Page 63 of Arianna

There is no way.

Why would he do this? When he can’t stand the sight of me.

I don’t get it.

“I-is this for me?” I stand back, stunned, watching as Benjamin opens the back of a matte white Bentley Bentayga SW12 and shoves Ella’s black Gucci stroller inside.

Holding on tightly to the baby, I walk toward the front of the car and run my fingertips over the sparkly silver ribbon on the hood. A gift.

More gifts.

From a man that wants nothing to do with me. It’s getting ridiculous. I cannot refuse his gifts because the next thing I know, there is something more expensive waiting for me instead.

“It is.” Benjamin jogs around the car, meets me at the front, takes Ella from me, and begins to strap her onto her car seat that is in the backseat of my brand-new car.

I don’t miss the fact that the car comes with a car seat for her, melting me a little.

I might be reaching, but it makes me believe the tyrant trusts me, even if just a little with his child.

And there’s that feeling again. That strange skipping of my heart.

“But why?” It is not my birthday yet, and the father of my favorite human has already given me more than enough for my graduation.

Benjamin shuts Ellaiza’s door and stands next to me, handing me the small gadget that serves as the car’s keys. I reluctantly take them from him. “Boss had it custom-made. It took a while to arrive from overseas.” Then he opens the door for me, and I am left speechless for the millionth time since I arrived in Sebastian Kenton’s life. “You are one lucky prisoner,” Benjamin says sarcastically.

Oh, wow.

The glamorous and egotistical bitch that lives inside me screams when I take in the custom-made leather silver skin. The white rugs and the white LED lights that light up the car as soon as the doors open. This is every vain woman’s dream.

I am not even sorry to admit it.

When the car lights up, Ellaiza starts babbling like crazy and clapping her small hands.

So, she approves of it, too.

I climb inside the car, take a seat, and look at her through the rear-view mirror while I wait for Benjamin to join me in the passenger seat. “You share your father’s expensive taste, baby girl?” I grin when she smacks her lips together as if saying yes, yes, I do.

That’s one thing I find myself doing a lot here.

Laughing.

Smiling.

And it never feels forced.

The passenger’s door opens and closes fast when Benjamin takes his seat. He puts his seatbelt on and turns my way after ensuring Ellaiza is safely strapped in her car seat for the third time. “Let’s hit the road.” He types a quick message on his phone, and he’s too quick for me to see if he’s texting my tyrant. “And for the love of God, watch where you’re going. Dying in a car crash with you and a two-year-old is not the way I want to go.”

Ellaiza laughs like a lunatic as if she has any idea what is happening while I turn the engine on, watching it roar to life.

I’ve never heard anything better in my life, and I don’t mean the loud noise of the very expensive and over-the-top car.

Almost twenty-five minutes later, the three of us roam the high-end stores I could find with Ellaiza happily alert while I use Benjamin’s emergency credit cards to buy the whole store for her.

I don’t miss the frowning men with cameras following us around, asking questions they have no right to ask, but I ignore them like they don’t matter because they don’t. I am also not oblivious to the curious eyes of the saleswomen in every store we stop by.

Again, I pay them no mind.

All that matters is the baby girl safely tucked in her Gucci stroller, blabbering happily to her new pink stuffed Versace bunny that cost more than my first semester at university.

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