The Heiress He Underestimated novel Chapter 121

Chapter 121 Yours To Defend

Finished

“You make terrible action movies watchable. You force me to sleep and eat. You give excellent hugs. You’re basically holding my entire mental health together through sheer stubbornness.”

Something warm flickered in his eyes. “Okay, those are good things. But let me add ‘corporate strategist‘ to the list. Please.”

Elera sighed. “Fine. But the second it becomes too stressful, we stop.”

“Deal.”

Frost was already typing on his tablet. “I’ll start creating the paper trail. We’ll make it convincing but not too obvious. We want them to feel like they’ve discovered something secret, not something we handed them.”

“How long will that take?” Elera asked.

“Forty–eight hours to set up. Another week for them to find it. Which gives us about ten days before they think they have the whole story.”

“And in those ten days, we prepare for the real announcement. The one where I reveal I’m the actual CEO and not just someone Drakonius invested in.”

“Exactly.”

After Frost left to start working on the fake paper trail, Elera and Drakonius sat in the library in comfortable silence. The fire was crackling, the sun had fully set, and the house felt peaceful for the first time in days.

“Thank you,” Elera said quietly. “For offering to be my shield. Again.”

“That’s what husbands are for, apparently. Being shields and forcing their wives to practice basic self–care.”

“Is that what we are now? Actual husband and wife instead of business partners?”

Drakonius was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know what we are. But I know I don’t want to go back to pretending this is just a business arrangement. Not after the past few days.”

“Me neither.”

“So what do we do about it?”

画

“I have no idea. I’ve never been in a real relationship before. All my previous attempts were just elaborate performances where I played the role of whoever the other person wanted me to be.”

“Same here. Except instead of performing, I just avoided relationships entirely Easier to be alone than to risk being vulnerable.”

“We’re quite the pair,” Elera said with a slight smile. “Two emotionally stunted geniuses who accidentally fell into a marriage and are now trying to figure out what that means”

11:22 am

PXX.

Chapter 121 Yours To Defend

“When you put it like that, it sounds like the setup for a romantic comedy.”

Finished

“A very weird romantic comedy where one of us is dying and the other one has seventeen secret identities.”

“Collywood would love it.”

They both laughed, and it felt good. Normal. Like maybe they could actually figure this out.

“We should probably have the ‘what are we‘ conversation at some point,” Drakonius said. “Like adults.”

“Probably. But maybe not tonight? Tonight I just want to sit here and be glad you’re alive and not think about anything more complicated than that.”

‘I can do that.”

So they sat together by the fire, not touching themselves but close, both of them processing the fact that

hey’d nearly lost this thing they were building before they’d even figured out what it was.

The next morning, Elera was in her lab running routine tests when Clara burst in looking flustered and innoyed.

Your security guy is the most frustrating man I’ve ever met,” Clara announced.

Elera looked up from her microscope. “Frost? What did he do?”

He won’t let me leave the compound without a full security detail. I told him I just want to run to the bookstore in town for thirty minutes, but apparently that’s a major security risk and I need two armed guards and a GPS tracker.”

He’s just being thorough.”

He’s being paranoid. I’m not important enough to kidnap.”

You’re my editor and you know about my secret identity. That makes you a target.” Elera tried not to smile it Clara’s outraged expression. “Just take the security. It’s not that bad.”

It’s weird. They just stand there watching everything I do. It’s like shopping with extremely well–armed obots.”

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