For three decades, Oliver Smith had worked tirelessly to establish his business empire. From a poor orphan boy that hails from the countryside, Oliver became one of richest man in the world with luxurious hotels carrying his name peppering every major city.
At 51 years old, Oliver has everything that a person could ever ask for – wealth, fame, influence, mansions, luxurious cars, vacation home, yachts – anything that money could buy. And yet, despite his wealth and success, Oliver was far from being happy.
Having spent majority of his life working and building his business empire, Oliver neglect a very important aspect of life – building his own family.
Indeed, despite his advance age, Oliver is still an unmarried man. He had several lovers over the years but didn’t marry or have children with any one of them because for him back then, his ambition was more important than love... and a family. Although he’s feeling regretful now, he’s also aware that he could not get back the time that he had lost.
“It’s finally over…,” said Oliver while sitting on his expensive leather chair inside his office. He had just been in a very important meeting where he had announced his retirement and was feeling mentally drained.
His announcement came as a great surprise to his employees and the members of the board as he never once hinted even to his closest colleague that he would be retiring. Still, seeing how serious he was, they could only respect his decision.
Soon, news of Oliver’s retirement has become known to the public. Following that, speculations as to why he wanted to retire started coming out. Some say he was forced to retire by the shareholders who banded together to kick him out of the company he founded. Other people jealously claims that he no longer care about his company as he is already rolling on money. Other rumors also exist but since the person in question never accepted any request for an interview, everything remained as such – just speculations.
The truth of the matter was that Oliver no longer has the same drive as he did when he was younger. For decades he had crawled his way to the top, and for what? Just so he could be alone all his life? Although he has billions of dollars in his name he has no family to share it with. So what’s the use of earning more? It’s not like he could bring those billions of dollars to his grave.
Oliver had once used his ambition as a driving force to propel himself forward but now he sees it as nothing more than an antagonist – one that bereft him of true happiness.
Months quickly passed by and soon the public’s interest of Oliver’s case, dwindled. Taking advantage of the situation where he was no longer in the media’s eyes, Oliver secretly flew to the Caribbean on a passenger plane using a different name.
While in the Caribbean, he coincidentally meets an old flame while eating at an outdoor restaurant.
“It’s been a while since we last met haven’t we? How have you been?” asked a good-looking woman with red hair that looks to be in her late 30s or early 40s. She was seating in front of Oliver separated only by a round table.
The good-looking, red-haired woman is Dahlia, one of Oliver’s ex-lover. Among the women he had a relationship with in the past; Dahlia was the one that stayed with him the longest. She was also the only woman that he ever thought of marrying. Unfortunately, a lot of things happened and the two had to go their separate ways.
Although Dahlia and Oliver had to go their separate ways, their relationship didn’t end in a sour note as one would expect from a break-up. Instead, they remained friends and in contact with one another for some times.
It was only after Dahlia found a new lover and got married did Oliver reduced their contacts with her in consideration to the newly wed couple’s harmonious married life. Although, Dahlia’s husband, Roger, is not the jealous type, no man would like it if their wife stays in contact with another man, especially if that man was his wife’s former lover, as such, Oliver wisely kept his distance from her.
And just like that decade passed by, and the two almost had no contact with one another.
“So-so, I guess. How about you? What have you been up to these days?” Oliver asked back after giving a somewhat ordinary reply.
“Well, nothing much really, I’m just touring around, I guess?” Dahlia answered somewhat jokingly. But although she was joking, Oliver could sense the melancholy in her voice.
“I heard what happened to Roger, my condolence,” Oliver broke the topic after a while.
“…Thank you.” Dahlia answered with a sad-looking smile.
Dahlia’s husband, Roger was diagnosed with cancer five years after their marriage. Although Roger fought as hard as he could, he still succumbed to the disease at the end and passed away two years ago. He died while leaving Dahlia, childless.
Oliver, who was out of the country that time to tackle some very important company issues, and was therefore, not aware of her husband’s passing. It was only at a later date (about half a year later) did he hear the news. He did try to contact Dahlia after that but was unable to get to her due to the fact that she’s always out of the country. Later, he had to deal with another company issue and had to leave the country again. And just like that another year and half passed without the two getting into contact with one another.
Unexpectedly, the two of them coincidentally met in some town in the Caribbean – one of them trying to get away from the paparazzi while the other trying to get over the sadness of a love one’s passing.
Was it a coincidence or was it fate?
Oliver was not sure. What was certain though was that he’s glad to be able meet her again.
After catching up some more, Oliver finally asked Dahlia if they could meet up again the next day of which Dahlia readily agreed. She told him the name of the hotel she was staying at and made arrangement for them to meet at 7 am in the morning.
The next morning, Oliver left his hotel excitedly and arrived at their meeting place thirty minutes earlier. To his surprise, Dahlia was already at the entrance of her hotel waiting patiently. She was dressed casually but stylishly.
“Did I make you wait?” Oliver asked.
“No, I’m just a few minutes earlier than you,” she replied with a smile.
Oliver nodded and asked Dahlia if he had breakfast yet. When she said “no”, Oliver invited her to have breakfast with him at a nearby restaurant.
After breakfast, Oliver went and rented a car so that they could tour the town. He didn’t join a touring group or hire a tour guide as he wanted to enjoy the tour with just the two of them.
The two went to the town’s famous tourists attractions as well to the lesser known ones. At noon, the two entered a small but decent-looking restaurant and had lunch there. The two rested for a while before continuing their tour of the place. At 7 pm, the two had a dinner at a cozy and romantic restaurant.
After that, Oliver drives Dahlia back to her hotel before going back to his own hotel but not before asking her to accompany him again that next day of which she agrees.
Oliver has every intention of pursuing Dahlia again. Although he’s already at his 50s, it doesn’t mean that he’s not interested in entering into another relationship. Besides, he knew Dahlia’s personality quite well and knew that she won’t be with him for his money. That being said, Oliver isn’t in a hurry and will not rush Dahlia to make a decision. As a retiree, he has all the time in the world, and can, therefore, be patient.
In the following days, Oliver and Dahlia would spend a lot of time together. They would dine, shop, and tour various places while enjoying each other’s company. In other people’s perspective, the two look like a couple but in truth, their relationship hasn’t reached that stage yet, partly because Oliver is being ambiguous and hasn’t made his intentions clear yet.
If not for a certain incident that gave him the fright of his life, he would have waited for a while longer before confessing his feelings to Dahlia.
The incident in question happened on a certain Sunday morning.
On that particular day, He and Dahlia promised to meet up at 10 am. They decided to meet up at the aforementioned time because Dahlia wanted to attend the morning mass at the local church. Since Oliver is an atheist, he didn’t join her and decided to pass the time touring the downtown area where the church was at.
At 9 am, he decided to have a break and pass the remaining time at the restaurant where the two of them agreed to meet. About half an hour into his wait, he noticed that the people inside the restaurant are looking outside window nervously.
Curious, he too looked outside and noticed a crowd of people on the sidewalk spectating at something a bit further away from the restaurant. Not far away from the crowd is an ambulance.
Since he couldn’t tell what had happened from his position, he decided to exit the restaurant and walked towards the crowd.
Apparently, there was an accident and a foreigner, a woman was hit by a speeding car.
At first, Oliver didn’t felt much about it but once he hears that the victim of the accident is a woman with red hair, his heartbeat started speeding up uncontrollably.
“I can’t be,” Oliver thought as his breathing accelerates and his hands went cold and sweaty.
Although Dahlia wasn’t the only woman with red hair in the world, Oliver’s thoughts couldn’t help but veer towards the worse scenario.
”No, I have to make sure it’s not her!”
Oliver, with a single-minded objective, forced his way into the spectators among the curses and hisses of the disgruntled crowd – desperate to reach the parked ambulance to matter what. But before he could run towards the ambulance, two hands reached out to him and grabbed his right arm.
Alarmed, he tried to shake off the hands grabbing him but when looked back to see who it was, his eyes widened in surprise.
It was Dahlia – looking back at him with a worried look.
Seeing Dahlia safe and sound, the smoldering flame of impatience inside his heart was doused with the cold water of relief. Without willing it, his body moved on its own and hugged Dahlia tightly.
“Thank God, you’re safe,” he murmured to her, relief obvious in his voice.
Dahlia was shocked after being hugged suddenly but didn’t push Oliver away.
“What happened to you?” she asked in confusion while slightly blushing.
“I thought that you got into an accident,” said Oliver before explaining what had happened while still hugging her.
“I-I see,” uttered Dahlia as understanding dawn on her, “but more importantly, can you let me go? People are staring at us.”
Oliver finally noticed that the crowd had ceased hissing and cursing and were now staring at the two of them oddly.
Seeing the odd gazes of the people around them, Oliver didn’t get embarrassed nor did he panicked as one would expect in that situation. Instead, he took a step back, took a small box from his breast pocket, kneeled on one knee, opened the small box and proposed before everyone’s eyes.
“Will you marry me?” he said.
Oliver's unexpected proposal stunned both Dahlia and the audience. Some people were in awe, some were applauding, and there were even some people whistling as though they were fascinated by the event in front of them.
Dahlia on the other hand was blushing profusely due to embarrassment but didn’t reply with a “yes or no”.
“I was expecting a more romantic proposal from you but I guess this will do too,” she said with a demure smile on her face.
The crowd went crazy after hearing Dahlia’s reply and started clapping hard to express their excitement, forgetting the fact that an accident happened not too long ago much to the confusion of the health workers and police who responded to the incident, and the people that arrived late to the scene.
Two months later, the two finally tied the knot inside a local church in the Caribbean. On Dahlia’s request, the wedding was very simple with only their closest relatives and friends present to serve as witness their union.
And among the invited guests was a young woman with long, flowing red hair named Matilda – the same person who was involved in the vehicular accident two months ago – and also, the couple’s cupid.
