Beautiful Stranger (Completed)

CH 27

A few days later....

Xavier

'I miss you.' I sent my wife a text saying.

'I miss you too! ❤️' she sent back.

I smiled. Charlie was...my heart tightened. I felt so many different emotions with her. All the time, I carried her with me.

"Calm down, it's almost time for us to get off." Nolan interrupted my thoughts saying.

"He's so hopeless." Jake said.

We were in my office doing paperwork. Jake had stopped by because he wanted to take Bailey on a trip while Charlie and I were away on our honeymoon. I thought it was a great idea.

He wanted to run it by me first to see if Charlie would be okay with it. Even though Bailey was a grown woman, she still very much deferred to Charlie when making any decisions.

I loved my wife, but the words overly protective like a mother hen came to mind when it had to do with Bailey. Any one who knew them could see it. Therefore, my friend was very wise to come to me first.

"When you're in love, then you'll understand where I'm coming from." I sent Charlie another quick text telling her what I planned on doing to her tonight.

She sent me one back, telling me what she planned on doing to me. I felt my cheeks go hot before I checked the time on my phone. I just had two more hours until I could see my wife.

"Hey, I think I understand." Jake said. He was blushing slightly. I could always tell whenever he got embarrassed because his voice would rise slightly.

Nolan threw a throw pillow from my chair at him. "You're just as hopeless."

"I thought you were seeing Chloe?" I asked him.

We hadn't really talked about it. They had been dating the past few months and they both were so tight lipped about it, it was surprising.

"We're taking things slow." Nolan said.

"She's making you work for it." Jake joked.

I cracked up laughing and Nolan actually turned red. "Whatever. Let's get back to work. We need to talk about this Gino situation."

We did. He was still currently living in a country with no extradition treaty with the US. But the Rivera's empire was being taken over by rival crime families. I couldn't imagine Gino staying put when the empire his great-grandfather built was in shambles.

The FBI was expecting him to come back and when he did, we were going to be ready for him. But there was still the major issue of no one knowing exactly who were on their payroll.

It was why my boss wanted Nolan and I to work on it since we did so well with helping Charlie.

"Does Charlie know?" Nolan asked.

"We haven't talked about it and I'd actually prefer to keep her away from this. She was too close to the Gino situation. I don't want her having to go through it again."

"Makes sense." My cousin said before picking up another file. "Whatever we don't finish today, I'll just handle it. You just go enjoy your honeymoon."

"And here I thought you didn't care?" I joked.

He threw a book at my head in response. Jake and I both cracked up laughing.

A few hours later, I was at Charlie's job to pick her up. I had been texting her every hour to check in with her. I wanted to make sure Micah wasn't bothering her.

He hadn't. He had been steering clear of her. I was glad about that. I wanted all of her present for our honeymoon.

My cabin was ten hours away from where we lived. I wanted to get on the road this evening and we'd be there by late early morning.