Contract marriage: My billionaire’s cure

I woke up the next day only to find that Marcus had left early. Today the RJs had a meeting with the Empire’s so I would be meeting him this afternoon .

I was at the Empire headquarters with my dad, my brother and a few of our employees.

Empire headquarters were massive buildings towering over the city like four giants. A huge fountain as big as the Mississippi itself was built in the middle, water flowing from a dragon’s mouth as it’s tail circled the fountain.

We entered a long meeting room and half of the chairs were already filled with employees of Empire.

I saw Mr. Anderson and Marcus at the end of the table. We made our way to them and I took a seat across from Marcus.

He didn’t even take one glance at me so I decided to ignore him, not to make my day more worse.

We discussed about the new island RJs bought in Indonesia. We were to built hotels, restaurants, clothing stores and everything tourist would like in that. But for that we needed Empire’s help and that’s when the director board found me very useful.

I hated it whenever I had to represent RJ and the director board also equally hated me for always acting like a rebel. Whenever there was a problem in business other groups make plans to overcome the damage but our strategy had been to marry some of their own to another.

That’s why we lasts longer as a powerful conglomerate in the states. Because we have sacrificial goats unlike the others. Which gives me more and more reasons to hate them.

And whenever the RJ gives out a marriage proposal the other groups can do nothing but accept it because they wouldn’t let good business go away just like that. RJ might be the most asshole conglomerate ever but they still holds the power in the market.

No wonder Marcus hates me. He had no choice but to accept me. But I didn’t have one either. And I knew it all my life.

The meeting came to an end after god knows how many hours. Everyone left the table but Marcus remained in his seat, going through some file. I also stayed glued to my seat not knowing what I was doing.

But all I knew was that I felt bad about yesterday and the guilt wouldn’t go away until I do something. I wanted to apologize for misunderstanding him and for invading his privacy.

Apologizing wasn’t my thing so I felt weird.

“Umm” I cleared my throat and he slowly raised his head and looked me in the eye.

“Umm I’m sorry for scolding you yesterday and- for invading your personal space ”

He stared at me a few seconds and took a sharp intake of breath.

” I’m sorry too”

I was taken aback. I quickly pinched myself to see if this was a dream or not.

“What?” I looked at him, trying to see whether he was joking.

“For shouting at you”

“Oh” I nodded my head. “I don’t know um…do you want to grab some dinner?” I asked him already knowing that he would refuse.

He again kept his eyes fixed on mine and then slowly nodded his head.

I was surprised but I quickly hid my expression and went out before I could embarrass myself anymore.

As I was talking with my dad outside Marcus came out.

“I’ll pick you up” He said as he walked passed me.

I blinked deliberately still not believing what I heard. He said yes to dinner and now is coming to pick me up? Blood was racing through my body trying to pump out because of all the shock I was going through.

Someone snapped their fingers before my eyes bringing me back on to reality. “Ooh what was that?” My dad wiggled his eyebrows playfully.

“Oh c’mon dad” I rolled my eyes and walked away before he could come up with some joke.

I went back to my company and worked till late evening. Today everyone had to work till it was late because of the new stores we were planning to build in the new island.

Suddenly I heard a loud shriek from my employees. I quickly ran out of my room and saw some of the female staff looking at something through the window. They were squealing and clapping their hands in excitement.

“Omg he’s so cute” One shrieked in high pitch.

“Those green eyes” They screamed and jumped up and down like mad girls.

I looked at Sarah who was standing beside me with a confused expression.

I walked towards the window and stood behind the employees.

“What’s happening?” They all turned to me and looked at me in horror as if they just saw a ghost. I looked at them questioningly and they soon apologized and went back to the seats like nothing happened.

I glanced down from the window and saw Marcus’s car parked in front of my building. He was leaning on his car with his hands in his pockets. His sleeves were rolled up, giving me a good sight of his veins. He had taken off his coat so he looked mouth watering with his white dress shirt and black tie.

“Mm.. people I think we should all head back home” I cleared my throat.

I saw my staff giggling and I narrowed my eyes at them. They suddenly stopped and turned away, pretending not to see me.

I took my hand bag and walked downstairs to the entrance. Marcus saw me and opened the car door for me. My lips twitched up to a smile enjoying these simple gestures of kindness which I didn’t know he had.

“How long have you been waiting?”

“For several minutes”

“Why didn’t you call me?”I raised my eyebrows in confusion.

“I don’t have your number” he simply stated.

“Oh” I just realized that even though we were married for an entire week we didn’t have each other’s numbers.

“Here , give me your phone” I extended my arm.

He gave me his phone and I typed my number and called myself. I saved my number in his phone and his in mine.

“So where are we going?” I asked him.

“There’s a quiet restaurant that I prefer”

I nodded my head and quickly texted one of our company drivers to take my car back to our house. Marcus was silent so I looked out the window, gazing at the already reddened sky.

We came to a halt and Marcus parked his car in front of a small but elegant restaurant.

We both walked inside and the manager came running, greeting us. He talked with Marcus in a friendly manner as if they had known each other for a very long time.

We were given tables in a quiet place by the window. This was my second dinner with him. The last one was pretty awkward and I didn’t want to be in the same situation again.

We sat down and the waiter gave us the menu. After the food came I started digging in like a hungry lion.

I looked at Marcus and my gaze fell at his plate.

“What are you doing? ” I asked in surprise.

“What?” He looked around him to see if there was anything wrong.

“You only have vegetables on your plate. No meat. Why? ”

” I’m vegetarian?” He asked giving me a duh look.

A loud gasp escaped my lips.

“Really? You vegetarian?” I pointed my finger at him.

He nodded his head in confusion and looked at me as if I grew two heads.

“So you’ve never had meat before?”

“I have. I stopped when I was 10″

” Why?”

“I don’t know, just feel like it’s better”

I can’t imagine myself being vegetarian and whenever I meet someone vegetarian I have the urge to make them eat meat.

But I decided to ignore my weird urges and went back to eating.

“So I heard that you are opening few hotels in Germany and Switzerland” I didn’t expect him to reply considering he ignored me the last time I tried to make conversation.

“Yes I am, you will be going to Germany soon right? ” He asked me and I was dumbfounded.

He heard me?

“You heard me?”

“Of course I heard you. I’m not deaf”

“Oh” I didn’t know what to say.

“So when?”

“I will probably be going at the end of next week”

He nodded and quickly the conversation died down as we both started digging into our food, devouring it in peace.

“I’ll probably be traveling to Germany to check on my new hotel the week after next week”

He told me as we left the restaurant. I didn’t know what to say so I just nodded and got inside.

We rode back silently until I saw an ice cream truck. No matter how much I ate ice cream in fancy restaurants, these trucks attract me.

“Stop stop stop” I shouted tapping Marcus’s hand.

He suddenly stopped his car with a confused look on his face.

“I’ll buy an ice cream and comeback. You want one?” I asked him excitedly. I just wanted to have the ice cream quickly.

“From a truck? We could have eaten ice cream at the restaurant”

“Oh c’mon that’s not fun” I smiled like a lunatic and got out of the car.

“Why type do you want miss?” The vendor asked me, showing the different flavours of ice cream he had.

“Chocolate! You ?” I asked Marcus, who was approaching me with his hands tucked in his pockets.

“Strawberry”

My mouth fell open. Do men like him exist? Wow he was surely not what I expected him to be.

I bought the ice cream and we both ate in silence. I was excited like a child, devouring the ice cream in my mouth like I never ate it before.

“You’ve been doing this a lot?” I nodded to his question and was surprised that he asked me something I was very interested in.

“I’ve been doing this since I was small. Whenever I see an ice cream truck everything in me stops functioning. All I want is the ice cream”

I smiled at the ice cream cone I was holding. I looked at Marcus to see him giving me a small smile.

I blinked several times and slightly pinched myself to confirm this was not a dream. I was dumbfounded as I saw his lips curled into smile. Even though this was unusual I liked it. He was more handsome in a smile rather than a scowl.

“Well you had a nice childhood”

I looked at him confused, and he was staring at the ice cream with sad eyes. He was sad but yet his expression told me not to cross the line.

I knew better than to invade his privacy. So I decided to ignore it and went back to eating my ice cream.

We drove back home in silence. But this silence was comfortable. There was no tension between us and I liked that.

We both walked upstairs and I stopped in front of my door.

“Goodnight” I called out to him.

“Goodnight” he gave me a nod and walked to his room.

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