After finishing the meeting, Ulric quietly pushed open the bedroom door, afraid of waking Rosalind.
To his surprise, she was still awake, burning the midnight oil in front of her computer.
He furrowed his thick eyebrows and silently approached to glance at the various data reports on the screen. “Is your workload too heavy?”
Rosalind was startled by him. “When did you come in? I didn’t even notice.”
“Just now. You were too focused.” Ulric sat at the foot of the bed. “I’ll ask Cedric to lighten your tasks.”
“No need! I asked him to give me these tasks.” Rosalind continued working as she spoke. “I’ve been resting for a while, and he’s probably been too busy to sleep. Now that I’m taking on some work, he can catch a break.”
“But if you do all this, you’ll have to work overtime every day.”
“It won’t be long, at most a week.”
Rosalind marked each document and saved them one by one before finally shutting down the computer with a sigh of relief. “Don’t worry about me. I’m old enough to know if I’m tired or not.”
Despite her reassurance, Ulric’s brows remained furrowed.
He knew in his heart that Rosalind was doing this to live up to his expectations. But that wasn’t his original intention.
As Ulric pondered how to communicate this to Rosalind, she spoke first.
“By the way, I can’t work overtime this Saturday. I’m planning to visit my mom and get a health checkup.”
Ulric immediately asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing much, just a routine checkup. Since I’ll be at the hospital, I might as well get checked.” Rosalind didn’t dare mention that she was going because her period hadn’t come. Firstly, it was embarrassing and a sensitive topic. Secondly, she and Ulric had always used contraception and wouldn’t be expecting a child. If she told him her period hadn’t come, he might think otherwise! If it turned out she wasn’t pregnant, wouldn’t that disappoint him?
“Then I’ll go with you. I have nothing on Saturday.”
“Better not.” Rosalind hadn’t yet smoothed things over with her mother and worried that bringing Ulric might lead to some unpleasantness. Malcolm was so favored by her mother yet still faced difficulties; Ulric would surely face the same.
Seeing Ulric remain silent, she walked over and took his arm, uncharacteristically acting a bit coy.
“Are you mad?”
“No.”
“I know you want to go with me, and that’s enough! Besides, it’s just a checkup. If you really want to go, how about I visit my mom this Saturday and we go to another hospital on Sunday?”
Ulric sighed helplessly. “You don’t have to be so cautious around me. I was just thinking about how to get your mother to accept me.”
“I’ll handle that. You already have enough on your plate with work; don’t get distracted by this.”
Rosalind felt that persuading her mother was futile for now. Acceptance would take time! Once her mother saw that she and Ulric hadn’t separated after many years, she would naturally accept him.
“Alright, let’s sleep.”
Ulric gently stroked her hair and waited until her breathing became steady before getting up with his phone and heading to the balcony in the living room.
The phone screen showed a message from his father sent 30 minutes ago.
[Have you thought it over?]