Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
And so that was how she was publicly introduced as Mrs. Mykos Ravensworth for the first time, and well...
Her husband turned out to be right like always.
She absolutely didn't have anything to be worried about because it was immediately easy to see that all of the guests there either thought highly of him...or were afraid of him. Or both. In any case, that was why they were all extra nice to her, and phew.
Maika didn't bother hiding her relief from her husband as they took their seats at their assigned table.
As the waiters went around to serve the first course, Mykos turned to smile at her, and she started to smile back...until she felt him reach under her gown before placing his hand on her knee.
And then he gave it a little squeeze, and she almost jumped in her seat.
Oh my goodness!
She could barely concentrate for the rest of the evening, with his hand on her knee, squeezing every so often and causing her whole body to tremble and her cheeks to feel like they were on fire. Maika could tell how the other guests were starting to think she was a little tipsy, and honestly, that was exactly how she felt...because of his hand on her knee.
It was just that simple, and by the time they were alone in the backseat of his limo—
Mykos chuckled when it was his wife who actually took the initiative to push the button that had the privacy window once again sliding up to conceal them from view.
Maika wanted to make a face when she heard her husband chuckle, but the moment she turned to him—
Aaaah.
His kiss had her ceasing to think completely, and soon after that, they weren't just kissing, and...oh, she wasn't able to think for a long, long time.
MAIKA'S SECOND PUBLIC outing as his wife was when she attended a board meeting with him for one of the charities he supported.
The conference room was on the top floor of a building downtown, all floor-to-ceiling windows and a long mahogany table surrounded by leather chairs. The kind of room where important people made important decisions, and Maika was fairly certain she was the first person to ever walk into it carrying a highlighter pen she'd accidentally brought from her Shakespeare seminar.
She slipped the pen into her pocket before anyone noticed. At least she hoped nobody noticed.
"All you have to do is listen," Mykos murmured as he pulled out her chair for her. "I'll do all the talking for now, but next time it will be your turn."
She nodded eagerly, wanting to be of help to Mykos. But that desire faded when the board meeting officially commenced, and she noticed how the air in the room had changed into something...unfriendly. The smiles became stiffer. The postures shifted. It almost tasted like envy and resentment, underscored by fear. They seemed to fear her husband, but at the same time, they also seemed to want to be him. But because they couldn't, they wanted to destroy—
No, stop that, Maika!
Give them a chance.
You may just be reading them wrong.
"I mean no disrespect, Ravensworth," the member seated across from them said. He was an older man with silver hair and a signet ring that he kept turning on his finger, and his tone was the kind of pleasant that wasn't actually pleasant at all. "But many people still remember who your father was."
Yup, still reading them wrong.
Mykos inclined his head. "No offense was taken."
It should have ended there, but then...
"That's true, Joe. I still remember the news reports when his father was still alive."
This came from a woman three seats down, and the way she said it—leaning back in her chair, arms crossed, like she was discussing something mildly distasteful—made Maika's fingers curl under the table.
Maika struggled to keep her smile in place as everyone at the table started talking. Most of them had been silent earlier. But now that it was time to talk smack about someone who was already dead, they all wanted to be heard?
She stole a glance at her husband. He sat perfectly still beside her, his expression unchanged, his hands resting on the table. He looked like a man who had heard all of this before and had long since stopped expecting anything different.
And somehow, that was worse than if he had looked angry.
While she and Mykos had never had a chance yet to talk about his father, Orion had shared with her just a bit about Diogenes, and she had done her own research as well. She knew that Mykos's father was no angel. He was a criminal.
But when she heard another member say, "We're setting a really good example, having Mykos with us..."
Don't do it, Maika.
He told you to just listen.
So don't...don't...no, I can't, I have to!
And that was when Maika heard herself say brightly, "Yes, exactly."