The Billionaire's Playmate ✔

33 | WIFE

At all.

His life is hanging on by a thread as far as I am concerned.

He's currently walking down the cobblestone path from the house towards me, waving frantically like he hasn't seen me in fifteen years, despite the fact that he was on the phone with me not five minutes ago, practically screeching for me to get here soon so that we can start having fun.

He sounded like an absolute five-year-old with a dollhouse that could fit your pet cat.

He's beckoning to me.

I can hear him from the other side of the street, from inside my car.

"Isa, come on! Before all the cookies are gone!"

I get out of my car and lock it, before looking both ways on the street before I jaywalk. "What are we doing here, Marco?" I ask, approaching him.

Marco takes my hand in his. "Come on. Just know that you'll get a cookie."

"Alright," I drawl, letting him lead me up the cobblestone path to the house, "But if there aren't any cookies in there, they're going to be dragging the lake for your body in the morning."

Marco turns and smiles at me. "Always so graphic." He shakes his head before kissing my cheek.

As soon as he opens the door to let me walk in, I'm hit by the scent of freshly baked cookies. With my eyes closed, I inhale deeply.

When I open them, I see that Marco and I aren't the only people in the house. There are dozens of other people milling about and almost all of them seem to have a cookie.

I lean into him, looking at all of them. "What kind of weird ass cookie factory is this?"

"You'll see," he says, cryptically, ushering me inside the house, towards what seems to be an open-plan kitchen.

There, on the kitchen counter, are business cards of a realtor.

She's speaking to everyone in the kitchen about how the fittings are all Italian, durable and beautifully match the aesthetic of the kitchen.

I look at Marco. "You brought me to an open house?" I whisper to him.

Leaning over the counter, Marco grabs two cookies from a plate and hands one to me. "You'll have to find another time to kill me."

"Why are we at an open house?" I ask, taking a bite of my cookie, "I know you didn't design this place."

Marco shakes his head. "I didn't."

He's not looking at me.

He's pretending to be very interested in what the lady is saying about the built-in refrigerator.

"Marco," I hiss.

Putting an arm around my waist, Marco pulls me over to a corner. He's beaming.

"Remember how you told me that you love looking at old French castles online?" he asks.

I nod. "Online castle window shopping, yeah."

"Well, since you told me that you don't really have time to take a trip to Europe to see those castles in person, I thought that we might as well do some real-life house window shopping."

I feel myself smiling. "So, our date night is an open house."

Marco waves a finger. "Aha! No. There's more than one open house."

I laugh. "Marco, have you forgotten something? We already have a house. Remember? We moved in about a month ago? You designed it? It's beautiful? You have a drawing room and I have an office room? There's an at-home theatre where you try to scare me with different horror movies? We even had our friends over for a movie night? We christened every single room in the house the first week we moved in? There's a mailbox on the front lawn that says 'Bonnie and Clyde'? Is this ringing any bells?"