Chapter 18- Compromise

TAMI SIGHED in delight as she recorded her new daily log.

For the first time since she started, this one had a positive assonance to it. She stretched her stiff muscles as she let her eyes adjust to the light of the new morning.

Hunger called her name, but her heart called for something else. She starched her legs over the bed, immediately sinking them in the fluffy softness of her huge carpet. Since she and Raphael are somewhat on the right track, she decided not to wait until he came to her room today. Instead, she’d go and see him.

It was barely seven in the morning, and he usually visits her at eight with breakfast. But Tami couldn’t stay in her slumber any longer as she had always. Every second of the night she'd dream of the almost fairytale-like kiss that they shared the night prior, on his balcony under the beautiful sunset.

Unlike their first kiss, this one had been special, not only from the heat of an argument and primitive instincts. But it was slow, sweet and promising. It was the burying of the past and the birth of something new for both of them. She'd enjoyed it, and the way his eyes sparkled showed her that he had too.

Still, they'd gone to bed quite early. After a long day of closing meetings, travelling from one island to another and almost dying in rough waves were enough to tire them both out. So they had parted only an hour after their kiss and gone to bed.

Despite her shuffling from the recurring dream, Tami couldn’t help but acknowledge how better she slept since the day she'd been abducted. She slept like a baby in her soft quilts and the mesmerizing song of the waves crashing on the coast beneath Raphael’s huge mansion. Now, it was morning, and she wanted to see him before he came to her.

Despite her decision to give him a chance, there were still a few things he needed to know and respect before they could move forward. He had laid his rules, as you may put it, straight from the start, so now it was her turn.

She grabbed a pair of leggings and a tank top from one of the bags that she's yet to unpack and quickly rushed to the bathroom to freshen up. After feeling satisfied with her appearance, Tami ventured down the hall to a familiar white door.

She knocked once but didn’t wait for a reply as she shuffled in. Immediately, Raphael's eyes snapped from his laptop screen and towards her as she moved closer to him. Tami didn’t know why, but suddenly the view of him in a tight plain t-shirt and black sweats were the most attractive things on him.

They smiled brightly at each other in a new light, as Raphael openly welcomed her in his arms. Tami thought it was a bold move to sit on his lap, and they haven’t completely established where they were with one another as yet. Nonetheless, he didn’t protest or even looked the least bit bothered by it. He simply wrapped his arms around her waist and placed a soft peck to her full lips.

"Good morning," he greeted softly as he smiled up at her. It was a hearty smile, a real and beautiful smile, she noticed. Tami was already making him happy, and she liked it.

"Good morning," she reciprocated as her hand flew up to run through his dark hair. It was growing out, but he still looked irresistible. "Slept well?"

"I slept like a baby." He smiled even brighter, causing her to giggle. This is what he'd wanted all along, and now he was finally getting it.

Tami appreciated his warmth and the fact that he seemed so content. It assured her that talking to him would be easier. Still, she didn’t want to rush into it right away.

"What's this?" Her eyes flickered quickly to his laptop screen, seeing what looked like boring spreadsheets and numbers. Her face scrunched in perfect confusion as she read over it.

"It's work." He chuckled. "I still have to do what I'm needed to do."

"Don’t you have people for everything? This looks stressful."

Tami was never a business person. Science was her passion. So, seeing this--business-looking work-- made her glad that she hadn’t chosen it as a career path from the beginning. Then again, everyone had their passions.

"Yes I have general managers in each location who deal with everything in their particular branch, but I still need to check records and reports to ensure I'm not running my business in the ground," he explained, at which she simply nodded.

He continued to explain other general things that she would like to know, and promised to take her with him to the head office one day.

He hadn't been there since he came to The Bahamas, but he would have to soon.

She watched as he made a few more adjustments to the confusing document before he finally closed it and returned all his attention to her. He reached up and swept a tendril of her dark brown curly hair from her eyes, and she couldn’t avoid the butterflies that erupted in her stomach.

"Since we're already here, do you want to go down for breakfast together?" Tami perked up at the idea of venturing further than the halls of this floor, but she shook her head, no. There was something she had to do first.

"Not yet," she said. "I need to speak to you about something first." He nodded once as his face fell serious after seeing hers.

For a while, Raphael grew anxious. Had she been up all night thinking about their 'silent' reunion last night? Was she suddenly regretting it and reconsidering his offer about letting her free?

But then, she reached up and cupped his cheek in her palms, and her eyes immediately dismissed his doubts. Tami had seen the fear in his eyes for a quick second, so she wanted to reassure him that she wasn’t leaving. In fact, it was the mere opposite.

"I've considered what you said to me the very first time I woke up in this house. I want to make this work, Raphael. I feel for you as you feel for me. I would like to take it further with you."

"Really?" Relentless joy. To hear her say it out loud was the greatest gift she could've given him.

She nodded again before continuing. "Yes. When we were back in Nassau, seeing you did something to my heart that I couldn’t understand. Maybe I was too young sixteen years ago to understand it, but your return struck me as both a surprise and delight. The two nights I spent with you did even more, and I couldn’t deny my feelings for you."

"I'm so glad you feel the same way." He smiled and she simply nodded as she gathered her thoughts.

"I do. But when you took me, I was hurt, broken and I felt betrayed. I felt like this couldn’t be the Raphael I'd held dearly in my heart. But I see now that this could work. I want to grant you that wish and give us until the end of summer to know if we'll be compatible. I won't resist you anymore, so we can really get to know each other--as adults and as the people we've become. I know a nine-year-old Raphael, and you know an eight-year-old Tami, but we don’t know how much we've both changed. So I'd like to get to know you, Raphael, the real you. And you can get to know the real me."

Raphael had no objections. This was what he'd wanted from the very start. He believed he already loved her with all his heart, but he couldn’t avoid the fact that he still had a lot to learn about her.

"I wouldn’t want it any other way, Tami." He gripped her waist tighter as he started to lean in for a kiss, but she promptly stopped him, showing him that she wasn’t finished.

"But..." she paused to eye him sternly. This was the part where she tells him what SHE wants, just as how he boldly told her what he wanted. "Before I do this, I'll need you to be considerate. The only reason why I'll stay with you here and not go back home where we could continue, is that I can only imagine the chaos that I'd be dragged into when we should return to Nassau. I've been missing for over a week now. There is no way there won't be chaos."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Agreed."

"So I'll stay here where we can grow together peacefully without the press, police, parents, friends and all of that. I think we have a better shot here, and you will have to start thinking about how you'll get yourself out of trouble when I should return home." He nodded again, sensing another but. "But..." There it is. "...I need to contact my family, Raphael. If you deny me this one request, I want to leave."

"Tami-"

"I know they are worried sick. I can't selfishly get away with a man on a paradise vacation while my family is worried about me. Just once, Raphael, I just want to talk to them once to let them know I'm okay, and that I'll be home soon. They will be angry at me for 'leaving' like this, but I just need to let them know I'm okay. Please."

"Tami if you would just-"

"I know the risks of contacting them here, but we don’t even have to use your phone-"

"Tamika." He held her cheeks between both of his hands and directed her gaze to his. If only she had listened the first time. "You have given me all I ever wanted. There will be no way on earth that I’d deny you this one request. I understand that your family is worried, and it kills me every day to know I am causing you and everyone close to you pain. There is no way on earth I'd tell you no. Even if I get locked up for it."

Relief flooded Tami's veins at this. She knew that Raphael was a hard-headed man, who is used to getting what he wants. So she had been worried about his response to her question. She had been fair enough. She decided to stay here with him, as long as she knew her family's worries were somewhat cured. The thought made her excited.

"Can we go today?"

"Of course. I can take you to another country just in case they track the call."

Tami thought he had been joking, but the look on his face showed her that he wasn’t.

"Raphael you are not flying me to another country to make a call," she stated with a deadpan look but trying hard to suppress her smile.

However, he didn’t understand her reason. "Why not?"

"All we need to do is get a burner phone or something. Or in fact, use a phone station or I don’t know, get a normal phone, and toss it into the ocean!" Her tone was sarcastic but it left them both chuckling. Still, she knew there was no need to bother his pilot.

She understood the risk of tracking the call if her family didn't believe her story, that was currently in the making, and bring it to the police, who could easily track the call. So being in a foreign country would throw them off.

But why put people in that much trouble? And even if he should take her to the US or even Grenada to do something simply as make a phone call what good does that do?

"Alright, alright." Raphael held his hands up in mock surrender. "Whatever you want. Whatever you want from now on, just know I'll grant it to you, mi nena."

Tami blushed as his fingers slowly caressed her shoulders. "What does 'mi nena' mean?" That hadn’t been what she wanted to ask originally, but she wanted to get rid of her flushed cheeks and messed up thoughts.

He clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth in playful thought, before smirking at her. "My baby girl," he provided. He could feel that he had taken a liking to this nickname for her, and saw himself using it a lot in the future.

Tami liked it and showed him just that by bringing her lips to his again in the kissed he had longed for from the minute she stepped into his room, looking so ravishing in her simple but revealing leggings that hugged her perfect hips and crevices perfectly, and the top that showcased the peak of her full breast.

Still, Raphael didn’t manifest those thoughts too deeply just yet. The last thing he wanted was for her to believe he wanted too much too fast and drive her away.

"Let's go down for breakfast," he said huskily as they pulled away, and he could feel the throb of his manhood so urgently for her, but avoided it. He wanted all of her, yes, but he wanted her heart and soul first.

"Breakfast sounds good," she agreed, feeling quite flustered herself.

Raphael smiled as they both rose. He offered her his hand with a smile that could blind stars.

"Come on. There's someone I'd like you to meet."