It was the night before the wedding. We had been to the rehearsal dinner – a huge affair with seven courses which had left me stuffed to bursting which wasn’t good in the dress I was wearing – and then we had come to the bar and spent the evening drinking and having fun. Slowly, everyone had begun to leave because no one wanted to be ill throughout the wedding, but Rafael and I had hung back and now we were the only two people from our party still left in the bar.

It was a lot quieter than it had been on our first night here – there was no disco, just some soft music playing in the back ground and we actually had to have a conversation. Normally with Rafael and I that would have degenerated into a bitching session and then an argument, but tonight, it was different, we were different. We talked like civilized adults who actually might – shock horror – like each other.

For once, I wasn’t acting the part of interested girlfriend when Rafael spoke. I was just being me, and I found that I was interested in what he had to say. He seemed to be equally attentive when I was speaking, and I didn’t think it was an act. There was no one around to put the act on for, and while I had to take his lead, he was paying for the service. He could just tell me to be quiet, no one was around, we didn’t need to do this. But he didn’t.

“So, what will happen when your father retires?” I asked after Rafael mentioned the hours he was putting into his business.

“What do you mean what will happen? He’ll stay home. Maybe take my mom on a cruise or something,” Rafael said.

If he had been acting like his usual self, I would have said he was being sarcastic, but I really didn’t think he was. I thought he had just missed the point of my questions.

“I meant with his business,” I clarified. “Will you run it alongside your business, or will Sammy run it with hers? Or will he just sell it?”

“My father doesn’t have a business,” he replied. I looked at him, frowning in confusion and he smiled. “You’ve read one of those stupid articles haven’t you about how I’m a billionaire bachelor and you assumed I made my money off my parents.”

I nodded my head. There was no point in denying it. My line of questioning had made it obvious that’s what I thought.

“Well firstly, I’m not quite a billionaire. A multi-millionaire sure, but not quite a billionaire. I suppose I could have been if I was greedy with my money but I’m not. My business is completely my own. I started it when I left college. I timed it just right. You could say I fell lucky. I am cool with that. But I worked my ass off too. And every penny I have, I have earned myself,” Rafael said. “My father didn’t have a business. He worked as a mechanic for a garage just down the road from the house we lived in when I was growing up and my mom worked as a cashier in a seven eleven. Some weeks, there was enough money, some weeks there wasn’t. Sammy and I never went without though.”

“I have to admit I am shocked,” I said. “I ,,, I always assumed …”

I tailed off, not sure how to end the sentence. Rafael smiled.

“You thought I was a spoilt brat who had grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth and then been given daddy’s company to play at running while the board did all of the hard work,” he said. “Right?”

“Almost right,” I admitted. “I never thought you didn’t work hard though. I just always thought you were doing it to make some sort of point to your father or whatever.”

Rafael laughed and shook his head.

“Nope. I was doing it because like I said, growing up, some weeks, there wasn’t enough money. But it wasn’t until I was an adult and looking back on my childhood that I saw that. My parents never ever let Sammy and I know when they were struggling. They went without stuff, but we never did. And from the moment I worked that out, I vowed I was going to do everything I could to make them proud of me, and more than that, I vowed I was going to work hard enough so that there was never another week where there wasn’t enough money for my parents,” he said. “After I had worked for a few years, I was able to pay off their mortgage and do a few other things for them. They don’t like to accept things from me, but I tend to leave them with no choice.”

“It sounds like they’re lucky to have you,” I said.

“No, I’m the lucky one to have them as parents,” Rafael said. He drained his glass and stood up. “Same again?”

I nodded my head and watched as Rafael headed up to the bar. I was really starting to see just how wrong I had been about him. He wasn’t some silver spoon brat. He was a hard worker who loved his family and who just wanted to show them how much he appreciated them.

He was actually quite sweet. The second I thought that and didn’t immediately try to discredit it, was the second that I knew that I was in trouble.