Ian silently tapped his phone before tossing it aside onto the sleek leather seat of the Maybach. He was supposed to be at his hotel, preparing for his wedding which was the next day, but instead, he was on his way back to his house because his assistant forgot all the documents he needed for the shareholder meetings that would be held the day after his wedding. He couldn’t afford to not review everything before time. The culprit was shivering in the passenger’s seat beside the chauffeur, Ian would deal with him later.His goal was to get all the shares away from the wrong people. His grandfather, Alexander Carter Hills, was the one with the most shares. Everyone else had collectively 5%. The only downside was that in his old age, he started thinking solely with emotions. Leaving such a formidable amount of power in the hands of the old man would be akin to a death sentence for the conglomerate. This made his well-meaning grandfather “the wrong person”.“Can you drive faster?”, He ask
Ashley popped open the lid of the vodka bottle and overturned it directly into her mouth, letting the fiery burn wash down her grief. She was all alone in her best friend’s home bar. Rita Hills, her best friend, was out of the house for a while, seeing as she had to support her elder brother on his big wedding the next day.Ashley couldn't help but wish she were here with her. There was no possible way she could survive the night without talking to someone. She didn’t know what to feel, there were so many horrible emotions battling for dominance within her.Her phone buzzed on the table behind her where she had dumped it as soon as she got into the house. She ignored it, it would most certainly be her boyfriend Richard, calling to ‘explain’ again, which was really him trying to gaslight her.She had given him her entire heart, constantly cutting off so many of her friends because he felt ‘uncomfortable’ around them. She should have taken that as the first red flag honestly, none of
“Welcome to my boat “, Ian said, taking another sip of the wine in his hand. Rita was never patient enough to wait for the wine to ferment into something stronger, he needed to get drunk.The woman threw him a look. Ian liked to call that look “The Ashley Toma alarmed look”. She had that look on her face a lot. Alongside a host of other looks he was unfortunately familiar with.Rita always used to have the best intuition, her friends were always smart and people that deserved to be in her sphere. The only exception was this one. Ashley Toma. He had investigated her extensively and found that he knew her father, Leo Toma, and the man was always going on and on about how his daughter decided to become a lecturer instead of taking the reins of the family business and how he froze all her accounts of the money from the business till she decided to become useful.Ian knew she was out to dig gold, perhaps she was spurred on by the fact that her father would make her lose out on everything i
Ashley stirred slightly. She felt beckoning warmth around her and nuzzled deeper into it. Her bed had never been this comfortable, she felt she never wanted to leave. She would probably be late to her class today for the first time ever. But she wasn’t leaving this bed, or the arms wound tightly around her.Wait! Arms?!She struggled to open her eyes. A searing headache split through her head immediately. Why did she feel like someone smashed a sledgehammer on her head multiple times? And why was she in bed with Richard? She had made that rule at the beginning of their relationship. She didn’t like that much physical intimacy. She could count the number of times they’ve kissed. It seemed as though she would have to reconsider. She finally opened her eyes successfully, ignoring the throbbing in her skull.Her eyes met with jet-black hair instead of Richard’s light brown. She blinked a few times to ensure that she was seeing right. This was not a trick of the light, neither was the man
Chapter 5Ashley decided to take a bath. From what she knew so far, he needed her to be his wife more than she needed him at all, so she wouldn’t hand over the rod of power to him. The countertops, floors and walls were all marble, at least twenty beauty products lined up on them, with a giant mirror on the ceiling directly above the equally giant bathtub.There were also His-and-Hers sinks with well-lit mirrors, and a separate glass-enclosed shower with rainfall showerheads. Ashley had seen luxury but this was on a different level. She mourned the fact that she couldn’t indulge the whole day in the bathroom alone. It was the nicest bathroom she had ever seen, and she had seen Rita’s bathroom.She roughly shoved the clothes over her head, throwing them on the floor where she stood. Apparently, they had worn pajamas before going to bed, which begged the question of Ian seeing her naked. She ignored the bathtub and headed straight for the showers, fogging up the glass door with steamy
Chapter 6 Ashley twirled in the large mirror, the lights decorating it accentuating the flow of the gold form-fitting gown that made her look like a celebrity on the red carpet. It was her favorite of all the gowns she had worn. She smoothed it down and almost lifted her phone to take a video when she realized she didn’t have her phone in hand. Where the heck was her phone anyways?She didn’t hold classes on saturday but other people could need her. She wandered about the bedroom, if she couldn’t find it in there she would have to get a new one. After about ten minutes of searching, she found it under a pillow.She turned it on, fully expecting to be faced with a million missed calls and messages from Richard. There was none from him. However, she had four missed calls from Chloe, her other best friend, the previous night.Did Richard really not call her? Was he trying to pull some macho move? Did he think she would come crying for an explanation? Deep down, Ashley knew that she wou
Chapter 7 Ian glared at the woman asleep in the car. They had reached the hangar and she was out cold. He hoped she didn’t expect him to carry her like the previous day. He would stop drinking, it was what brought him into this mess.He shook her awake violently and she jerked up with an unholy yell. “I’m not asleep!”, she yelled, her arms flailing and hitting the side of his face. As she tried to get her bearings Ian had the niggling suspicion that the hitting was intentional. Deep breaths, that was what his therapist said he should do whenever he felt like throwing someone off a highway. “Get out”, he seethed, staying resolutely in his seat till she would leave his line of direct sight.She huffed and stepped out, aided by the guard that had been sitting in the passenger’s seat. He saw her slightly swaying till she climbed the stairs to the private jet. Ian debated the pros and cons of mysteriously ending his life as he realized that he had only been around her for eight hours
CHAPTER 8Ian prepared his briefing for the turning point meeting he would be having the next day. He supposed that it was the only thing he could thank the pretty leech – that roped him into being her husband – for. He had lost all hope after his grandfather’s call, but at least now he was married, he was back in the running.“You wouldn’t believe it but the Presley woman posted something backhanded on her page this morning”, Yu Zhen spoke up from beside him. The asian man was scrolling through his phone with a look of annoyance on his face. Ian didn’t really care whatever his ex-fiancee did, it ceased to be his business since he had found another alternative.“Humor me”, he said, not interrupting the proposal he was typing for an investor. He always did his best drafting in the air.“She said and I quote”, he made his voice take on a higher pitch in mockery. “I’m sorry to all my fans, friends and family. I called off my wedding, I can’t live with a man incapable of feeling emotions,