Emilia's heart skipped a beat and her stomach fluttered in excitement. She wasn't alone. Her handsome and rich husband, although solely by an agreement and business partnership, waited for her with a dog on a leash, his eyes immediately finding her on the inside and his face beaming with a smile.
As she walked out onto the pavement, Bark Twain started jumping in excitement and licking her hands.
"Hello, Barky." Emilia spoke to the dog first, scratching him behind the ear with her free hand.
"Good evening, Emilia." Christopher smiled as he approached her. He waved at a man in a black suit that drove up in a car that followed the bus, the very bodyguard that followed Emilia everywhere.
"Good evening, Christopher." Emilia reciprocated the smile, her worries momentarily being pushed to the back of her mind. "What brings you here?"
"Bernadette mentioned that you should be coming back soon. And as I went out to walk Bark Twain, I thought I might as well meet you out here." Christopher explained while purposely omitting the mention of his desire to see her.
"Oh." Emilia wasn't sure how to respond.
"Did you have a good time with your family?"
"Yes, thank you." Emilia's face showed a sip on her mood which concerned Christopher. "I went to the bank as well. I-… I didn't realise what funds I had in my account." She said quietly as they've started to walk beside each other. Christopher held onto the leash while Emilia carried her bonsai in one hand and had a handbag over the other shoulder with her laptop.
"Are they not sufficient?"
"Are you kidding? I thought I was getting a thousandth of that!"
"Two hundred a day. Two hundred thousand a day, to be precise. It's set up as a standing transaction. Also, you do have a credit card and I don't mind providing you with more. Just a word and I can change the daily amount."
"Again, I never expected that amount! I cannot accept it!"
"There's nothing to accept. As specified in section 7, clause 3 of the contract, you own half of everything."
"What?" Emilia gasped whilst looking over at Christopher. She could look at him all day if she only could. He wore his black tailored suit that somehow made him look that much more refined.
"We're married." Christopher shrugged dismissively as if it was something obvious.
"You should've signed a prenup so that I do not get half of your stuff in the case of a divorce." Emilia laughed as she joked.
"But… that's the intend." Christopher furrowed his brows as he looked over. He tried to resist the urge from moving her hair off her cheek and reaching for her hand. She barely agreed to stay with him to save him from loosing the inheritance. She still rejected him recently when he tried to make a move. "You will get half of everything. Well, not exactly. Equal value of everything. I am keeping the company, everything else will be distributed to give you the equivalent value in form of different assets, shares, and investments."
"Why would you do that?"
"I only ever wanted the company as I've poured my heart and soul into it. I do not care for anything else. I thought it was a fair deal considering that you're missing out on a year of your life."
"I am not missing out on anything though."
"Aren't you?"
"You haven't stopped my education yet, if anything, you agreed this morning to two things that encourage it further. You haven't imprisoned me in the house. You are not controlling my day to day activities. Mr Cosby was a little bit more controlling with the events, but even then, it was never troublesome."
"But you still cannot marry anyone else during this year."
"I highly doubt that anyone would magically appear and want to marry me in the next few months." Emilia laughed.
"Mr Bleam might."
"Mr Bleam? You mean Jacob?"
"Uh-huh."
"Why would you think so?"
"Didn't you go on a date with him some months ago?"
Emilia gasped as the realisation dawned upon her.
"Oh God! I didn't even know about our marriage then! Do not use that against me!"
"I am not. I am merely pointing out the facts." Christopher shrugged again, concealing well how much that bothered him.
Emilia thought carefully about an answer.
"I'm not sure if it is any reassurance but…" she blushed and fiddled nervously, turning her new ring on her finger. Christopher smiled as he noticed the ring very clearly displayed.
"Yes?" Christopher looked at her, finding her blushing cheeks ever so charming.
"Nothing ever happened between me and anyone else during our marriage." Emilia finished whilst looking down at her hands in embarrassment. Christopher wasn't sure how to respond. All his suspicions were wrong but even then, he would have never blamed her as she didn't know. He wanted to laugh with joy that after all she didn't have any other relationships in the past few months.
"Really?" He asked instead of saying any of his actual thoughts.
"Besides the dinner and the professional partnership with Mr Bleam, there was nothing." Emilia's cheeks were the colour of ruby. "I swear."
"I don't think it is my business even if something did happen."
"Maybe. I just wanted to be clear."
"Thank you for your honesty."
"Why didn't you tell me then? Honestly!" Emilia let out an angry grunt.
"I thought that you knew and you chose to… you know!" Christopher said defensively. His cheeks were now equally red as Emilia's.
"And you were fine with me just having a hypothetical affair?!"
"I do not know what I am supposed to answer right now."
"I don't know!" Emilia grumbled before she gasped in realisation. "You weren't okay with it! You were drinking that night! I came back to the manor and you were beyond intoxicated!"
"Don't remind me." Christopher mumbled as he tried to hide his flushing face, recalling the memory of Emilia helping him to his bed as he was too drunk to walk straight.
"Oh, Christopher." Emilia felt bad for him. "You should've said something."
"Look, I've already said that I am to blame for it because if I weren't so negligent, we could've worked out that you didn't know about our marriage much earlier. But… it already happened and there's nothing I can do to change it."
"That's true."
"Would you like some help with your bag and plant?"
"No, I'm quite alright."
"Your wrists must be sore."
"I am using my arms to hold it more than my hands."
"Okay." Christopher nodded. "I'll help you change the dressing after dinner."
"Thank you, Christopher." Emilia smiled again. "Did you get Bark off the leash yet?"
"No, not yet." He looked down at an animal that seemed to have the leash tangled between its legs because of his energetic spinning a few minutes earlier. "I tend to let him run around the meadow by our street."
Emilia glanced at him again, realising that it came so easy for him to say 'our', and then she remembered once again that Christopher thought that they were genuinely together in the last few months. She remember the last night they've been around each other before she packed up and moved away. She genuinely wondered if he ever truly intended to kiss her. His ravenous kiss still replayed in her mind, her body yearning for more whenever she was near him. But he never spoke of it again. He never mentioned wanting anything more since. Emilia dismissed the events of that night as Christopher's state of intoxication.