The Billionaire’s Marriage Of Deception

I’ve missed you this week. As you can tell, I’ve been trying to give you space so I don’t pressure you too much. I want to be with you, but I don’t want to smother you with my need for your attention.

I enjoy looking at you. I love looking at your face and the expressions you make. My favorite is when you’re laughing or smiling. You light up, which lights up everyone else around you. Including, somehow, me.

Before I met you, I was convinced I didn’t deserve joy or happiness. Then, Amanda, you came into my life. You gently nudged me inch-by-inch to be a better, happier person. All with just being yourself, Amanda. Your love has been the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I guess I do have hopes. I hope we can be happy. I hope I can be the man you deserve. I hope I can bring you the kind of happiness you’ve brought me.

I’m starting to see, maybe, Amanda, I do make you happy. And you know that is all I have ever wanted for you. So perhaps it is for both selfish and unselfish reasons why I want us to be together. Or maybe I’m just fooling myself. I don’t know.

I do know two things. One: You are not alone. And two: I love you. And I want to prove this to you every day.

I hope you can find a way to forgive me, and to give us a chance.

Love,

Michael

P.S. I hope you like the fern.

Amanda wasn’t sure when the tears started, but she quickly wiped them away when she saw Michael at her door. She got up and went around her desk as he walked in. She gave him a small smile.

Michael returned the smile, “Hey.”

Amanda stretched up, wrapped her arms around Michael, and kissed him. He returned the kiss, loving the feeling of her soft lips on his.

“Michael, wait,” Amanda said, breathless. Her face was flushed and her hair was mussed. He set her down the inch he had pulled her up.

“What?” Michael asked, just as breathless, his pupils blown.

“I just realized where we are. I don’t want to do this here. Well, I do. I imagine it would be amazing here. Really anywhere with you. On any surface.” Amanda took a breath trying to collect her thoughts from the gutter they seemed to be inhabiting at the moment. “Somewhere we have time and space to explore and play and be as loud-. Gah, who knew the single entendre with you would be worse than the double entendre?” Amanda took another steadying breath. “Not here.”

Michael smiled down at her, loving how frazzled she was. “Okay, new location. Home?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Michael leaned down and kissed her quickly. Amanda realized he meant now and ran around to the other side of her desk, grabbed her purse, and logged out of her computer as fast as she could. She came back to Michael and her hand subconsciously found his.

“Michael?”

“What?”

“I love you,” Amanda said as sincerely as she could.

“I love you, too.” Michael was unable to control the smile that appeared on his face. Nor did he want to. He kept his hand entwined with hers during the elevator ride down, though it took all Michael’s self-control to not make-out with her. It wouldn’t be good for her image as CEO; let alone company policy – and contented himself with thoughts of what he would do to Amanda once they made it to the house. Or in the car ride there, as he wasn’t sure he could wait. He slipped his sunglasses on once they left the building.

He chuckled to himself. “Did smiling and saying, ‘Hey’ really work?”

Amanda looked up at him with a puzzled expression.

“Never mind. I just have something to tell Demore later.”

*****

Michael stood by the upstairs window in the master bedroom. It was dusk and the light was gray, faint and long-shadowed, the porch light already on. He leaned his forehead against the cold glass, breath fogging the dirty pane as he watched Amanda return from her run. Amanda was sprinting through the fields surrounding their property, Denzel barking and snapping deliriously in circles around her. He heard Amanda call out, saw her vault over the wooden fence, clearing it effortlessly, the dog followed; slipping a lot less effortlessly underneath, paws burrowing furiously at the dirt. He emerged behind Amanda, and Michael heard his wife’s voice rise in a half-laugh, half-pant as she bent at the waist to ruffle his dirty muzzle and filthy, floppy ears. Amanda straightened up and looked up towards the house, raising her hand in greeting when she spotted Michael.