Chapter 8
When I first got together with Oliver, I thought he was just another successful, career–driven professional.
It wasn’t until the day he confessed that he was from the Planes family, one of the top ten wealthiest
families in the United States.
Oliver reassured me over and over that his family would like me, and that I wouldn’t feel any discomfort or prejudice due to our differences in background.
I didn’t doubt him for a second.
After all, a family with such a narrow–minded view could never raise someone as well–mannered
and refined as Oliver.
But privately, I pushed myself to improve, eventually earning a spot at Harvard Business School.
I had my own doubts and insecurities.
I knew that only by making myself as perfect as possible could I walk into that room with
confidence when the time came to meet Oliver’s parents.
The day finally arrived.
But Oliver and I had completely misjudged how his parents would react.
Sitting in their lavish living room, with several pairs of critical eyes scanning me, it felt like my mind.
went blank.
“You asked her to marry you? A poor, divorced woman?”
Oliver’s mother, Ivory Plane, gasped in disbelief.
Her eyes, filled with disgust, scanned me, radiating complete disapproval.
“I’m absolutely certain this is what I was just talking about, Mom. I’m getting engaged to Imela
Barau.”
Oliver kept holding my hand, giving me strength.
But I sat frozen in my seat, like someone soaked in cold, filthy water, unable to blink, unable to
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Chapter 8
breathe.
Everyone else at the table was staring at me, their gazes dripping with contempt and disdain.
“Congratulations, brother,” Nina said happily, and she was the first on the table to show a genuine reaction. She was Oliver’s younger sister of three years, who was studying at Harvard Law.
If looks could kill, Ivory Plane would have murdered her youngest child at that very moment.
“Thank you,” Oliver said with a radiant smile, and Nina’s green eyes dimmed as she returned his
smile.
“Congratulations?” Ivory scoffed, and this turned the two siblings‘ attention to her.
“This is madness! He is literally throwing his life away, and on whom? Her?”
Her cold, burning gaze once again seized me from head down to my finger, and her cheeks turned red from visible rage.
My hands on the table trembled, and I withdrew them and placed them on my lap where no one
would see them.
Oliver noticed because he reached out, placed his hand tenderly on mine, and squeezed on it. “In what way am I throwing my life away? What is wrong with Imela?” Oliver demanded.
“What do you know about her? What does her mother do? Who is her father? What does he do? These are the things you took into consideration before-”
“Before what?” Oliver challenged with a raised brow, not letting her finish. His voice was becoming rigid, and I knew he was close to losing control.
“Before falling in love and wanting to spend the rest of my life with someone? What does her past have to do with the fact that I love her?“”
“Son, marriage is a serious commitment, not just something you run into because you feel like it.” Robert Plane spoke up for the first time since his son dropped the bomb on them.
With his line of speech, it showed he was choosing his wife’s side and not Oliver’s.
“Of course not, Dad; I am supposed to treat it like a business transaction like you and Mom have for thirty years, hating who you married and wishing nothing but death upon them, but staying married because it is good for business.” He answered.
Robert slammed his hand against the table, startling everyone seated. “Enough!”
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You will speak to your father and me with respect.” Ivory snapped, turning her fury on Oliver,
Oliver looked anything but ready to do as he was told. “You have shown little to no respect to Imela since she got here, and you do not even know her.”
Ivory’s gaze darkened, and anger flared in her eyes.
“I do not need to know her to know her type. She’s a gold digger, a manipulator, one who sees a boy from a wealthy family and lashes onto him for as long as she can. She is the kind that will take all that she can from him before leaving him for dead.”
I gasped, and a tear dropped. I felt a stab in my chest, unable to bear her crude words.
Oliver threw the serviette down on the table, rose to his feet, and turned his attention to me.
“I am sorry you had to sit through this hell called dinner. I will not keep you anymore and burden you with this madness.” He offered me his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Oliver, do not walk out on us; this dinner isn’t over,” Robert said in a commanding tone.
“It is for me and my fiancée.” He replied, not breaking his gaze on me.
I took his hand, and I felt much strength return to my legs as he pulled me up.
He wrapped his arms protectively around me as soon as I fully rose, and without looking back at those still seated at the table, he led me away from the hell called dinner.
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