First Published: Nov.16, 2018----Edited: Sept. 30, 2020
Tonight was supposed to be his wedding night. With a glass of wine, he spent it on his balcony looking down from his fifty-fifth-floor penthouse at the buildings below him while his bride slept calmly on her virginal bed.
He, Jared Frederick Steele, whom everyone in the business world called "the Midas of the 21st century," as every company he acquired the revenues increased in just six months. At only twenty-eight, already a billionaire and the CEO of Steele Group, he admits he was born from a wealthy family, but he doubled whatever they had.
After all those successes he has in the business world when it comes to Katelyn, he began to doubt himself, which was not good for him. He likes everything that happens in his life will be under his control.
He remembered the first time his Meme, as he called his grandmother, approached him about the topic of his marriage. He was in his office at home and had just finished having his video conference. When he closed his laptop, she was already sitting down in front of him and smiling.
"Meme, I did not notice that you entered the room."
"Darling, of course, you will not. You are too preoccupied with your meeting. Besides, I entered the door slowly so as not to disturb you." She reached out and held his hand at the top of the table.
He knows when his grandmother is acting in this way. She needs something from him outside of the business matters.
Being a chairwoman of the board of directors in their company, she doesn't need his approval on anything, especially when it comes to finances. She has her fortune inherited from her parents. Besides, when he was still in his undergraduate program at Harvard, she was the CEO as well as the chairwoman of the board at Steele Group.
He glanced at her hands atop of his and then looked at her, "Meme, out with what you wanted to tell me," his grandmother then removed her hands and sat down on her chair correctly.
He smiled at her gesture. And then he interlaced his hands on top of his table without removing his gaze from her.
She looked at him and smiled, "darling, remember I told you about my best friend, Amelia, before?"
Who would not remember her? Ever since her grandmother was not a part of managing their business, she started talking about her life in a boarding school with the daughter of an earl who later becomes a Viscount's wife.
"I remember she died already when I was still studying. You even attended the funeral."
"Yes, well..." she hesitated at first and then continued in a determined tone, "She has a granddaughter that I want you to marry."
"What?"
"You heard it, don't pretend you don't," in a direct tone, she told him.
"Come on, Meme, are you kidding me? Marry a woman I don't even know about let alone love," surprised with what she just said he gets up on his chair and stand up, and then took a book in the cabinet at his back.
He doesn't need to read a book, but just an excuse so he can breathe as what he had heard had caught him off guard.
"Well...your grandfather and I were not in love when we first married. It was arranged by our families too, but we have a happy union until he died," she explained to him. It made him turned around and looked at his grandmother with eyebrows squeezed together in a wrinkle.
"Don't be annoyed, darling. I am sure Tori is a sweet and fun-loving child, just like her grandmother. I remember when we were young..."
"I know grandma, she makes you laugh, and a lot of your escapade was because of her ideas," he interrupted her. He heard the story so many times, and reminiscing about her best friend will make her cry.
He was surprised by his grandmother's behavior. Lately, the iron lady in the business world image that she has before disappeared whenever she talked about her dead best friend, maybe it was her having too much time and nothing to do.
"It is not wrong for me to want you to have also that kind of woman. You are always busy with work. She will make that monotonous life of yours lively. I can also hold my great-grandchildren."
He returned the book he was holding again at the cabinet and went back to his chair and sat down.
"The ending of this talk is you wanted to see my children. Well, I can marry Charlize and have kids with her," he teased her.
"Are you serious?" she said in a horrified voice and then stood up from her chair.
"Well... as you said, my life is boring, and you needed to see my children."
"But not to her," she sat down again and looking so dejected with her shoulders drooping.
He knows that her grandmother hates it when one of the tabloids pictured him dating a model, but before she doesn't voice it out.
"How sure are you that this granddaughter of your best friend can make me happy? What if she inherited her mother's behavior?" He asked her so she can think of the possibility that her best friend's granddaughter was not the best wife material.
He had met the Viscountess of Montgomery, Lady Margaret, a few times already this past two years every time he and his grandmother was in London but never her daughter. As far as he was concerned, she was the epitome of a woman he doesn't like, snobbish. She was beautiful but vain, while he wanted his woman to be modest, elegant but most of all someone whom he can be comfortable.
He saw his grandmother smile with his interest in knowing about the woman she is vying to be his wife, she put his arms on his table and then leaned on, "well...because before Amelia died I meet her, she was ten at the time."
"Well, that was so long ago, surely she was influenced by her mother now."
"You are just making excuses. It is because you like those ramp models that you paraded in your arms," she said while getting up and walked out of his office, leaving him dumbfounded.
He thought it would be the first and last time she will mention it, but he was wrong. She repeated it after a week. His way of answering her is the same as before, neither refusing nor accepting. Her reaction is also the same, storming out of the room. That event had happened three times in four months. In the end, he also did what she wanted him to do but on his terms.
She was so happy and relieved of his decision that she accepted whatever conditions he wanted and told him about her reason for wanting them to marry. Not only because it will be the realization of their dreams as best friends to be relatives through the marriage of their children or grandchildren, but because the Darcy family was in dire straits. She had promised her best friend before she died that she will take care of them. With no financial help, they will be in bankruptcy. She wanted to help them avoid total ruination and what was better to do it but through marriage.
He became enraged, hearing upon it. So the reason that the woman was visiting his grandmother was for the financial help she can gain not because of any emotional attachment while his grandmother because of her desire to have a connection with her best friend was gullible enough to be used. Well, what to expect from a woman like her and surely her daughter will be the same.
He hates women who only see him as an easy way of gaining money. He almost withdraws his agreement if not because his grandmother, who never uttered any word while he was raving, sheds tears. To see her sad mean one thing, she wanted this marriage too much. It made him stopped to reflect on his attitude towards her because he cannot hurt his grandmother. He told her instead to have the marriage be in secret for two years. If they fall in love, then they can marry again publicly.
His grandmother agreed to whatever conditions he wanted. She flew to London the next day to talk to the Darcy family. After a week, Jared followed her to meet his future bride, armed with his conditions that he planned for her to sign so she will know her boundaries as his wife.
He first saw her in the parlor room of their house, so young but looking as stiff as a tree. It was only her beauty that compensates for the lack of softness in her. His eyes made contact with those beautiful blue eyes that look at him full of life, which contradicts her and change his impression of her. It made him curious about who was behind that appearance.
They talk to each other alone once everyone left, and she just sat quietly in her chair without uttering a word. Bored by her behavior, Jared, in his coldest voice, told her about his views of the coming marriage while maintaining his aloof attitude, he let out a paper that states his demands.
She accepted it and read the terms quietly and without questions signed it.
He did wonder why he felt disappointed that she yielded to what he wanted. Every woman he knows will do everything to be with him, but she is too eager not to have anything to do with him.
Irritated of her lack of interest in him and thinking that maybe she has a boyfriend hiding somewhere. After they signed the contract in front of the family and parted ways, he hired a private investigator.
He is not jealous if she has a boyfriend as he has a girlfriend too that he has no plans of letting go. He will marry Tori without consummating it. He had her signed those conditions to be a warning. The marriage was for the sake of his grandmother. He doesn't want her to do more than what was in their agreement or fall in love with him
The report that he had received had made him happy. He doesn't know with himself that he began to miss her and even attended her graduation without anyone knowing it.
This morning when he kissed her before their wedding, it was not just a form of greeting as he told her but because her lips looked so soft and tempting. She was so captivating wearing a white dress that he followed his urged to be near her and feel those lips.
He doesn't know himself now. He wanted to avoid Tori as she is so destructing, making him behaved inappropriately like a love-struck teen with uncontrolled hormones.
The ringing of his phone made him returned to the present and walked back to his bedroom. He took it from the top of the side table of his bed. Seeing its Charlize, he groaned before answering the call.
Katelyn woke up from the coldness of the room but still lazy to get up. Eyes closed, she grasped the blanket and covered herself and then buried her face in the pillow, hoping to sleep again.
She smelled a familiar smell, realizing whose perfume; she sat down abruptly and widened her eyes. She looked at the covers in her hand and noticed its dark compared to the bed she had climbed in last night, "don't tell me I was too sleepy last night I mistook the color of the bed sheet, but I am perfectly sure it was white," she argued with herself.
Still confused, Katelyn turned on her side only to be confronted by the sleeping Jared beside her. She almost wails if not for fear of waking the resting lion and be made its breakfast.
"So, you were the culprit not because I am developing dementia." She thought while making a face at him.
She slowly turned around to get down on the bed. Curiosity made her creep slowly to his side, taking advantage of his slumber state to fully peer at his looks.
He doesn't look so intimidating with his eyes closed. His one-day-old stubble doesn't hide the flawless skin that he has and his lips." Katelyn then realized where her mind's direction was pointing, and she stopped.
"What is happening to her? She is so crazy, so early in the morning. On the other hand, she now had an idea of how Psyche had felt when she first saw her mysterious husband and found him so magnificent that words are not enough to describe."
"Finished with your scrutinizing?" wide eyes Katelyn covered her mouth, upon hearing those questions, as she was caught in the act and turned her back on him.
"So what is your verdict?" he asked her with a hint of amusement in his voice as she felt him stirred up. She immediately moved away from him, but he caught her waist and pulled her to his chest.
Katelyn immediately felt the heat that radiated from his skin, momentarily warming her. Then she felt his breath in her neck. It tickled her senses and made all her nerve endings sensitive. She tried to escape from him, but he tightened his hold on her, "What are you doing?" she asked in the end.
"I am stopping you from getting away as you did not answer my question yet," he whispered on her ears. It exhilarated her sensitiveness enough to awaken her yearning for something she doesn't know, but only he can satisfy.
"Let me go first," she told him, and he also let her go.
She was relieved to finally be free from him so she can concentrate on the topic and not on his touch. She slowly distanced herself from him and then turned to face him to see him staring at her as if she is some delectable menu ready to be served. "Good thing, I am now out of his reach, but I will not tell him that I am ogling him earlier." She lifted her head and looked at him and, in earnest, answered him, "I was not ogling..."
His eyebrows rose upon hearing what she had said and made her realized she blurted out her secret. Of course, she mustn't lose her coolness. She pretended she did not say it and continued, "I... was waiting for you to awaken and asked your reason for carrying me here."
"It is in our contract that we will share a room." Thankfully he did not notice her slipped or if he did, he just ignored it.
"I was already comfortably sleeping in the other room," she complained, "besides; you went out immediately without saying anything to me. I assumed I could sleep in the other room."
"So, you decided to punish me for leaving you alone?"
"Of course not, why will I? You and I are only in a contract marriage. You can do whatever you want. You can even bring your girlfriend here. I will give you space."
Katelyn saw how his eyebrows pulled down together and glared at her upon hearing what she said. She realized he was angry but did not saw him wincing and the painful expression on his face as she already turned her back on him. Whatever she has said is more to convince herself that her marriage to him was only a piece of paper and should not think of anything else. Let alone fall in love.
At that moment, Jared realized that his attraction to her was one-sided. Maybe what he had seen in her eyes the first time they met was defiance. He just mistook it for something else.
Jared got up from the bed and walked to the direction of his en suite bathroom, but before he entered, he turned back to her.
He saw her still on the bed and looking at him with a furrowed brow, but upon noticing him staring at her, she gave him that fake smile, "I will be going to Germany today, from now on we will share this room. Even grandma is not here, Mrs. Smith will tell her whatever happened between the two of us" he then opened the door and went inside.
END OF PART 2
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*Psyche is the mortal's name in Greek and the Roman mythological story of "Cupid and Psyche."