All Chapters of The CEO's Little Secret: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Darien yawned and turned back over. Zach could tell that he was still half asleep.“If that’s what you want, I’ll stay. Just let me go back to sleep. I’ll be here when you get back,” Darien replied and his eyes closed again.He was asleep in seconds and Zach smiled. He wasn’t going to be alone. With that comforting thought in his heart, he unpacked some clothes and got dressed in the bathroom before going downstairs.Zach took the spare door key out of the vase of flowers in the hallway and left it on the table with a note for Darien. Then he took a cereal box out of the cupboard and left it next to the note. Darien might skip breakfast if he didn’t prompt him.His father was waiting by the front door when he came out. Zach saw how tense he was and all his feelings of worry that had been kept at bay were coming back. He fought them back down, he needed to be strong to support his father.“Let’s go,” he said.***Darien woke up slowly with a groan. He hadn’t slept as well as he could ha

Zach’s heart stung at the words which didn’t make sense to him. He didn’t have any romantic interest in Darien. They were simply just friends.“That’s fine,” he replied. “We are really just friends and I would never aspire to be any more than that.”His father picked up his cup of tea and waved goodbye. It was clear the conversation was over. Zach was also keen for the conversation to end.“I’m going upstairs now,” he said.Darien was sitting on his bed frowning at his phone when he walked in. The billionaire looked up and smiled at him. It was a nice smile. Zach was glad to see he was content with staying at his family home.“Are you writing your story?” he asked.He didn’t ask to have a look despite his curiosity. It was Darien’s private matter and he wouldn’t snoop.“I’m checking over my drafted chapters for mistakes,”

The next week saw only occasional texts from Darien. Zach was always happy to get a text even if it was a short one as he knew Darien was very busy with work and didn’t have much free time. He ran into the billionaire once outside Austin’s flower shop and purposefully walked past the flower shop. Darien gave him a discreet thumbs up which made Zach smile. The weekend finally arrived after a long five days of learning how to edit low level erotica. It turned out that there was a database of words that needed to be used in those types of stories. It was a surprisingly interesting area of erotica. Zach stood waiting outside his apartment block and double checked that he really had packed his swimming goggles for the sixth time. He wasn’t comfortable swimming without his goggles. A red car he had seen before pulled up in front of him and the side window rolled down to reveal a wavy haired Darien. “You can get in,” he said. Zach eagerly got in the

Zach opened the door of his apartment and encountered Emilia in the hallway. She took one sniff of the air and busted him.“You smell like chlorine,” she said. “Where did you go?”He wasn’t in the position where he could say that he had a best friend with an indoor pool. He had no choice but dodge the truth again. If he was lucky, Emilia wouldn’t ask him any other questions.“To a swimming pool.”Emilia nodded. “I sometimes want to have a swim. Work is a bitch for now. My sleeping schedule is messed up from all the late nights.”She walked into the kitchen and Zach breathed a silent sigh of relief. He had escaped an interrogation.He hung his wet clothes up on the drying rack to put in the washing machine later. He needed a shower as well to get the chlorine out of his hair. Then he could relax for a few hours before preparing dinner.Darien’s cooking skills were slowly

Zach didn’t know what to say to that. She had caught him in the act and judging from the camera in her hands, she had photographic evidence. As he expected she turned her camera around and showed him a photo that was of Darien holding his arm in a way that looked more romantic than it really had been. He recognised that it was taken when he tripped up and Darien had caught him. Even with make-up and different hair, it was still unmistakably Darien to someone who knew what he looked like. “It isn’t what it looks like,” was all he could say. “He was the man I found on your lap that night,” she said. “After having to see photos of him at work I realised he looked a lot like that mysterious man…” There was no denying that one. In retrospect his secret relationship with Darien had been a ticking time bomb. He had messed up too many times in Emilia’s presence and she was exceedingly sharp and observant which was why she wanted to be a reporter. Was