Bargain Wedding

Husband's Disappearance

Axel was quietly purring in sleep while Jona drove her back home and carried her to bed. He carefully removed her shoes and put her under the duvet. On the following morning of their wedding night, when he had called Dr. Choi, the physician had informed Jona about the temperature change as a reason for Axel falling sick.

He made sure that the room at all times remained at 25 degrees Celsius, which was too high for him, as he was used to keeping it as low as 18 degrees. How could he care so much about Axel in a few weeks? He couldn't understand, but he was willing to go to any lengths for her. So much so that he married her despite her disagreement.

The events of the night flashed across his mind in front of his eyes. When Axel had opened her eyes after the kiss, tears were falling freely from them and so were from his own, but he wiped them before Axel could see. "Why Jona?" Axel spoke with such a heartbreaking voice that he couldn't apprehend what to do. She was holding onto his collar. "Why did you do it? Why did you punish me like that? Why did you marry me? Why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to you to deserve this?" She kept crying with those hopeful eyes and hurtful words which were sure to give Jona sleepless nights.

"I am so sorry, my love." He'd apologized. His voice was breaking and so was his heart.

Axel had exhausted herself. She'd fallen on his shoulder and passed out soon after.

Just as he tried to carry her outside, the waiter stopped them. "Sir, um... she didn't pay. You need to pay for her expenses, too." He asked hesitantly.

Jona had to carry Axel to the VIP lounge where he had carefully placed her on the leather couch while he waited for the waiter to bring the revised bill, after adding the lounge usage expense to it. He kept brushing the hair out of Axel's eyes and stopped when the waiter arrived.

Looking at the bill, he spotted a damage charge included in it. "What is this for?" The waiter gulped and hesitated. His appearance could be quite intimidating, he knew, so he mellowed down. "I just want to know and I'll pay the entire amount. Don't worry." He promised.

"Ma'am has come with a young man. They kept drinking for a long time, and it seemed like they argued over something. The man left quite angrily, after which, ma'am tried to pay, but her card declined. She kept asking us to try it again and again, but it kept declining until it got blocked, so she kind of got furious and..." Jona had heard enough. Raising his hand with his black card, between his index finger and middle finger, he made the waiter eat the remaining words.

Paying successfully, all Jona could think of now was about this mysterious man. He called his driver to pick up Axel's motorbike back home before carrying her out of the bar. His heart was broken for two reasons today. First, the one he loved more than anyone in his life right now was crying in his arms, and he couldn't do anything to relieve her pain. Second, he had no idea Axel loathed him that much as to use him as her poison to cause her own pain.

Did he make such a big mistake by following his heart? At what cost? Was he that ugly a person? The first time he became selfish, wanting what he wanted, he ended up hurting the very person he wanted. His head was bursting with chronic pain as he held it tight and sat on the rugged floor near Axel's legs and cried.

After what seemed like hours, he got up and caressed her hair. "I love you, Axel. You have no idea how much I want to hold you in my arms. How I want to take away all your pain, to never let the tears come into your eyes. But what do I do now that I am the one causing you so much pain?"

☘

Just when Axel woke up the next morning with her head pounding and heart throbbing, her eyes fell on the note on her nightstand. There was orange juice and a tablet kept on the tray while the note said, "Take this - Jona." Her lips played a little smile somehow. She took the tablet and looked around.

Jona wasn't in the room. Crawling down from bed, she managed to take a shower as the flashbacks came rushing to her mind in bits and pieces. She was sitting in a bar, talking, and then her card was declined. A wave of sudden anger clouded her mind.

Finishing up quickly, the first thing she did was to grab her phone, but it was dead. She stood by the socket, plugged in the charger, and turned the device back on. Just as the phone came back to life, it blew up with multiple notifications of texts and missed calls. She ignored everything and dialed her father's number determinedly.

"Why did my card decline?" She sternly asked, just as the call was picked.

"I am doing well, daughter. Thanks for asking," her father answered.

"Card, Dad? Why did it decline?" She heard her father sigh at the other end.

"Axel, you already know about the business. Our accounts were seized and Jona is trying to get them back up and running. You can apply for a new card in a few weeks if everything goes well."

Axel grumbled, pulling the phone away from her mouth. "I have to go."

How did she come back home? She had no clue. Maybe her company dropped her back, or was it... Jona? She never liked taking favors from anyone. As much as she hated Jona to have seen her drunk and ugly, it was undeniable that her husband must have seen her when she returned home.

Did Jona know about the card situation as well? Was that why he offered her a black card? What would she do now? She wouldn't take Jona's money because her self-respect wouldn't allow it, but she didn't have a job either. Suddenly, she wanted to talk to him. She was curious to know about the events of last night and was afraid to think that Jona had seen something that he was not supposed to.

Thinking about it all, she walked downstairs.

Obasaan asked the maids to serve breakfast to her as she sat at the dining table. "Did Jona eat?" She asked the old lady in a faint voice.

"He made breakfast today, but he didn't take one bite," Obasaan conveyed to Axel as if she was complaining.

"Oh... Where is he now?" She asked again in the same hushed voice, completely forgetful of her first kiss with him last night.

"He has gone to work," Obasaan replied, and Axel looked at the time. It was too early for Jona to leave. She at least knew Jona's schedule by now.

☘

"I need the quotation from all the vendors by tomorrow. Please make sure that this remains confidential," Jona was asking his personal assistant over the phone, his Bluetooth earpieces were flashing blue lights, plugged into his ears as he walked through the office lobby when Coco suddenly stopped him. "Please hold, Ms. Milly..." Jona interrupted the PA.

"What is it?" He mouthed, covering the phone's mic.

"It's urgent," Coco whispered back. By the looks of him, it was unduly good to be a capricious trick, so Jona nodded meekly at Coco for him to follow as his legs trudged him through the corridor.

Just as Jona put the earpieces out, Coco blurted urgently, "it's about Axel."

Jona recoiled at the name. "What is it?" He asked as he plopped down on his chair.

"Someone took pictures of her in a bar with a boy and they are claiming that they have seen Jona Suzuki carrying her out of the bar," Coco swatted an envelope on the big table in anger. "They are blackmailing us that they will expose your affair if we don't pay them."

Jona moaned in discomfort as he ran his fingers through his hair dejectedly, examining the envelope. Their wedding was a close affair for a reason. The wedding information was on a need-to-know basis, that too for certain people. Everyone was communicated that the Suzukis wanted to keep it confidential for personal reasons. Sure, the media suspected the wedding, but unless they confirmed it, the speculation was as good as a lie. He couldn't bring himself to reach out for the envelope, spaceded out when Coco patted his shoulder.

"You want to talk about it?"

"No," Jona's reply was convincing enough and Coco didn't force him again.

The CEO finally took out the pictures and scanned through them really quickly. "Tell them they will not get even a penny. Let them do whatever they want to."

Coco was bewildered at his carefree response, at best, and stared at him cluelessly.

"You cannot see their faces. It's too dark. Nothing can be proven by these. And even if they do, there is nothing wrong with Axel going and meeting a friend in a public place," Jona declared, c*****g his eyebrow at his friend.

Knowing that this was the end of the discussion, Jona had made his point, it was now Coco's turn to act. "Very well then. I will be off."

Coco left the office with a frown and immediately flipped that frown into a grin as he dashed right back in, startling Jona.

"What the f**k, Coco!" The CEO got startled.

"Exactly! What the f**k! Your employee, Coco, is gone. Your friend Coco is here. Talk. Now," the handsome man ordered, slouching back down on the chair as he leaned back on it carelessly.

Jona chuckled humorlessly. After a brief pause and having a staring contest with his own shoes, he looked up. "I am in love with her."

"I already know that, you i***t. A blind person can tell. Talk to me about what's wrong?"

"She doesn't love me back, which would have been fine, but my affliction is that she hates me," Jona's face plastered a mournful dejection.

"Hey, hey..." Coco sat straight. "Don't say that. You don't know that. Did she tell you that she hates you?" He protested.

"No. But I do know. She doesn't have to say it. The look in her eyes and the pain in her voice...it will haunt me forever, man. I don't have it in me to even show myself to her after what happened last night," Jona narrated everything to Coco.

"I think I need to step up to help you," Coco mumbled.

"Don't you dare!" Jona pointed his finger at the man. "I don't want any more problems. You worry about yourself. If you don't finalize the contract by the end of the month, consider your ass fired," Jona warned Coco and stood up. As he walked out of the office, the lights turned themselves off again.

Coco kept screaming, but Jona just left like a robot, as if he heard nothing and said nothing. "Why is he so dramatic? Even lights won't work unless his ass sways in here," defeatedly, Coco griped and dragged himself out of the CEO's office to get to his work.

☘

Axel was back from college, and she had nothing to do. She couldn't do dance practice today because one main dancer decided not to show up without giving any prior notice. She would normally be furious at him, but today, she wasn't, because she was hungover the entire day and inwardly thankful too. She didn't want to dance, or rather, she couldn't.

As she laid on the bed, going through a few modeling jobs on the portals, she felt slightly hungry. She kept looking at the money and kept rejecting the jobs. "Seriously! This is a month's salary? I can't even party once with this peanut."

A knock on the door made her heart jump to her ears as she slid off of the bed to get it. Her smile flipped to nothing when finding a maid who had come to call her for dinner. "I will have it later with Jona. He must be on the way," Axel informed her.

"Master Jona won't be coming home today. He has called the home number and informed us that he will be staying at the farmhouse." The maid spoke in a faint voice.

Axel felt humiliated. Her husband wasn't coming home, and she was getting to know about it from the housemaid. But then again, there was nothing between them that was remotely close to being perceived as married couples. Still, it wasn't like the maids knew about it. "Thank you," she said in a low voice. "I will be there in a while."

She walked back to bed and unlocked her phone to see any text from Jona, and screeched in annoyance on finding one. Only if she checked before, she wouldn't be feeling embarrassed about her existence right now. Without reading it, she quickly rushed back to the door. "Where is the home phone?!" She hollered to ask the maid.

"There is one in the kitchen. In case of anything important, Master Jona calls us directly on that," the maid answered.

"Thanks," Axel nodded and shut the door to now read the text.

I will not be home for a few days...

"Few days?" Axel mumbled and continued to read.

The card and car keys are with Obasaan. Please take them. You can return them later if you want. Also, I don't want you to be in a situation where you are drunk and unsafe. Please oblige to this request.

Axel felt a little spooked by the authoritative tone in the last sentence of the text. "Why is he not coming back home for a few days? Did he see something last night?" The chain of thoughts struck her, but she was still clueless about the fact that Jona was the one who took her back home. She only fathomed that Jona must have seen her condition after she'd returned home.

To douse the infinite questions in her mind, she immediately checked her call history, and there it was. One outgoing call to Jona for one minute and thirty-four seconds. She then scrolled up the chat and found she'd shared her location with Jona too.

Axel's heart sank and sweat followed at the newfound confirmation. She couldn't remember anything else. She was only worried about two things now. Did Jona see her with Minhaj, and did Jona know her card was blocked? She fell onto the bed and screamed in her pillows. Was that the reason why Jona wasn't home and left early this morning? Axel felt nothing but guilt, fear, humiliation, and inappropriate.

She shouldn't have gone to meet Minhaj, especially when she had feelings for that guy. She was hiding her marriage from everyone in college. She never wore her wedding ring whenever she went out, but, at the same time, she was not someone who was a cheater. Even though her marriage was sham, she considered herself bound and as married as anyone could be.

She wasn't going to do anything with Minhaj that could be considered wrong, but the latter kept pestering her to talk after their heated spat last time during the dance practice.

The guilt was dominating her mind, and she didn't know how to face Jona again. What would she even tell Jona if he asked about last night? She wanted to talk to Minhaj today at the university, but the boy decided to disappear without any intimation. As much as she forgot about Jona from last night, she also forgot about her fight with Minhaj, which was the reason why she called Jona to pick her up in the first place.

When hunger started killing her, she went down to see her annoying in-laws and almost rolled her eyes.

"Honey, come join us," her mother-in-law spoke in a voice too sweet for her liking. "You don't spend time with us. Let's sit together and get to know each other more." She suggested.

"Sure, ma'am," Axel answered, taking her seat and seeing how Jona's chair was empty as the maids started serving her food. "We can do it once Jona is back." She added politely as she blew on the soup to cool it down and drank the first sip.

"Do you know where Jona is?" Ms. Suzuki asked next.

It sent a pang to Axel's chest. Why did you leave me here all alone between them? "No, ma'am, I don't know." She responded in a few words concisely.

Lohan and Jussy kept gawking at her like they always did, as if she was a wax doll kept in a museum that would melt at any moment, and they wanted to take in every detail about her before that.

Suddenly, Axel felt congested in the back of her throat. She coughed and itched her neck, and took another spoonful of soup. This time, she felt as though her skin was being scratched from the inside. Her coughing intensified in a matter of seconds and her face appeared with red patches.

The trio only examined closely while maids exchanged feared gazes with each other. The spoon fell from Axel's hand as she got up, gasping for air. "Wha- What is in this soup?" Axel managed to ask with teary eyes.

A maid rushed forward to hold Axel, but she couldn't before the young lady fell to the ground, falling unconscious.

Obasaan was fear-stricken along with Ms. Suzuki. "CALL THE DOCTOR!" The red-haired woman screamed at the maids.

A young maid ran towards the kitchen while Obasaan immediately dipped down, putting Axel's head in her lap and, simultaneously, praying to God to protect them from Jona's outrage.