Contract Marriage starring Love and Revenge
Chapter 73

Chapter 73: 73

"Are you certain you want to do this alone?" Duke asks for the umpteenth time as he stops our car in front of the restaurant I had my secretary make reservations for my meeting with the five people I am trying to recruit from Gold foods.

"If you ask that question one more time, it will be equivalent to an entire Chapter of a book. I’ve told you not to worry about it. I’ll be fine." I try to reassure him.

"You don’t believe in me?" I ask. Maybe it’s just because he keeps worrying about me, but I’m starting to think that Duke doesn’t have much faith in me.

I hate to think that he doesn’t believe I can pull something as little as this off even though I believe I’ve proven capable of being able to handle meetings like this on my own.

Is he doing this because of that? Does he feel like I might be unstable because I just found out about the hysterectomy?

I hate having so much to think about and yet I can’t help thinking this way if he keeps—

"You’re over thinking again, aren’t you?" W_when did he get so close to my face?

I didn’t realize he’d unbuckled his seat belt and is already leaning close to me, with his arms on both sides of my seat, caging me in between them, bringing all my focus back to his calming breath, his somewhat chilling gaze and the scolding tone of his voice.

"I’m not saying this because I don’t trust in your persuasive skills." He says and brings finger to my chin, "I’m only asking because I really just want to be certain you are fine on your own."

Ultimately, he was worried about me and I could tell it was definitely because of my breakdown after the hysterectomy issue.

However, when he explains it like that, and says it in such a chilling yet soft tone, with a sincerely worried expression on his face, I can tell his worry is not because he fears I would ruin anything. Rather he’s just worried for my own self.

Maybe it was because I was not used to people showing so much worry about things that partained to me, but sometimes the way Duke worried about me seemed unrealistic and abnormal.

I sometimes saw it as something foreign and hard to understand. At times I couldn’t help but wonder why he always asked me ’how are you feeling?’ I was hardly asked that question before. But Duke had turned that to a habit, he never failed to ask me ’how are you’ and it baffled me.

This man—

"So, are you?" He asks again and a soft smile curls up my lips as I stretch myself until my lips are pressed against his.

His eyes dilated, "I’m not fine." I confess as I pull away from him, "but I can do this on my own." I know I can.

—is wonderful.

His eyes are still wide open. I wonder why these little gestures still shock him so much when we’ve literally spent the past few days joined together nakedly.

He finally blinks, as though he’s woken up from the trance he had fallen into. "Alright," he says. "I trust you."

...

"I have a reservation under the name, Champagne Grand," I say to the receptionist and she quickly checks the list on her monitor.

"Oh, yes ma’am, your companions have already arrived." She says as she signals for another of her colleagues, "Please escort Mrs Grand to box twelve." She says and flashes me a bright smile and bows her head low.

I acknowledge her greeting with a slight nod of my head, "Right this way ma’am," says the young man she had spoken to.

Calmly, I follow him. I told Stella to make reservations in a renowned and decent restaurant where I will be able to have a private conversation with at least six people.

This place seems decent enough. It’s clearly not just a casual restaurant, everyone seems to be in official clothes and although they are sharing meals I can see files being exchanged and the looks on their faces are of people having official conversations.

It’s a restaurant for corporate officials to enjoy a good meal while making a good deal at the same time.

"Here we are ma’am." The young man says before going on to open the door to a separate room that has the number twelve boldly written on it.

I walk into the room and the door is closed behind me.

And as soon as they turn around and see me, they rise to their feet... the expressions on their faces are different.

While two of them look a little surprised to see me, the other two look like they are happy and surprised at the same time and the last one has no expression at all.

"Hello everyone, have I kept you waiting too long?"

...

"I’m so happy to see you ma’am. When the chairman passed away, and we heard that you were being removed from your position, most of the staff were devastated."

Says Camila Baker. She used to be a quiet woman who always sat with her head buried in her desk. I never knew she was one to talk so much.

And what’s this about being devastated? I was not friendly with the staff, nor was I hostile towards them, but for them to be devastated about my unjust removal from position seems far-fetched..

"That was not even what got most of us angry, we were angry that the person who was to take your position was none other than Miss Alicia, I mean she hardly ever showed up at work, so how could the board of directors and the chairman think that she could possibly run the business like you did?"

Andrea Goodfellow, she’s a smart woman who is always booming with new ideas but never calms down to actually prepare a convincing proposal, nor can she ever pitch her ideas in a convincing manner. But that one time she had managed to bring forth an idea, make an adequate proposal and although her pitch was a bit sloppy, she still managed to get picked.

"I was more shocked about the CEO divorcing, Dr Fletcher."

Anita Pius, a woman who never thinks before speaking. I see she’s still the same. She only thinks about the things she says after she says them, and then she begins to tremble in an apologetic manner, just like she’s doing right now.

"It’s fine." I simply say.

They all stare at each other for a second before speaking up again, "When the rumors began to roam about that Champagne Fletcher was now actually married to the second son of the Grand family whom most people don’t even know his face, I really didn’t believe it." says Jessica Brown, her ideas were always among the top five whenever a competition was held in the company.

"But then images of the two of you together began to float around the internet like wildfire. It was really hard to believe."

Hmm, did that happen? I didn’t notice. Well, I guess it was only natural that my marriage to Duke would be pasted all over the internet eventually. We didn’t hold a ceremony, so the news stations didn’t have anything to raise gossip about. But the internet is a different story, an article could be written based on a single statement from anyone who had witnessed me and Duke hanging out together.

"Do you want me to tell you about my married life for you to believe me?" I ask with a slight tilt of my head and a smirk and Jessica’s face reddens.

"Why did you ask to see us?" Ah, at last she speaks, "All five of us... at the same time, at that?"

Rebecca Scott, the black sheep of the marketing team of Gold foods.

She got the nickname black sheep for the marketing team, not because she was lazy, or refused to do her job.

No.

On the contrary, she got the name because she did her job so damn well, but lacked team spirit. Whenever a project was given to the marketing team, she would single herself out and do the job of her entire team all by herself, making every other person seem utterly useless.

Normally, people would be happy if there was a person like that in a group, it would mean such a person was easy to ride.

But again, it was quite the opposite. She was not one to be trampled upon. The reason she did her job solo was not because she wanted to please anyone, rather it seemed as though she couldn’t care less what anyone had to say about her behavior.

All she cared about was getting her job done, and getting paid for the work she’d done.

Rather than a black sheep, I’d say she’s a lone wolf.