stop and take everything in, all she could say was a muttered, out of breath, 'wow'.

Wade Simon had a serious thing with neutral colors. Everything you could see in every room would be a vision of heavenly white, aesthetic dull partitions, and solid inky furniture. No touches of primary colors in the rainbow. Custom designed frames, with varying sizes, exhibited black and white photographs of the real estates and high rises he owned embellished the empty walls.

That said, no signs of family, memories, and a sense of home.

It felt cold there. Hollow. As if there was no one living in there.

She wasn't complaining. Really.

It was hard not to miss the coziness of her apartment that she had to leave. She worked hard to make it look like home.

Her first paycheck was spent from buying two sets of peach, classy curtains she bought from the local department store. It was on sale and it covered her floor-to-ceiling windows, that overlook the busy streets below, very well. The kitchen was decorated in endless peach and magenta utensils, her bedsheets were a light coral, her lush sofa was the color of deep red (it didn't match well with the motif, but it blended considerably with her ivory walls).

Though her monthly salary was blown by the pleasure of her little apartment, it was worth the last four years going home and waking up seeing how much far she'd gone.

"—the sexiest man alive! People's Sexiest Man Alive, Megan! The one we just met two weeks ago! And you were marrying—no, married to him?!" her friend asked in disbelief. She had spaced out and she didn't know where Autumn was coming from now. "You haven't told us what happened when you left Bryan's party. Did something happen, Megan? Did you sleep with him?!" Then she released a mortified gasp. "Or did you know him all along?!"

She took a sip from her tea. "I'll tell you about it when I'm ready. But honey, you know I love you and I don't like lying. I refuse to say anything for now."

"How sweet," Autumn said sarcastically. "But fine. Take all the time you want. Call us if you need us. Love you, sweet cheeks."

She smiled. "Of course. Love you too."

They hung up.

Fifty plus messages were still left unopened. Seventy plus miscalls were still unreturned. Fourteen from her Dad, twenty from her Mom, and the others were from close friends and unknown (threatening) numbers. Her email was also bombarded with interview and photo-shoot requests, product endorsement hiring, party invites etcetera that Wade convinced her to make a new, private one... not that she was complaining.