Chapter Thirty-Five

Arianna knew exactly who’d arrived just by the kind of noise she could hear from outside the house.

She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm herself, and then she stepped out the front door.

And she sighed again when she saw her ‘boyfriend’ standing there, with a smile on his handsome face, talking to Chairman Castro in his soft, modulated, and manly voice that seemed always private and intimate to her ears, his eyes focused on the door where she just came out.

Even if she knew it was all an act, her heart still melted at the way his aristocratic face seemed to light up when he saw her.

As if she was a favorite sight those eyes wanted to see. As if all his worries and problems melted away.

And he was so convincing.

The workers were grinning at their lunch plates while they sat at the two long tables set up under the shade of the trees that protected them from the direct hit of the midday sun.

Meanwhile, her servers (the neighbors) were giggling their delight as they