Fortune's Fools

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

I glanced at the clock and cursed silently. It's not that I didn't want El to be happy or sneak out on dates while everyone thought she was with me or doing something for me, but I just needed her with me now. I needed to know if she had known about this. I still seethed with anger as I thought about my nice little encounter with my parents over dinner. I had received the quiet treatment from my father ever since the dinner with the Devine's had ran a little out of hand, so I was quite surprised when he spoke to me tonight. And as for my mother, she had been even colder and more distant than usual, so it was remarkable to find her smiling at me over her plate of lobster. 

I had been pushing the white meat around on my plate before they spoke. I had struggled for almost half an hour to get it out of its shell and now I wasn't hungry anymore. I just wanted to go upstairs and call Harry, except that I probably wouldn't be able to reach him tonight. He was going out somewhere with Niall and Liam, but I hadn't been able to come up with an excuse to join them. Let alone go out in public with them. I sighed heavily at the thought. Would I ever be able to show him off? Let the whole world know how much I loved him, hold his hand while walking the streets? Maybe, if we left Manchester one day, maybe then we could freely love each other. But that would mean disappointing our parents, abandoning our families. I felt a tug at my heart at the thought of having to leave my four sisters behind. And Zayn. No matter if he was a pain in the ass sometimes, and was awfully protective of me, I still loved him, he was my mate, and his sisters were almost as close to me as my own. I could never leave them. Not even for Harry.

"Louis." My head shot up at my father's voice. He was looking at me in irritation, while a quick look around the table at my sisters taught me that he had been calling me a few times already. Fizz, Daisy and Phoebe were trying to eat their food as quickly as possible, all three of them struggling with their lobster as well. Normally Eleanor would have helped them with it, but she wasn't here now, as she was supposedly running some errands for me downtown. Or having yet another date with Dani, the third in five days, but the others at this table didn't need to know that, so to them, I just had an enormous amount of work for El to do over these last couple of days. 

My fathers face turned into something that might be interpreted as a small smile, which made me feel weird since he had hardly even looked at me over the past month. "Louis, you will be attending the mayor's reception at the city hall tomorrow. I'm a bit bored of those stupid parties, and it's a nice occasion for you to finally represent the family at an official occasion. I fought back the urge to roll my eyes and sigh loudly and instead clenched my teeth together and nodded stiffly. How very nice of them to let me know in advance, 24 hours in advance. I noticed my mother smiling at me, although it looked more like she was forcing her mouth into an odd position. 

"Josh will pick you up at 7.30 in his new BMW." she quipped. My eyes widened. I should've known. I had hardly heard anything about the brat over these last week, and my hopes of not having to marry him because of the scene Niall and I had caused at the dinner party had risen. But were now rudely crushed beneath ground level again. Of course they wouldn't change their plans, at least not over my feelings. I was stupid for even hoping they would. For a few minutes I just stabbed at the food on my plate, dividing it into miniscule parts so it looked like I had eaten, but in reality not more than two bites reached my mouth. After I would consider a polite amount of time I excused myself and got up, running to my room as I bit back the tears that were threatening to fall. It was just all so unfair. I was almost 21 years old and still my parents bossed me around like I was a four year old, while they never so much as talked to me when I was four. I felt like they had no right to mingle in my love life. I didn't love Josh and I never would. Who cared if my father said that I could grow to love him, I knew for sure that I wouldn't. It was pretty obvious that his arranged marriage with my mother didn't hold much love either, as they slept in different rooms and hardly spent any time together apart from meals and official occasion. I had cried hard when I finally flopped down on my bed, tears still streaming down my face when I had felt Lottie close to me, her hand rubbing soothing circles on my back as I sobbed into her neck. She whispered to me that everything would be okay, but we both knew there was no way to be sure of that, in fact, it felt less likely with every passing minute. She left my room after a couple of hours, when she thought I had fallen asleep after sobbing violently all this time.