Chapter 16. Is he gay?
1610 Words
Chapter 16 Is He Gay?
"I'm not gay," he said, looking into her eyes while holding her arm.
"Yeah."
She agreed in a low voice. Her voice was as feeble as a mosquito's hum, and her face was so blushed that blood could drip out.
The ambiguously testing scene between the two of them in the afternoon was still vivid in her mind. She had then felt that she was very smart, but now she regretted it. She must have been seen through when she pretended to be drunk .
If not, he would not have made a phone call in the living room afterwards. He usually made calls in his room or study, but it was very obvious why he did it that way.
"Apparently, you must have fallen victim to the rumors out there. Am I right?"
She looked into his eyes and felt treacherous.
"I'm sorry."
He looked at her in askance without uttering a word. She went ahead to confess.
"Kevin came to me and said that you are gay. I shouldn't have tested you without verifying the veracity of his averment. What couples need is to be honest with each other. I wasn't honest and so I want to apologize to you."
"What else did he say?"
"Nothing else."
It was obvious that Kevin was jealous of Dan's billions of dollars, so he only told her the besmirching rumors about him, while holding anything that could portray him positively. Thus he only described him as gay without hinting at the fact that the the Panter family was rich enough to rival a country.
Dan was caught off guard as to how he would respond to her sincere apology. She frankly admitted that being drunk was a test. He had not expected her to be that frank and endearing. Yet he still had a lot hidden from her. He felt guilty and a little tangled.
"Otherwise, why shouldn't I just tell her!" He debated in his mind.
He made up his mind and was about to speak when she breathed a sigh of relief from being forgiven and turned abruptly.
"Good night, I'm going to bed," she announced.
"Wait!"
He pulled her back, a little too hard such that she lost her balance and fell into his outstretched arms, triggering a ravenously tight embrace. The atmosphere suddenly became pleasurably awkward.
The two could hear each other's heartbeats. In the dead of the lonely night, it was hard for a single man and a single woman to live in the same house without the chemistry between them getting the better of them.
With such a beautiful woman in his arms, Dan's mind ran wild. His memory suddenly roamed back to the exhilarating and erotic scene involving them in the bar that night.
Slowly, he lowered his head to kiss her...
"Buzz!"
Just when their lips were about to touch, his cell phone rang at an inopportune time. While he cursed, Roslyn was like a frightened little rabbit. She immediately broke free from the his arms, ran back to her room and slammed the door.
Why did whoever was calling choose such a time? He wondered.
He looked at the screen, then took the phone back to his room to answer it.
The call was from Max Caxton, and his call could only mean one thing—there was news about that person.
"Where is he?" He spoke into the phone.
"Country T," Max answered from the other side.
"I'll be there right away, be careful not to alert the enemy."
He hastily walked towards Roslyn's room and knocked gently.
Though the knock was not loud, it scared her out of her thoughts..
"Who?" She asked, but immediately reprimanded herself for asking as only Dan and her were in the house.
She put her hand on the doorknob, debating whether to open it or not. She hesitated and could not press it open.
"Well, I'm afraid of what might happen if I open the door in the dead of night," she said, though part of her wanted to pull it wide open.
Dan's response shattered her mind's beautiful thoughts.
"Well, I just wanted to let you know that I have to go out for a few days. I will be back in two days and will board the plane soon. Please ask for two days off for me and my dad."
This jerked her into action and she hurriedly opened the door.
"Where are you going? What happened?" She asked, standing beside him.
He has just answered a mysterious phone call from the comfort of his room. Then he comes to tell me that he is about to go out? She uneasily wondered.
"I'm going back to the countryside. There is an emergency in my hometown. I will tell you in detail when I come back," he expounded.
"Then I'm going with you."
"Later, it's not convenient this time."
He neither wasted more words, nor time. A moment later, he dragged a black suitcase out of the door and walked away in a hurry.
Roslyn just stood behind the curtain and looked outside. There was a black Maybach parked downstairs. A man in black clothes opened the door of the passenger seat and Dan got in the car. The man turned around and got in the driver's seat. The car drove away soon.
She felt a mixture of emotions. It was hard to describe how she felt.
The night was unbearably long.
The following day, she went back to her parents' home for dinner with two dark circles under her eyes. Her mother could not help noticing her discomfort.
"Didn't you get enough rest last night?" She asked distressingly.
"Yeah, you can say that again."
She had not slept at all the previous night after Dan left, and of course that meant that she had not gotten enough rest.
"I know you two have a good relationship, but the fact that your husband has gone back to his hometown, doesn't mean that you make yourself so haggard..." Her mother scolded.
"Mom--"
"Okay, I won't say anything. I'll make you sweet and sour pork ribs."
"Yeah, mom is the best."
The camaraderie between mother and daughter was loving and filial, making them happy.
Meanwhile, Mr. Brandon did not ask for leave for his son-in-law. The rationale behind it was that Dan had such exceptional prowess that stunned everyone in the company. So, going away for two days with or without the leave of absence meant nothing.
Mr. Brandon had started from scratch and had been in the business world for decades. This was the first time he had seen someone with such a strong business sensitivity.
He was very satisfied with his son-in-law, and it was his utmost hope that his daughter and him would live happily together.
At the dinner table, Roslyn put down her chopsticks after just a few bites, saying that she was already full. Her father had noticed her restlessness.
"Well, my son-in-law says he has something at home," he started, clearing his throat. "Wouldn't you think it could be good if you accompanied him to see it? Of course as a wife, it behooves you to think about your husband."
Roslyn's eyes lit up. She felt that her father was right. It so happened that the following day was a weekend, and she made up her mind to visit Dan's countryside home.
She thought about the previous night when he was leaving. The car that had come to pick him up in the middle of the night together with that person, had always made her feel uneasy.
If her husband was cheating on her, she would never let it go. She could accept his pauperism, but she could not accept his philandering.
Having made up her mind, she sent a w******p message to Dan asking him to send her the address so she could visit him wherever he was.
When he received the message, Dan frowned, caught in a dilemma. Why, when he had told her it was inconvenient for her to visit, she had not objected. But it now seemed that she was adamant, which could only mean one thing. She had not only seen him getting into the car, but she had also identified it and the driver.
When the car came to pick him up the previous night, he had realized that something was wrong, but he was in a hurry to leave and did not care about it.
There was no reason against giving the address, but he was not in Boston at all. Wouldn't he be exposed if Roslyn went there?
He hesitated for a moment, then made up his mind and called Max.
"Book me the next flight back to Boston."
Max started to protest anxiously. "President, this time it took a lot of effort to find the whereabouts of that person. You are aware that he is so elusive that I don't know when I will find him again."
"Do you want to teach me how to do things?" He retorted.
His tone made Max to immediately open the mobile phone app and book a flight.
He arrived earlier than Roslyn because she found him waving at her as soon as she walked out of the airport. She actually thought he had driven from the countryside home to welcome her.
She walked over and felt strange. She noticed that though the temperature there was not high, her husband's head was covered with sweat.
Instinctively, she took out a handkerchief and considerately wiped the sweat off Dan's head.
"Why are you sweating so much?" She inquired of him.
- Writer
