Chapter Five

LEO

"Leo. Are you still asleep?" Kevin calls from the other side of my bedroom door. "Open the door. If we don't set off now we will be late for our meeting."

"Leo, Leo someone is here." Erwin tries to shake me up, "Do you have some kind of meeting?"

"Hmm?" I squint my eyes, unable to see through the blazing morning light, "what are you talking about?" I ask sluggishly.

"Are you still asleep?" Erwin bites back a smile, "There is someone looking for you. Should I open the door?"

"Leo!" Kevin calls again, this time more urgent than before, "What are you doing?! Open the door!"

My eyes fly open.

Oh no! It's Kevin!

I quickly jump up with a wary look on my face, slightly startling Erwin. But then soon enough my face twitches in pain, replacing the wary expression from my face. My whole body is feeling like it has been torn apart from inside and out.

"What happened?" Erwin asks, seeing the abrupt change in my expression.

"My whole body hurts." I say grimly.

"Leo!" This time Kevin literally bangs the door this time. "Open up already!" He demands.

"Oh shit." I curse underneath my breath, "You need to hide." My head shoots up to the fine man sitting in front of me, naked. The cover barely covers his lower body. The sunlight shines brightly over his jade-white skin, making it seem even more smooth and fine. His disheveled silky silver hair is waking a weird urge inside me to run my fingers through them and these gray eyes boring a hole through my head with an amused glint in them.

Overall, this man is making me blush just by his looks.

Well, I don't have anything with pretty faces but if I get to see this sight every morning then I wouldn't mind.

"Why?" Erwin's question snaps me out of my wild fantasies that I shouldn't have, not at least at the first thing in the morning. "Am I a secret?"

I roll out of the bed and my whole body jolts. The pain in my back in unbearable. I stumble and start to fall but Erwin is faster than that and catches me midway by my elbow.

He gets up from the bed and stands tall beside me, holding my arm, his face dark, "Then why are you telling me to hide?" He counters as he drapes a bed sheet over my head to cover myself.

"Well, you are right." I tilt my head, unsure of how to handle the situation. "Why am I hiding you?" 

Exactly, why?

My answer seems to have amazed Erwin as it does to me because he is staring down at me like he is watching a piece of work, admiring me, his lips thinned into a line.

"Go, open the door will you?" I free my arm from his loose grip with a light shake and step into the bathroom, "I can't go out in front of my subordinate like this. Oh put on some pants before you open the door." I close the door behind me. My legs give up and I sit down on the cold floor, back pressed against the door, bed cover pulled over my head, red flushed, I drag my legs to my chest. I hide my beet red face between them as I hug them.

So this man can make me blush just by a little warmth from him.

No this is bad. No, not bad but very bad.

I highly doubt anyone can pull these emotions out of me like he does. And this is bad. But no, I can't be defeated just like this. I have to pull myself together.

So with this I throw aside the white sheet like a mighty soldier but immediately my whole body twitches because of the pain in my lower back and my waist.

Just how hard he grabbed me? I didn't feel a thing when he grabbed it. It was rather…

Good. Yes, the way he grabbed me felt good.

The fuck Leo! What do you think you are thinking again?!

I let out a deep breath and drag my feet in front of the large mirror in the bathroom and see myself in it.

Oh crap…

I am marked. There are bite marks all over my body, hideous blackish purple bruises encircling my waist. No, they are not the problem, they can be easily hidden when I put on some clothes. But the problem is my face.

My usually pale face is red, eyes and lips swollen. I know anyone can tell just by a look of me that I cried. And there is a very visible bite mark at the corner of my bottom lip. It wouldn't take a genius to understand the meaning behind it.

I wave a sigh. 

I enter the shower. Fuck what anyone would think about me. I couldn't care less about it. But what I need to get checked is my back and avoid all those questions Kevin will ask me a few minutes later.

I step out of the bathroom, hair perfectly styled and perfectly dressed in a navy blue suite to see a grim face of Kevin.

And the interrogation begins now.

 "What the hell in the earth is going on here, Leo?" He demands. "Who is this man? Why is he claiming to be your husband?"

"Because he is." I answer simply as if this is the most normal thing to say in the world.

I tug my hands on the pockets of my pants and stare at Kevin like nothing really happened. I can see just how hard Erwin is trying to hold back his laughter from the corner of my eyes.

"What the…" Kevin is in total disbelief as he gasps and stares at my face blankly.

"Well, didn't you just say that we will be late for our meeting?" I ask as I go around the room and pick up a pad from the nightstand beside my bed and write my number in it. "Then why are you standing around like this? Go prepare the car. I will be there in a moment." Then I turn to Erwin who is watching us from the sidelines, "do you have my number?" 

"Well no." He scrunches his nose.

"You should've asked for my number first before getting me into the bed." I sigh and hand him the piece of paper, "Here, call me if you need anything."

"How does it matter?" He asks as he takes the paper without looking at it.

"What does it matter?" I counter the question.

"I mean getting your number first or fucking you first." He just said these vulgar words with such innocence that it makes me flush.

"Don't you know how to sugarcoat your words before saying them?" I humph as I spin around to avoid the blazing gaze of his eyes directly.

He chuckles and locks his arms around me, making me flinch because of the pain. He notices it so he loosens his grip, "You smell so nice…" he whispers into my ear, his warm breath brushing against my earlobe, I flush into a deep red shed.

"Let me go!" I shake away his hands and exit the room, not wanting to face him anymore, knowing that if I do I might lose it again. "By the way, clean up all the mess that you made." I pause at the threshold, not turning around.

Then I close the door behind me and see Kevin is already standing outside the room with his face changing colors dramatically.

I walk out of the house and he follows behind me, not saying a word but I know he has a thousand questions to ask.

"Do you want to see a doctor?" Kevin suddenly asks out of blue from the front seat as he pulls out of the driveway.

"I will see Ruth after the meeting." I reply.

"Okay." He says and we are over the conversation.

After we reach the venue I step out of the car with some difficulty as the back pain is giving me hell. I enter the building, trying to keep my expression as blank as possible.

It is fine. I can handle a little bit of pain but right now what I am seeing before me is someone I can't handle in the least bit. 

 Here goes my day turning into a hell again. 

"Oh, is this my beloved nephew? What a surprise!" Jean stands up from the lobby coach and approaches me with that creepy smile of his.

He is such a creep that just seeing his face makes my skin crawl in disgust.

"I didn't think you were coming today uncle." But I don't let all of it show on my face.

"Oh I just have some work that needs to be done." He laughs.

What is so funny about it?

"But it seems like you had a good time." His thirsty glare swipes over my face, sanding goosebumps down to my stomach. "You reek of alpha pheromones." He quirks his brows, "Did you sleep with someone? How shameful of the heir of the Snow Groups." There is a mocking laugh in his throat.

"Well, uncle, the person I slept with is my husband." I smile innocently, hiding the rage inside me through it. "Is it wrong?"