“Okay Mr. Titan, I have all the necessary paperwork to get this started. I will get ahold of the selling agent and hopefully the sellers, this afternoon. I will notify you as soon as they have given a response but I know they have been eager to sell, so there shouldn’t be a problem,” she said, looking more like the confident agent she had appeared to be when they’d met her a few hours before. She really was trying to maintain her professionalism, which couldn’t have been easy around Derek.
“I appreciate it and will be waiting,” he said as if waiting wasn’t something that was easy for him. They parted ways and headed back towards Jasmine’s home.
As they pulled up in front of her house, it looked smaller than it ever had to her. She squared her shoulders as she walked in the door. It may be able to fit into the living room of the other home but she’d made it a great place for her and Trevor and there was nothing wrong with it.
Derek came up behind her and laid his hand on her shoulder. “Jasmine I’m really not trying to put your home down, I just do a lot of business from home and need more space. Jacob will also need added security once the press realizes he’s my son. I have a lot of friends and even more enemies. When you take over companies for a living, you make a lot of enemies. I won’t let something happen to my son because some disgruntled person decides to hurt me through my child,” he said, trying to reason with her.
“I do understand,” Jasmine said. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so she went off to her room to be alone for a while.
The real estate agent called a couple of hours later and was practically giggling as she explained the sellers agreed to his offer. She said she could meet him anywhere he liked the next day to get all the paperwork filled out.
Derek made an appointment for her to meet them at the offices and Jasmine’s head was practically spinning with how quickly things were moving. It was a Sunday afternoon and Derek had inspections arranged for the following day and escrow scheduled for Friday. They would receive the keys to the house before the following weekend.
Jacob was squealing in delight at having his own swimming pool, among many other things. He called his best friends up and told them all about it and asked Derek if he could have a party so they could all see his new room. Derek, of course said yes but at least he Jacob to wait a couple of weeks so they could get settled in first.
Derek offered to have a moving company box up her things and she put her foot down. She didn’t want a stranger to go through her belongings. He actually had the gall to roll his eyes at her. She knew he was thinking she didn’t have anything that they would want but that wasn’t the point. Her things were personal to her and she didn’t want it tainted by a bunch of strangers putting their fingers all over it.
She knew most of her furniture would end up being donated and that was fine with her. The things she wanted to keep she was keeping and there was nothing he was going to do to stop her.
The next morning Jacob came rushing back into her room first thing in the morning. She was starting to get used to it.
“Why don’t you and dad sleep in the same room? I thought when moms and dads were married, they wanted to be together?” he asked her.
“Your dad and I have been apart for a long time, that’s all,” she told him.
“Does that mean he won’t stay?” he asked with his big scared eyes.
“No Jacob, I’m not going anywhere, your mom just has too girly of a room, and too small of a bed for your big dad. We’ll share a room in the new house,” Derek said, as he walked in to join them.
She didn’t like how he kept walking into her room, as if he had every right to. Once again she wasn’t going to argue in front of her son, though.
“Okay, Dad,” Jacob said, as if everything the man said was gold.
They all got ready together and Derek insisted on taking his car in the morning. He told her it was ridiculous to take two vehicles. She once again just went with it, since Jacob was so excited to be taken to school by both of his parents.
“I need to go by my place and gather a few things, since there won’t be time tonight before we have to pick Jacob up,” he told her.
They pulled up to the luxurious condo complex, which even had a security guard at the front door. Jasmine was ever intimidated by the amount of money Derek had. She missed the boy who used to wear second hand jeans and always had a smile on his face. This new man was so much more cynical of the world around him and took for granted things that the young teenager would have been awed by.
They walked into his huge condo and though it was nice, it was so cold. There was only one picture in the entire place and it was a much younger version of him with his arms slung around his two cousins. She remembered them well from when they were teenagers. They’d always been able to make her laugh. She smiled at the fond memories.