Cynthia gazed through her Victorian glasshouse, admiring the view of her beautiful garden. This place was her favorite part of the mansion when she was a little girl. And her attachment to it was still as strong as it was back then.
The only difference now was that she would picture her sweet revenge running around and playing while she sat and had a relaxing cup of tea.
But for her to relax, her plan had to pick up its pace now.
She looked up at the man sitting across from her. George still had yesterday's clothes on. She had no idea how he could make drinking tea from her very pink Royal Albert tea set look this manly.
She gave him extra points for doing it with grace.
Going through the contract was no picnic for George, he, who had been raised to honor marriage vows once he took them, felt like contract marriages made a mockery out of the respectful institution.
'She'd laugh at me for a year if she finds out about it,' George thought to himself.
"So let's go through the last two items." He said.
The newly engaged couple spent half of the day going through the non-disclosure agreement and the annex about the prenuptial agreement. George insisted on designating Evans-soft as separate property. And though Cynthia trusted him unconditionally, she went along with it.
It was better that way.
He placed the papers on the table between them, then placed the pencil over it, he looked deeply into her green eyes and brushed his bottom lip with his thumb.
"I want to share a bed with you,"
Cynthia's mouth fell open, "What?!"
"I have a good reason for adding this item here," he looked serious. "It is because we can't tolerate gossip around the authenticity of our union. You know how easy it is to plant spies around here,"
She couldn't argue with that, it was a huge mansion that so many people went in and out of every day.
Her green eyes focused on his, measuring the depths of his sincerity," Tell me the truth now, you just like to check me out in my nightwear too much," She arched one eyebrow at him.
George grinned at her and shook his head in disbelief. He kept thinking how Cynthia was strange this way.
'Had I been honest about my true intentions... Had I come clean about my desire to have her as my true wife who shared a bed with me, what would've happened then?'
George bet she'd find some way to misunderstand him. He knew Cynthia since the days when they were both children, he grew up watching her, and so he knew that she tended to see things the way she wanted them to be.
And right now, she wanted this marriage to mean next to nothing to George.
"As you wish," he murmured to himself.
"Excuse me?"
"I said guilty as charged! Now let's move on, Ms. Evans"
The last item was a sensitive one. She wanted to keep her last name so much that she created an item for it.
'Here goes nothing' George thought to himself. "... I would like you to keep your last name, and add mine next to it, Mrs. Evans Robinson, hm? It has a nice vibe to it."
Cynthia didn't think so.
She stubbornly shook her head, "I don't see why we need to revise this one," the look she gave him was defiant.
"I beg the difference, merging our last names would strengthen the image of our marriage within the high society circles,"
Cynthia's mouth became a straight line. "Be my guest then, take mine,"
Not many things could surprise George normally, but that offer took him off his guard. His mild shock morphed into irritation; irritation morphed into anger. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with oxygen and counting to ten.
"Be reasonable, Cynthia,"
Cynthia's green eyes shone as a surge of pride pulsed through her, "Take it or leave it, George, it's the only way for our surnames to be next to each other in one line."
But how could George take her up on her offer when she suggested the impossible, the Robinsons' purpose was to protect the Evans family, not to hijack their surname from them!
He was staring at her beautiful face while he was daydreaming underneath the afternoon sun, beneath the shadows of all the greenery around them, her eyes twinkled, her light makeup glittered softly, and all the fruit and bite-size cake that was laying on the table between them next to the tea were nowhere as inviting as Cynthia's lips.
What he wouldn't do to extend his hand, caress her sweet cheek, and take a deep dive into those lips.
They broke into a huge grin under his gaze.
"Detective?" she called out.
George was startled that a man was halfway through the garden without him noticing. He quickly snatched his glasses from over the table and pushed them harshly over the bridge of his nose.
"What have you done!?" She sounded amused.
Too amused for Geroge's liking.
The man who approached was very athletic and dressed casually, he had a head shaved clean of all hair, and he looked Cynthia's age.
The jerk was grinning widely at Cynthia as well, he ran his hand over his bald head. "You want to touch it?" He said when he reached their table and sat down next to her.
"Yes!" Cynthia squealed and clapped twice.
'This isn't happening,' George thought to himself. But his eyes were over Cynthia's small hand that caressed the man's scalp.
And there it was in Dimitri's eyes, an undeniable attraction that any other man could detect, and someone like Cynthia would know all too well but fully ignore.
"I like it, it suits you!" Cynthia encouraged.
Dimitri's eyes shone with happiness, "It was your recommendation after all!"
The detective finally looked at George. He extended a hand and George took it, registering that his handshake was a firm one.
George nodded, "George Robinson,"
"I know who you are Mr. Robinson, her lawyer, I know everyone involved with my clients,"
George didn't miss the slightest pause over the adjective 'my'.
'Is he perhaps a gold digger?' Geroge thought.
"George is my lawyer but also my fiancé now, I already told you on the phone, but you didn't have to cut your vacation short for this,"
"I didn't cut it short, it just happened to end by the time you called,"
If Cynthia fell for that pathetic excuse, George didn't.
"Let's agree about the next steps over some tea, okay?"
Dimitri nodded absent-mindedly. A maid approached with a box that was opened, it was full of many different kinds of tea.
"Hey, you, okay?" Cynthia asked the detective when he didn't seem interested in choosing a kind.
"Sure, sure, just jetlagged a bit, why don't you surprise me?"
George suppressed the urge to groan. The boy was smarter than he looked, now Cynthia will naturally keep a track of his preferences.
The idea was insufferable.
"Hmm, chamomile tea should help you relax," she said.
It couldn't be helped. Cynthia, at her core, was a caring person.
The detective shook his head "You know, Cynthia, it was a bad idea for me to come immediately to see you, let's meet up tomorrow at the usual place, okay? "
"Oh, okay, take care now," Cynthia sounded out of breath a bit, it got George double upset.
'The jerk doesn't want to talk in front of me,' he thought angrily.
"Later then," The detective got up from where he was sitting, turned around, and went back the way he came from. George followed him with his eyes. Then he felt as if his eyes were about to bulge out of their sockets.
On the back of Dimitri's scalp. There it was. An unmistakable tattoo with the letter C on one side of an infinity symbol and the letter E on the other side.
Panic hit George's guts hard, 'Is the gold digger a weirdo and a psycho too? A stalker perhaps? One that Cynthia found at her doorstep and received inside her life with open arms?' He panicked.
"What is your detective's full name, Cynthia?"
"Hm? Dimitri's name is Dimitri, it was all that was written on his business card, and I never asked for his last name. I think he lives a double life or something, he's a very interesting character."
George frowned deeply and gave her a disapproving look.
She gave him another one of her defiant looks, "Don't give me that! The man is excellent at what he does and that is all that matters to me,"
"…You didn't consider running a background check before hiring him?" Geroge knew she couldn't have made this type of mistake; it wasn't like her.
Her green eyes went ice cold on him, "I didn't, so how about that?"
By the very subtle twitch in her left eye, and the little rhetorical question she added at the end. George came to a realization.
Cynthia was lying. She was covering something up.
He removed his eyeglasses and smiled brightly at her, going the extra mile to hold the dimples she loved so much in their place.
"Okay, if you say so," he said.
Cynthia blinked twice, she found it kind of strange for George to just drop the topic like this.
'He will do his own background check,' Cynthia thought to herself.
And these were George's thoughts exactly. In fact, he had his iPhone 14 Pro in his hands, he was texting his assistant with the needed details.
He gave Dimitri's leaving figure one last glance. Thankfully, Cynthia had her back to the weirdo's leaving figure, so there was no way for her to see his tattoo. George held his teacup and took a calming sip.
"Did you see his tattoo?" She asked.
*Cough!*
*Cough!*
*Cough!*
Cynthia held a napkin and gave it to George who coughed some more but nodded while he was at it to thank her.
"Are you okay?!" She fussed over him.
"Yeah! The tea went down the wrong pipe that's all. Since when were you interested in tattoos?"
"Oh, tattoos are kind of cool on certain people I guess, he sent me some pictures the other day asking for my opinion, I was too embarrassed to ask him if he had one done or not or ask him to show me,"
George was very quiet after that, he kept looking through his phone. And something nagged on Cynthia, the shadow of an idea that couldn't make sense to her no matter how hard she thought about it.
'There's no way George is jealous,' she dismissed the idea, "Haha," While Cynthia laughed at the impossibility of the notion. George was on Google, looking up the word 'tattoos'.