Max POV
Two weeks later
The last two weeks have been the worst days of my life, but I’ve still been trying to pull through, and with Ariel by my side, I’ve been able to hold my head up all this while. Ariel has also been emotionally down, and couldn’t step out of the house since reporters wouldn’t stop coming here and waiting to take words from her. Everything is messed up, but I’m trying to fix things. The rumor is still trending on the internet even after two weeks, and someone has been fuelling it, I guess.
“Are you ok?” Ariel’s voice snaps me back to reality, and I raise my gaze from my phone to find her standing in front of the bathroom door, wearing her lingerie.
“Yes, I’m fine. What were you doing?” I ask her after I scan her with my eyes.
“I went to shower. What were you staring at?” She asks as she walks over to me, but I quickly put my phone away. I was going through the comment section of the post on the internet, and boiling at the horrible comments, but I can’t let her see them.
“Nothing. I was just searching through my emails. You look tired. Do you want to sleep?” I ask her as she sits on my lap, but she shakes her head. Now that I stare up at her, she’s extremely cute. Forgive me, but now I feel how it feels like to be in love. Was I ever in love with Alicia? Was it love? I feel different around Ariel, and it makes me think crazy. Maybe we were never in love, maybe it was just our illusion. Talking about Alicia, she barely comes here now, but her things are still here. I want her to pull herself together first before I give her the ready divorce papers.
“Hmm,” She slowly nods her head before she stares into space.
“Are you ok?” I whisper as I tuck the strand of hair on her forehead behind her ear, cupping her cheek in my palm afterward, and turning her to face me. I don’t think I regret anything about getting married to her. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
“Yes,” She whispers as her innocent eyes pierce into mine, and I sigh briefly, knowing she is hiding her pain and trying to be fine.
“Just let it all out… Don’t try to suppress it… Just let it out and you’ll be fine,” I hush as I rub her cheek, and tears stream down her cheeks as she bites her lip.
“When will these be over? When will they stop calling me a home breaker?” More tears stream down her cheeks as she inquires, and I sigh briefly. I wish I can answer that, but even I don’t know when they will drop it. All I’m sure about is that it’s going to take time before everything will fade away.
“I thought it was going to be easy… I thought I could bear it, but not anymore. It hurts,” She breaks down in tears, and I hug her, stroking her hair slowly.
“Shhhh! Don’t cry. Everything will be fine. I will protect you. I won’t ever let anyone bully you, ok? It was my decision to marry you, and I don’t regret it. Don’t think about what they are all saying,” I assure her, and she slowly nods her head even though she doesn’t look satisfied. How is she supposed to be satisfied with it when even I am not?
“Hmm,” She nods her head briefly as she wipes off her tears.
“Why don’t we go out tomorrow morning and have fun?” I ask her even though I know it’ll be difficult to step out of this house. Reporters are hanging everywhere, waiting for us to step out of the house so they can harass us, but I will find a way around it.
“No, I don’t want to,” She shakes her head, and I know the reason she’s objecting.
“It’ll be fun, so don’t say no, ok?” I assure her, and she nods her head hesitantly.
The rest of the night was filled with us talking about random things and joking about stuffs until she falls asleep in my arms at about 2am. I finally fall asleep afterward.
The sound of my ringing phone pulls me out of my deep sleep, and I toss on the bed as I lazily reach out for it, and swipe the answer button without bothering to check who the caller is.
“Have you seen what you’ve caused with your nonsense act?” I quickly recognize the voice to belong to my dad, and I snap my eyes open as I sit up on the bed.
“Wh… what are you talking about?” I stutter as I rub my eyes since I’m still a bit sleepy.
“Check your email and get back to me,” He snaps at me one more time before he finally ends the call, and I gulp down nothing as I suddenly become nervous. I turn on my data connection since I turned it off before I went to bed yesterday, and as expected, messages keep trooping in like water flowing in an ocean. Since the messages are not my problem, I quickly click on my email, and my eyes widen at the tons of emails from companies that pop up on my phone. I just lost three contracts that are worth eighteen billion, twelve billion, and thirty-two billion respectively, and as if that is not enough, some of the shareholders already withdrew their support from the company, which means downfall for us, especially now that I’ve invested money in those companies.
‘If party A decides to liquidate the contract, there will be no refund to party B’ I slowly clench my fingers around the phone as realization dawn on me that I can’t get a refund from any of the companies. I’m doomed! This is the end of me. Who did this to me? Why did they do this?
My heart thumps heavily against my chest and I suddenly feel cold shivers running down my spine, tears well up in my eyes, but I try so hard to fight them back. My mom worked so hard for this. She wanted me to protect it, which was why she asked the company to be handed over to me when I’m of age, but I just ruined everything because of my stupidity. Where the heck am I to start? How do I get back on my feet again?
Talking about my mom, she died from an unknown illness when I was just seven years old, and before she died, she willed all of her companies in my name but made dad the caretaker until I’m grown and capable of handling the company.
“Are you okay?” The door suddenly opens, and I raise my gaze to find Ariel standing and staring at me with a worried expression on her face, and I quickly nod my head as I shove my phone on the bedside table, not after locking it. I can’t afford to see her sad, so I’d rather suffer this alone. She’s going to blame herself for it if she finds out, so there’s no way I will tell her about it.
“Yes, I’m fine. Come here,” I manage to smile at her as I stand up and pull her toward myself, embracing her warmly. This is exactly what I need right now. A warm hug.
“You are acting weird this morning. Is everything alright?” She asks after she pulls away from me and cups my cheeks in her palms, and I roll my eyes at her before I kiss her forehead.
“I told you I’m fine. Where did you go?” I ask her, and she smiles at me as she wraps her hands around my waist.
“I made breakfast. Your favorite,” She whispers the last part and squeaks like she’s excited.
“Wow! Let me rush to get ready to eat the delicious food. My mouth is salivating already,” I smile at her, even though I don’t even have an appetite to eat anything. I’m not fine, but I have to pretend to be fine, right? I don’t want her to share the pain with me. I’d rather go through it alone.
I finally leave for the bathroom and wash up quickly before I come back to the room. I guess she had already gone back to the kitchen to dish the food since she’s not in the room.
I pick up my phone and check the messages again, and I can’t help the deep sighs that cut through my throat. I guess I have to see my dad…