"That’s a lot more shocking than the news I was intending to share," Alia confessed, her eyes blinking in surprise.
"What was your news?"
"Oh nothing, only that Aiden would rather marry Ronan than Emline and he’s this close to begging him to stand at the altar for his wedding and take over his duties so that he can slack off as CEO," Alia said breezily, and was rewarded with her fiancé’s horrified face. Matteo’s eyes were practically bugged out in shock.
"I’m guessing you’re against this relationship?"
"I’ll approve it over my dead body," Matteo said. "Even if Ronan liked n, I’m sure he wouldn’t have such bad taste. A playboy slacker? Perish the thought."
"Funny, I said sothing similar to him," Alia said, amused, before turning serious again. "About Emline’s request... I’m sensing a ’but’ waiting in the wings."
It seed awfully convenient that Emline would suddenly agree just days after Caleb had attempted to approach her. He had called her in the past few days after the thwarted attempt to ambush her at the hospital carpark, and Alia took great joy in hanging up on him.
If he continued on in this manner, Alia would decide to imitate a priestess or a telemarketer or scribble his number on random public toilets. She didn’t want to be this petty, but she could, if he gave her enough reason to.
Matteo nodded grimly. "She only consented to taking part in the test if we agreed to do it at the hospital of her choice. And she wants to be given legal immunity, regardless of the results of the test."
Alia paused, the frown deepening on her face. "How awfully suspicious. It’s almost like she’s expecting to be sued. Are you planning to agree to her requests?"
"I have to. It’s the fastest way to get to the bottom of this matter instead of dragging it out," Matteo said. "With every passing day, the child in her grows bigger, and so will her audacity."
His gaze darkened as he thought about Emline flaunting her swollen belly to beg for sympathy.
"I’m not surprised she asked for legal immunity, since... if the child is indeed mine, it proves that she did have relations with under duress. Without the Hawthornes backing her, she can’t afford to defend herself against such a charge."
"She sexually assaulted you, Matteo," Alia said gently. "We can call it what it is. If the roles were reversed, there would not be a single person who thinks she is innocent."
"But they are not, so here we are." Matteo shrugged, a bitter twist to his lips.
Alia smoothed it away with her fingers, hating the tired slump of his shoulders and the shadows at the corners of his eyes.
Matteo claid that he was fine with taking a temporary vacation to be a professional househusband, but from what Alia saw, her fiancé wasn’t ready to sit idle at ho.
"Hang in there," Alia said, "We’ll just have to get through this hurdle. After all we’ve been through as kids, I don’t see why we will stumble now."
Matteo froze. "You..."
"Ronan told all that happened before," Alia said, wrapping her arms around Matteo to hold him tight, as though he was a beam of moonlight threatening to vanish from her eyes. Her nose was starting to feel a little stuffy. "You’ve been looking for for a long ti."
"Yes," Matteo said, his voice a hoarse whisper. His fingers were trembling as he returned her embrace. "Very long."
"I’m sorry," Alia couldn’t help but say. "If I rembered you, we could have skipped a lot of heartache."
"Do not be sorry. You can be upset at how things turned out, or even angry, but don’t be sorry," Matteo said, his voice muffled.
He buried his face in the crook of her shoulders as though that was the only thing keeping him upright.
"I’m not sorry that I t you. I never regretted it."
"Even though you had to suffer so much?" Alia asked, stroking the firm lines of his back. "I honestly cannot believe you think that I was worth this much trouble. Without , you’d be happily married to Emline without any worries."
"Without you, I’d probably be dead in a ditch, with my organs harvested illegally," Matteo retorted. "If you had not co for , they would not have found until it was too late."
His voice softened, but his arms wrapped around her more tightly. "You saved my life. Back then, I promised I would marry you. I will keep my promise."
Alia let out a tiny laugh. "You’ll have to tell more about it then because I don’t rember that part. I hardly rember anything about that ti."
"You wanted a mansion full of dogs and cats," Matteo murmured into her ear. "You said it very frequently when I was playing house with you. The walls had to be baby pink and you wanted a slide for a staircase, along with a princess bed and a giant robot."
Alia groaned. "You’re making things up, aren’t you? Just because I can’t rember anything from before doesn’t an you can do that, Matteo!"
"Nope, I could never co up with such great interior designer ideas," Matteo said with all seriousness. "Now that I’m a relatively wealthy man, I think I can afford to include all these new additions in our ho. I’ve already picked out nas for our future fur-children. What color do you want your robot to be?"
"No robots!" Alia’s face flushed at the thought of Matteo painstakingly making a list of nas for their future pets. "We need to save money now..." Her voice trailed off as she thought of Matteo being ousted.
"Now that I might have to pay Emline alimony?" Matteo continued dryly. "Don’t worry about it. I’ll approach her tomorrow to get the test done. No matter what, I will handle this matter quickly. Do you want to co with ?"
Alia thought about it and nodded. "I don’t trust her to be left alone with you. I’ll let Aiden know I won’t be coming in tomorrow."
***
The next morning, Alia and Matteo t Emline at the hospital clinic. Emline’s demure smile imdiately twisted into a snarl the mont she caught sight of Alia standing hand-in-hand with Matteo.
"How dare you show up here, out of all tis? Do you have no sha?"
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