Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 80

Chapter 80

“Sparrow.”

“Boss.”

“I need you to listen to me.”

“I am listening. The answer is still no.”

I explained the meeting. I explained why I could not miss it. I explained, with considerable patience, that the ongoing threat to my life could not be allowed to completely paralyze the operations of the largest company in the country.

Sparrow was quiet for a long time.

“Fine,” he said finally, with the energy of a man agreeing to something he fully intended to blame me for later. “But I will have twelve men on you. And afterward you lie low. No exceptions. No unscheduled appearances of any kind. You go to the meeting, you come back, and you stay put until the threat has been neutralized.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“I need you to say it properly, boss.”

“I cross my heart.”

“Your heart is not reassuring. But fine.”

Fifty minutes later I was walking into Veil Holdings through the main entrance when they appeared. Reporters. Approximately thirty of them, materializing from behind pillars and parked cars like they had been waiting for exactly this moment, which they had.

Cameras. Microphones. Questions already forming in their mouths before they had fully stopped moving. Questions about my so called wife, Seraphine, and why I was nonchalant about her condition.

Sparrow’s men moved immediately, forming a wall, creating space, pushing the microphones back. I

kept walking.

Then I stopped.

I turned around.

The reporters went quiet, which was not something reporters typically did, and looked at me.

I looked back at them.

“So,” I said pleasantly, “if any random person appears and claims to be my wife, that automatically makes

me a married man?”

There was complete silence.

1/3

+15 Bonus

I turned back to the door and walked inside.

Behind me I heard the questions resume, louder and more confused than before, but I was already through the door and the door was already closing and I was already thinking about something else entirely.

Specifically, I was thinking about the fact that my phone was ringing and the name on the screen was Celeste and I had to physically prevent myself from answering it in the middle of the lobby in front of my entire security team and whatever staff happened to be watching.

I kept walking until I reached my office and the door was closed and then I answered.

“Celeste,” I said, aiming for controlled and landing somewhere slightly north of it.

“Hi.” Her voice was bright and unbothered and exactly what I had been wanting to hear since I left her house that morning. “I will keep this short because I know you are busy.”

“I am not that busy,” I said, which was not something I usually said to anyone in my professional life.

“It is time,” she said.

I waited for her to elaborate.

“I want Julian and Seraphine to catch us in the act,” she told me. “I want them to see us. In person. No more hints and evidence and suggestions. I want them to see it with their own eyes.”

I sat down slowly in my chair.

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