Love's a State of Mind
Chapter 7
Taglist:@thegreatdragonfruta
There is a strange sense of eternity with him. As if time itself stops for them and the world waits on them instead of spinning as it always does.
Eva would be lying if she said she didn’t miss it.
“Go on, tell me, did any of the women after me ever come close to making you take a day off work?” she asks, perched on the kitchen island watching Robert make himself breakfast. Eva was the one who did all the cooking, but after their breakup he decided to teach himself to cook.
And while she couldn’t eat with him, she settled for watching Rob make himself an omelet.
“No, unless you count getting a stomach bug from a temp in Sydney.” Robert shook his head with a grimace.
It wasn’t the reminder of the illness that had him reacting like that, no it was something else. Something she also felt when trying to bury the past by seeking out someone one.
The feel of betrayal.
“Did you ever feel like you were cheating on me when you tried to be with someone else?” he asks knowing she will answer honestly.
It was a new and yet familiar thing to them; her initial lies had ruined their earlier relationship and now they start this new one by being completely honest with each other.
So far so good.
“Yeah, hadn’t felt ready to truly move on. Didn’t help that no one could measure up to you either.” Eva admits freely trying to gauge his reaction to her words as he finished cooking silently. But it’s a comfortable silence, which is a good thing.
“You’re only saying that to make me feel better.” His self-confidence was never good no matter what front he out on and yet this time it was worse. Robert could put on a show in self-defense but being eternally at odds with his father and learning she’d been after him for his money and influence, had wrecked it completely.
“I’m saying it because it’s true, Bobby.” She assures him. “Not a single person on this world could even begin to compare to you…at least to me.”
He leaves his task unfinished and turns his full attention towards her as he leans against the opposite counter.
“The last person who called me Bobby before you was my mom.” The first time he’d said that he was intrigued, bewitched by her empty promises, now he said it softly as if there was no one else in the world who understood the feeling behind those words.
“I know. I’ll stop if you want me to.” Eva suggests thinking it would be a fair trade as they turn over this new leaf.
“I don’t want you to, I missed hearing it from you.” Robert admits and it hits Eva that there won’t ever be a life where they aren’t together.
“Then I’ll call you Bobby until I die.”
Eva’s still dazed from the anesthesia when she hears him say the last thing she expected.
“I going to marry you.” Robert repeats his words, and she laughs thinking it’s the drugs.
“Ask me when I’m better, Bobby.” Her recovery wouldn’t be long, he’ll stay with her come hell or high water, but the idea of getting engaged seemed unreal to her. After all that’s gone between them, somehow the idea that he wanted to do this for the rest of their life had never occurred to her.
And he does, the day she’s finally cleared by her doctor, Robert takes her out to dinner. Not to their favorite place in LA, but the hotel they first met.
Right on the same bar she picked him up at, he convinces her to pretend their strangers and when she orders her own drink, she finds the ring inside the glass. It was the same one he was going to propose to her months ago.
“You said to ask you when you were better.” Rob surprises her with a different ring, a new one with a completely distinctive design. One that is more to her tastes and not what society would accept. The last one had been a solitaire diamond that was all the rage, this one was every goth’s dream.
“Your dad won’t like it.” Eva’s always been difficult to surprise and yet Robert had managed to do it. She is truly at a loss for words. Well, the right ones anyways.
“Fuck him, then. We’ll elope and make it his nightmare.” He is so sure of her saying yes that he refuses to let his father ruin his happiness this way.
Not that she planned to say no. Eva loves him too much to ruin the best thing in her life.
“Can’t say yes if you don’t ask me, Bobby.”
They elope that same night and leave the hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Fischer with absolutely no shame or care of what anyone thinks.
Several months later
Eva’s nervous, not just because his dad died and she caused their relationship to go from bad to worse, and may have been what did her darling father-in-law in.
Maurice fucking hated her, couldn’t stand the sight of her so much she was banned from his funeral. Not that she’d been in a state to go, pregnancy didn’t agree with her, and flights this long were one of the things her doctor had outright banned.
Two months and some weeks, just like last time. Rob had been there with her when she got her results and then left for Sydney where he related his great news to his father in hopes he would finally accept her into the family. Did not work unfortunately, even worse he died a few days after being told he was going to be a grandfather.
Their elopement got Maurice out of the office for good, hadn’t been long after that he was bedridden and forced to hand Robert most of the company, now they had effectively killed him.
And now they’ll have to handle all of Fischer Morrow because Maurice left the whole beast to his son. Same son he spent his life pushing him away, but apparently loved him enough to make him the most powerful man in the business world and included her in it.
He called Eva Robert’s first wife to let her know how little he cared for her, but at least he was dead, and their marriage acknowledged by him in a way that makes dissolving the company impossible without her permission. She supposed his dad and Browning knew Eva was good at her job.
Something also told her they knew some shitshow would go down the moment Maurice shuffled off his mortal coil.
“I missed you.” Rob is still drowsy from his flight as he hugs her tightly. “Had the worst dream ever, you weren’t even there to keep me company. Fucking nightmare wouldn’t end.”
“Oh? I suppose Saito’s presence was enough to fuck up your beauty sleep. So, what’s the news you said you just need to share with me?” She herself was unsettled by the Japanese man’s presence and his name on the airline’s papers recently. This gave her a bad feeling.
“I’m going to dissolve the company; I want to be my own man and stop trying to be my father.” He says so full of passion for this new idea that she almost doesn’t see Eames over his shoulder.
The con artist and the businesswoman he could never scam meet eyes, and both know she’d kill them on the spot if whatever the fuck they did to her husband hadn’t fixed some of the damage his shit father had done.
That explains why the will was worded like that, the old fucker knew this was going to happen. Eva’s going to make Saito’s life hell though, no one’s gonna stop her from getting revenge on him and Cobol.
Fin.
