Marry My Billionaire Second Husband - Chapter 60

Chapter 60: Second Sullivan Heir
“I don’t know what I expected,” Amelia mused as she and Ronan ended up sitting on a park bench, watching the sunset from over the hills, with kebabs from a roadside stall in their hands. “I thought…”

“You thought we would go to a fancy restaurant?” Ronan asked with a raised eyebrow, tilting his neck so that it leaned against the edge of the park bench. In the light of the setting sun, his bronze skin seemed to shimmer gold, glinting off the wired rims of his glasses and highlighting the spark in his eyes.

He was another handsome man, and Amelia couldn’t help but wonder if things would be any different if Ronan was the one who reached out with a helping hand, and not Matteo. Ronan seemed normal enough. He didn’t seem like he was engaged to a woman from a powerful family, with a patriarch who killed people.

But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

“Nah. I’d prefer something simple for dinner, after such a shitty day,” Ronan said, distracting her thoughts. He held up his kebab tenderly as though it was his firstborn child, before unwrapping it and taking a huge bite. “Oof, hot!”

As he spluttered and choked, Amelia hurriedly passed him a napkin. Then she looked at her own kebab and sighed.

Shitty day was an understatement.

Matteo and Emmeline were probably having a five-course meal in Matteo’s apartment, cuddled up together like lovebirds while a helper busied themselves with cooking the meal for them. Or they might be cooking together, their heads huddled together over the stove as they laughed over the ridiculousness of a recipe, his arms wrapped around her waist as he pulled her close to nuzzle her neck.

That was what Caleb used to do to her. Her heart gave a painful twinge as she recalled happier times.

“Hey, I promise you, the kebab is delicious,” Ronan said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “Stop looking at it as though it murdered your entire family.”

Amelia choked. Ronan’s words had brought up exactly what she had wished to stop thinking about.

“Ronan, how did you know Matteo?” Amelia asked, to change the subject. She knew nothing about him, other than the fact that she was doing his job.

“From boarding school,” Ronan said with an easy shrug as he took another big bite of his kebab, sauce gathering at the side of his lips. “He was a real menace back then when he was younger, and I was the unlucky swot that got stuck as his roommate. I tell you, that man only learned how to use a freaking dustbin when he was eighteen. The rest of the time… Blergh!”

Ronan pulled a face, and Amelia couldn’t help but smile at the mental image of a young Matteo with a messy room.

“So you’re not…” Amelia tried to find a diplomatic way of asking about Ronan’s financial situation, but he merely snorted.

“You don’t have to tiptoe around it. My family is rich, but everything is handled by my older brother. He’s ten years older than me, and I’m pretty sure I was only born because my parents forgot to use protection.”

“What?” Amelia’s mouth fell open at his bluntness.

“Well, which couple would suddenly pop out a kid a decade later, when they already have a perfectly fine heir?” Ronan pointed out. “Although, I suppose I must be thankful that at least my parents are still in love and sleeping with each other, and not having affairs elsewhere. Most families in our circle are not so lucky.”

Amelia made a face at the mental image, and she recalled how easily Matteo suggested that she pretend to be an illegitimate Hawthorne child.

“Like Matteo?”

“Like Matteo,” Ronan agreed. “His family is a powder keg waiting to go off, but let Emmeline fall on that grenade instead.”

Amelia pursed her lips as Ronan continued to speak, “The only reason why I was in that preppy boarding school was because they didn’t want to deal with me, since I was constantly mouthing off back then. Unlike my older brother, who was so perfect that the sun shone out of his ass. So I entered the school, got Matteo as a roommate, and now here we are.”

“And now you work for Matteo as a secretary,” Amelia said, light dawning in her eyes. “So that’s why the pay was so high! Because it was originally your salary!”

Finally, she had connected the dots. Matteo employed his best friend so that Ronan didn’t need to go back to his family, and he paid him more than usual since they were best friends. However, Ronan merely shook his head.

“Nah, Matteo pays me the market rate. Stingy fucker,” Ronan complained, but the side of his lips rose into a smile. “But at least with him, I don’t have to worry about impressing some old coot. And until you came around, I never got fired before! Imagine receiving that message when you’re on vacation! Matteo is lucky I did not skin him alive!”

“Sorry,” Amelia said sheepishly. “You got into a lot of trouble because of me.”

“No, I got into a lot of trouble because of him!” Ronan corrected her, through another big mouthful. Amelia wondered if he simply inhaled his food like a vacuum cleaner. “Now eat your kebab, it’s getting cold.”

“Alright,” Amelia began to chew at a much slower pace, savoring the meat and thick sauces that coated her mouth. “Oh this is―”

“Good, isn’t it? I have great food recommendations,” Ronan preened, delighted. “Matteo gets a good meal when he listens to me.”

“And does he listen to you often?”

“Not as much as I would like,” Ronan said, a somber look entering his eyes as he recalled their talk earlier. “Whatever happens, just know that I’m on your side. Matteo will not harm you, I swear on it. If he was that kind of asshole, I would have stuffed his face down the toilet bowl every day back in school.”

Amelia sighed. “It’s hard to believe. But I should be thankful that at least he had bothered to stand up for me when Caleb humiliated me back at the club. Now that he has gone back to Emmeline, I can finally go back to my ordinary life.”

“Do you want an ordinary life very badly?” Ronan asked, curious.

“I want a peaceful life,” Amelia said, with a wry smile. “And families in your circle seem to lack that.”

“Guilty as charged,” Ronan said. “Now, do you want to see embarrassing photos of Matteo back when he was in school? You have to see his ugly bowl cut… and his mohawk phase!”

“What?”

Ronan held out his phone, and Amelia leaned in closer. While Ronan scrolled through years’ worth of memories in his photo album, letting Amelia laugh at Matteo’s less-than-glamorous moments, both of them failed to notice a photographer lurking in the distance, snapping photos without fail.