The Grand Mistress

El Tigre stood just inches from the pitiful heiress with an umbrella in his arms. He came back just for her and was wondering why she ended up in the streets cursing his name.

"You are still here?" Gabriella was really surprised to see him. She thought her long night dilemma had ended when she left him earlier yet there he was again, standing like he was his knight in shining armor and she was a damsel in distress. The only odd thing about such a description was that Gabrielle knew she was in a mess but she refused to be saved by him. 

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"How could I not be here when you look so pitiful like that," Primo stated and his expression was nothing close to pleasant. "What happened? Did your friend throw you out?"

He was a few miles from Allegria Apartments when one of his men called, stating the very fact that Gabriella ran out barefoot from Allegria apartments and was caught in the middle of the rain. As soon as he heard it, he asked the driver to turn back,  very much worried about her.

"It\'s not like that," She denied and partly she was right. Lucy did throw her out, not directly though as she was the one who ran away from her penthouse but that was because of her foolish pranks and not because she did intend to totally throw her out. "Lucy will never throw me out,"

"Lucy?" The mention of the name surely didn\'t escape Primo\'s notice. He knew for a fact that only one influential woman lived in the Allegria Apartment that has the same name and it was the country\'s nightingale—Lucilla Dimitri. "Lucy the nation\'s nightingale right? She\'s the one you are talking about?"

"Well—"

The mention of Lucy\'s name drew a more odd and dim expression in EL Tigre\'s face. He knew Lucy. How could he not when the woman was so blatant in her dedication for him. Singer Lucy had been his long time fan and she interestingly used that dedication to draw some attention to her advantage. 

Now that he was certain it was indeed Lucilla Dimitri, he somehow had an idea why she ended up in the streets cursing his name. The singer might have indeed thrown her out, especially that their pictures together and news about them being romantically involved had already been flooding the whole web.

"Come with me," He invited, or more like he demanded. He didn\'t ask again why she went on blaming him for how pitiful she turned out. He was well aware of the fact how the singer wore mourning clothes in Starlight entertainment the very next morning he announced he had been taken and so it wouldn\'t be a surprise if she\'d damn throw a friend out as she turned out to be the very woman who was the reason for her heartbreak.

"No. I\'m okay here!" Gabriella refused him again but this time, he didn\'t let her off. While waving two hands in the front of her to express her displeasure of his company, Primo, without warning took the beautiful heiress into his arms and carried her petite little body in his shoulder.

"Hey let me go! Let me go!" Gabriella protested as she was all carried away back to his car. She threw little punches on his back in an attempt to escape him but the moment she was thrown into the car\'s backseat and Primo\'s face turned real mad, sent instant shivers in her spine. 

"I am done being lenient with you!" Primo cussed in the air with an expression that Gabriella didn\'t wish to see again. God he looked like a deadly animal, a hunting tiger when he was mad and she instantly feared him beyond anyone else. 

"You are coming with me tonight whether you like it or not!" he added as he dragged himself back to the car\'s back seat to join his recently caught heiress. He wasn\'t particularly mad because of her constant protest but by the very fact that she was all bullied tonight by her family and now her friend, yet she acted like it was all okay. 

How could anyone be okay with that? With being thrown into the streets and being forced out into the nunnery? And why was she not defending herself with all these?

"But...But sir…"

"Sir?" Primo\'s voice expressed his displeasure with that. "Just a while ago you called me by my name and now it seemed like you had forgotten about it. Dulzura, what is it really?"

The girl was lost on his question. It went unclear on her what he was asking and so she ended up just staring at him complicatedly.

"Tell me dulzura," Primo heaved a deep sigh and looked at Gabriella\'s eyes. "How is it that you kept refusing me when I did nothing wrong to make you upset. Yet you cannot refuse the outright disrespect and bullying your family and your friend did to you?"

The Monteria heiress was stunned with the question. What the fuck was El Tigre was talking about? 

"I don\'t understand what you mean," Gabriella expressed. Obviously, El Tigre just misinterpreted Lucy\'s prank tonight but about her family, it was true indeed that they were bullying her. However, she didn\'t think Primo had to make a fuss about it. What the heck would he care about how her family was treating her?

"Lucy is not bullying me, she\'s a dear friend. As per my family, it\'s none of your business really," She answered, trying to put an obvious boundary on Primo. For her, he was just a stranger she had spent a night of passion with and there was clearly nothing between them that should make him care about it. 

"None of my business?" Her answer only drove El Tigre more mad. Immediately he took Gabriella to his arms that in a moment they could feel each other\'s breath already. Out of panic, Gabriella attempted to push him  but in just a snap, her arms were locked on Primo\'s big hands. "Are you saying you are none of my business?"

"Look sir," Gabriella tried to reason. Truth was what Primo was doing then—his obvious attempt to be close to her and his concern flatters her as any woman would. However, she doesn\'t want to hope for anything about it, especially that their whole relationship was based on a night of passion she did not even plan to have. Her life was very complicated already and she had been hurt by many, she didn\'t want to take risk again on love or on anything, especially not with a man who she just met once.

"What happened in Mondrew City was something I did not expect to happen. Really. If only I knew who you are, I would never, ever dare to climb on your boat and most of all not in your bed," Gabriella explained herself. "I was drunk then and I\'m not in a good state of mind,"

"But please can we just end it there?" She pleaded. "Can you just spare me please? I know you have all the time and luxury to go on playing around with all the women you have but I certainly don\'t and as you might have already noticed, I have big predicaments I have in my shoulder right now I certainly don\'t have time for all this…"

"So you think I\'m playing around," Primo loosened his grip on her, frustrated. "Dulzura, is that how you see me?"

There was something in El Tigre\'s voice that told Gabbriella he was upset but there was just no other reliable reason she could think of why the man was following her around. Since he was El Tigre, a man who was basically standing in a high pedestal that was none of her reach, she thought his interest in her was just out of his whim and pleasure.

"I don\'t know you sir," Gabriella stated and it\'s a matter of fact they both were aware of. "The way I see you doesn\'t matter. However, I do not think your interest in me lies on something that is serious. I\'m not a fool to think I am worthy of such devotion,"

"You are not worthy," El Tigre amused himself by repeating her own words. "This is the second time you label yourself as nothing worthy, is that how you see yourself? Is that the reason why you are all allowing them to bully you blatantly? Because you are not worthy?"

"By now you must have noticed," Gabriella hid her eyes from him. "I am just a regular heiress….while you are El Tigre,"

"I see…" Primo now sees where her big insecurity lies. "I got your point dulzura,"

"Well then, can you stop the car and let me go?"

"No," Primo was the one who refused this time and Gabriella can only helplessly question him again.

"But I think we had already agreed—"

"That you are a regular heiress, nothing significant while I am El Tigre," Primo repeated it, loud and clear. "I heard your point well,"

"So….." Gabriella wanted to push all the sense they had just discussed to him. 

"So I think you had to understand that it\'s not the way I see things," Primo\'s lips curled at the end. "For me you are not just a regular heiress,"

"You are my woman," He simply announced and grabbed her chin so he could look back into her eyes. "You know the difference right? And in case that is not yet clear to you then let me make my intention straight. I want you and I\'m serious with it,"