My Perfect Marriage

Chapter 15

I got it." He guides Sophia into the office door and turns his head back to whoever is there. "Call my brother and tell him I have Sophia here, not to come back until security tells him it's safe. Let him know what's going on." He sounds way more in control of his emotions than she is, and she sinks into his hold.

"Yes, sir," Dee replies, and her voice fades away with the office noises as his door swings shut and they're inside in the silence of his space. Suddenly cocooned in peace and tranquility that's so very rare between them.

"Take this off and sit." He shrugs Sophia out of her jacket and maneuvers her onto his couch, making her feel even more pathetic for flaking out like this and losing her composure over something that others would deem as nothing. She doesn't know why it's hit her so bad. Maybe because she was never hit as a kid, and she's never come up against violence this way.

Leon lifts her feet one by one and slides her heels off gently, cradling her legs carefully. Making her blink up at him in confusion, he starts rubbing her ice-cold feet in his hands as he perches on the coffee table in front of her. It's like it's the most natural thing in the world for him to do. She can't remember the last time he initiated any kind of intimate touch that wasn't for show.

"You always get cold when you've had a shock. Your feet are like ice." He nods to the throw on her left, and she leans and reaches for it obediently and hands it to him. Without hesitation, he gently lays her feet in his lap, takes it, opens it up to spread across her, and then gazes at her while exhaling heavily. Under a furry blanket facing one another, this is so surreal. She feels like she's in another time and dimension and a place where everything wrong between them temporarily doesn't exist. This is who she misses, who she's longed for.

"This is going to make headlines. Protest turns violent, and our security is out there fighting with ex-employees. We have a lot of fallout to come from this, so we better be prepared." Leon doesn't seem phased at all by what's just happened, and she stares at him in silent disbelief, wondering if he's even human. They were just attacked in front of their building, and his brain immediately goes to damage control of the company's reputation. That's usually her line, her next move.

All she can think about is what he did, how he protected her, and how he's sat here comforting and holding her legs and taking care of her. It's like going back four years to when he did try to love her as a husband, and it breaks her heart to experience it once again like a bittersweet poison rising inside her soul. She knows she should say something, anything. Even a thank you, but the words die in her throat, and all she can force out are the ungrateful and empty phrases she knows he's expecting from the cold her.

"Let's start writing a press release and get on top of this before it escalates."

......

"Mrs. Hale is in the games room with guests. She asked you to come in when you arrive home." The housekeeper greets Sophia with kind eyes and a gentle voice as she wanders in, heavy with the tiredness of the day and home late. Dealing with the protest fallout on top of so much else these past few days has her exhausted. Her shoulders ache, her neck is stiff, and she has a headache coming on. She's nowhere near in the mood to entertain her guests, but she's obedient to a fault. She was raised in the good old 'thou shall obey my parents' of her culture, and she grimaces and pastes on a fake smile. Sighing and knowing she should get it over and done with. It's a show-off move to remind her friends how magnificent her family is.

"Where's Johnny? Is he home?" She asks with a raised brow, seeing as he left the office hours ago. She already knows it's pointless to ask about Leon, who was still burning the office lights when she left.

"Yes, Ma'am. He was asked in also; he's there already."

Sophia knew it before she asked. When mother decides to impress her socialite friends, no child is safe from her demands, and she grits her teeth and makes her way to the opposite end of the house. Throwing her briefcase on the lounge table in passing, knowing she has so much work still to do and it's already ten pm.

She hears the chatter and laughter of drunk rich women before she even gets to the door and opens it. Bracing herself for the onslaught and knowing that she should remain calm and elegant no matter what. She hates these women.

She's assaulted with a view of many overdressed glamorous over fifties sat around the huge dining table in here while playing cards. Poor Johnny is propped between two of the most cougar-type elderly she has ever known and being prodded and squeezed at every opportunity. His cute self is irresistible to these affection starved trophy wives. She rolls her eyes for him, seeing how uncomfortable he is but for mother, they always do as she says. Playing the part of the perfect family.

"Sophia!!" Her mother exclaims dramatically upon seeing her, and the atmosphere immediately cools to a subdued quiet as all eyes turn her way and her friends take her in. None of them like her persona, face, voice, anything.... let alone her marriage status to Leon. This isn't a new reaction but one she has endured her entire marriage to Leon.

"Mother. Ladies. Johnny." She nods politely, and Johnny uses her appearance as an excuse to jump up and come around the table to pull out a chair for her, sighing his relief and pulling one next to it for himself.

"Sit, sit. I can help you with your cards as I know you are awful at playing Gin." He smiles brightly, suffocating her with his wiggled eyebrow signals of 'save me.' The boy will use anything to free himself from being molested.

She wants to bail; she really does, but that face. She knows all too well what these people are like. How can she leave her baby brother to fend for himself?

"I can only play one game as I have so much work left to do. POLO is very busy currently, and I brought home a mountain of paperwork."

She still hasn't had one actual greeting from a single lady, besides pained fake smiles and nods, and mother pulls in the cards to shuffle them. Oblivious to their apparent dislike or ignoring it anyway. This is the woman she has watched all these years, observing over everything in her wake, and is the role model who pushed her to be just like her even if it was unwilling. She's looking very queenlike and in her element when sitting at the head of her brood, lording over them because their family is top of the pecking order in this city.

"My daughter-in-law is a machine in the office. Without her, Leon would not know how to rule quite so effortlessly. Such a blessing." She praises Sophia, beaming with pride at the creature she created, so inwardly satisfied that she carries out what she intended with little resistance. It never usually grates on her, she knows it well, but lately, she's been feeling it more and more. This inner bubbling sense of rebellion.

Sophia sits and allows Johnny to catch her cards and assemble them before placing them in her hands. Always such an attentive boy. And it always gives him an excuse to come and sit by her, safe from overly touchy wenches. She's actually very good at this game but playing dumb is better than being made to do this every week.

"He's so lucky to have a wife who can take the helm. My son's wife only produces children and smiles." A merry comment delivered with big smiles as though demeaning her daughter-in-law, but they all know that's.