Marry My Billionaire Second Husband - Chapter 142

Chapter 142: Four Walls
“What’s this I hear about a dress fitting?” Amelia asked Matteo, when Aiden finally decided to take his leave from the office, claiming that he was going to drink his sorrows away and cherish every moment of not being saddled with Emmeline as his wife.

He had stared at her fervently, hoping that she would want to join him, but of course, Amelia sent him away with strict instructions not to drink and drive. Then she went to look for her fiancé to further explain matters. This had Matteo written all over it.

“So you have heard about it too?” There was no denying the satisfaction that radiated from Matteo’s voice. He seemed to behave like a cat that had eaten the canary, and he wrapped an arm around Amelia’s waist, pulling her close.

“We are at work, this is highly inappropriate,” Amelia protested, but her heart wasn’t in it. After her near-death experience, it was as though the last vestiges of ice had melted in her heart. Now, her emotions for Matteo were threatening to overflow.

Now, all she wanted to do was spend time with him. She wanted to sleep next to him at night and wake up to his face in the morning. Every bit of affection Matteo showered her felt like rain nourishing the desert soil of her heart.

However, she couldn’t help feeling slightly bad for Ronan. He was also in the office with the both of them, and he was trying his hardest to figure out the meaning of life written on the ceiling tiles.

Matteo had no such concerns. His office had frosted glass panels to ensure his privacy. “We are about to be married. Besides, no one would dare to enter my office. Isn’t that right, Ronan?”

“So you still remember I exist?” Ronan complained. “Stop flaunting your relationship in my face!”

“Amelia and I are about to be married soon, you’ll simply have to get used to it,” Matteo said, brutally unsympathetic. Ronan replied with a middle finger.

“How did this happen though?” Amelia asked, curling her arms around Matteo’s shoulders as she rested on him. “I thought we still had months before we would even think about the wedding. And suddenly I find out that Emmeline is now engaged to Aiden out of all people.”

“My condolences to that poor sucker,” Ronan said and began to dig through Matteo’s office cabinets to pull out a bottle of whiskey. “I’ll drink to him.”

“No drinking during working hours,” Matteo said, and Ronan gave him a disbelieving glance.

“So you can engage in PDA with your fiancée but I’m not allowed to drink?” Ronan whined. “This is an injustice.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Amelia said warningly, tilting Matteo’s chin with her fingers so that he was staring right back at her. His lips quirked in amusement at her assertiveness. Amelia had come a long way from when he first knew her months ago when she could barely meet his eyes.

“Whatever do you mean?” Matteo played dumb, just so he could relish in the sight of her pursing her lips.

“I know you definitely had something to do with it. Was this what you were talking to Grandfather about?”

Matteo smiled. “Maybe Horace Hawthorne finally realized that marriage would be a preferable fate to prison for his sweet granddaughter.”

“You did not,” Amelia exclaimed in disbelief. “You threatened to send Emmeline to prison?”

“He should be thankful I even considered prison, since prison involves giving her four walls and a ceiling, along with three square meals a day,” Matteo growled. “If I had things my way, I would have shipped her to an uncharted island and have her waterboarded as punishment.”

Amelia choked, while Ronan applauded with no small amount of enthusiasm. No wonder her grandfather had hastily arranged Emmeline’s new marriage to get her out of the way.

“Surely that’s a bit much,” Amelia said, even as her heart warmed at his protectiveness.

“That’s too little. She fully intended to have you killed,” Matteo retorted.

“Do you have proof?”

“When you were unconscious and getting treated, I had Ronan look into Lucas Dirge and his daughter.”

“Who?” Amelia asked. That name wasn’t ringing any bells.

“Liilie’s father,” Matteo said, a muscle twitching in his jaw as he recalled that odious man.

“According to Ronan’s investigations, he found a suspiciously large amount of money transferred into his accounts from an offshore account in the week that you were unconscious. It’s highly likely he got his daughter to bump into you on purpose. That would explain why she made such a big fuss to attract your attention and to split us up.”

“But Lilie is just a girl!” Amelia’s mouth fell open. “I doubt she knew what they were planning.”

“She didn’t need to know all of it to take part,” Matteo’s eyes darkened, but to Amelia’s relief, his next words were full of ire for the grownups. “And I highly doubt she had a choice to defy her father. When I saw them together, she seemed… terrified of him.”

“Oh no,” Amelia’s heart ached. “Is there something we can do about that? What about her mother?”

“We can’t do anything yet, and unfortunately her mother passed on years ago.” Matteo gritted his teeth. “If we want to take her away from him, we need to get him arrested.”

“It won’t be long before he lets something slip,” Ronan chimed in. Amelia stared at him, confused.

Ronan explained, “I had some people tail him, and that man could not keep his mouth shut. He was in a club, bragging about how he hit the jackpot, and how he’d always have money from now on because someone owes him big time.”

“I suspect he intends to blackmail Emmeline for more hush money, once he’s done blowing all of it all on alcohol and women. We simply need to wait for Emmeline to react, and we’ll have them both on the hook.”

“Would it be possible to let his money run out faster?” Amelia asked hopefully. She didn’t like the thought of Lilie possibly being abused under his hands.

“We’re working on it,” Matteo promised, rubbing comforting circles into the small of her back. “Currently, it seems like Lilie is left in his estate under the care of nannies.”

Amelia could only let things go for now and went back to her original reason for looking for Matteo, namely, their impending nuptials.

“Will you be there for my dress fitting? I need someone to help ward off Emmeline’s negativity.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Matteo promised, and he sealed his words with a kiss.