The Tyrant's Wife

Chapter 355: Workaholic

Song recommendation: Secret—Louane

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"There you are," Desmond said when he finally found Zaria. He had searched the whole cottage for her and smiled when he saw her. She was leaning against the wall, looking up into the blank night sky.

"No stars tonight, it’s a shame." She peeked at him over her shoulder.

"I can give you something to look at." He winked. Then he took notice of her laptop on the small round table beside her. He frowned. "Were you out here working?"

"Not really. I found a hotel for sale. Check it out," she circled the table and tilted the laptop so he would see it when she reopened the window. "I checked teh past reviews and it’s been thriving. The former owner was diagnosed with cancer and only has a few years left. His family is trying their best but he didn’t really include them in running the hotel before. They’re grasping on straws."

"So you think it’s a good idea to take it off their hands and make it yours?" He asked with a flash of his brows.

"Ours." She corrected him. "Preston and Fort Group, the company you and your friend started together, which you now run with me as your executive assistant, remember it?"

He snaked an arm around her waist with a chuckle.

She frowned, disappointment seeping into her voice. "I thought it was a good idea."

"It is. Every one of your ideas is great and this one particularly takes the cake."

"Then what’s so funny?" she glared up at him in warning.

"Remember how you always grumbled about me being a workaholic, and even said you wished you could throw my computer away so I would stop working for a moment? Guess what I want to do with your laptop now?"

She rolled her eyes. "It’s just one hotel, Desmond." Noticing his grin, she conceded. "I must be carrying a workaholic little Fort inside me."

"Mh," he agreed.

She ignored his remark about her being workaholic and brought his mind back to what mattered. "What do you think? I don’t think we should wait for them to realize they’re heading into bankruptcy. There will be vultures hovering around to buy it off at the lowest price possible. If we wait too long, we may have to compete against them."

He sat down on one of the two foldable chairs around the table and brought her on his lap. "Why don’t you give them an offer to consider? You can then wait for them to grapple at straws and at the first sign of them giving up, tell them the offer still stands. They may consider you in favor of the other vultures."

She thought about it. She would have loved to start working on the hotel as soon as possible but if she tried to push the family, they might just decide to die before considering her Preston and Fort Group.

She nodded. "What about..."

"Honey, we didn’t come on our honeymoon to talk about drowning hotels. We have more important things to do." He stood up with her in his arms and carried her back into the cottage, all the way into their bedroom.

"This is your important matter?" She chuckled when Desmond placed her in the middle of the bed and kissed her neck, his hands trailing down her body.

"It’s fucking urgent." He growled. To prove it, he took her hand and pressed it against his hardness. He was already rock-hard and it hadn’t been long before he was inside her.

Zaria Fort was a drug and he was addicted to her—and he wouldn’t stop craving her even if he tried. He took off his pajama shirt and she pushed on her elbows to watch as he undid each button. He smiled at how her eyes bore into his skin, filled with desire. While he would have loved to tease her for a while, he was aching to be inside her. But first, he needed to taste her more than he needed his next breath.

He climbed back onto the bed and parted her legs, groaning when he found she was not wearing any panties.

"You smell phenomenal."

"Shut up and fuck me already." She groaned. "I’m fucking dying for you."

"As you wish, Ma’am." He teased and buried his face between her legs.

______

At the same time, in Humville.

Since returning from the meeting with her father, Ximena had been quiet for the most part. At first, Liam let her have her space knowing she needed it, but he was getting worried.

So when he saw her sitting at the terrace with a half-finished cup of the coffee he had brought her a few hours ago, he couldn’t help prying.

"Baby, what’s happening?"

She sighed. "Nothing. I’m just tired."

She wasn’t a good liar to begin with, but no one would buy that excuse. She chuckled when she saw his raised brow.

"I just feel...confused, you know? All these years I thought my mother hates me, then I find out she isn’t my biological mother." She paused. She knew surrogate mothers weren’t supposed to keep the children and by that logic, Melinda was her mother. But this was slightly different.

"She had the choice to not have a child through a surrogate, right? She could have adopted one instead. Well, there’s always a chance my father forced her to accept a surrogate baby and she had no real choice, but I don’t think he would leave that out while trying to redeem himself. So she agreed to the surrogate and once she had me, she hated me?"

He didn’t interrupt her, knowing what was going through her mind. She was finding it hard to accept the fact that Melinda hated her for something she had no control over—namely the strong friendship between her father and her birth mother.

"Do you want to find her?" He asked.

She looked up at him. "How the hell did you come to that conclusion?" her lips twitched. "I don’t know."

She took out a card from her pocket. It was the same card Reginald gave her. Contrary to her expectation, it was not his contact details. It was the name, address and telephone number of a woman.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out who the woman was. It was her birth mother. If she wanted to, all it would take was a phone call and she would uncover some of her past.

His brows furrowed when she showed it to him. He had assumed it was Reginald’s new contact number or something.

"What’s stopping you?" He asked.

She pulled the card back from his fingers. "What if she doesn’t want me?"

He pulled her closer and rubbed her back. "You’ll survive." He said, earning a glare. He smiled. "Let’s be real, Xim. You’re a wonderful woman. Everyone who has you in their life would agree. If she takes any time to get to know you, she will certainly want you to stick around. But she’s been gone for years. There’s a chance she still wishes she was in your life and it would be a welcome surprise for you to reach out, but there’s an equal chance she moved on and doesn’t want anything reminding her of the past."

She swallowed past a lump. "Of all the men in the world, I get the one who spits facts instead of coddling me to make me feel better." She jokingly complained.

He cupped her face seriously. "I don’t want to give you any false hope, my love. It breaks my heart to see you so sad. I don’t want to be one of the reasons for that sadness."

"I know what will make you feel better." He declared, helping her onto her feet.

"You, naked in bed?" She joked.

"That can be arranged later." He winked and led her back inside, where a series was airing on the TV screen.

"Deception?" Her eyes bugged out. Just like he thought, she planted her butt on the couch to watch it.

He smiled. "I’ll bring the popcorn." The microwave dinged right on time.

He brought the popcorn and set it between them, sitting close enough that they could touch but not squish the bucket between them. It was a relief to see her smile again. Tomorrow, she would probably remember what had her so worried and stew over it. But tonight, he wanted to forget all that and have a good time.