I was supposed to remain calm just as he had instructed me to but how can he possibly expect me to remain calm and well composed after what he had just said?

My heart raced dangerously fast in my chest again as I stared wordlessly at his handsome face. Ace’s face relaxed and he smiled at me again while my mind was lost in a daze.

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“I think keeping our relationship a secret will become increasingly difficult as time goes by. I find it suffocating that we can’t do everything that we want to do together and I’m pretty sure that you feel the same way. Actually, I think you’ve got it worse than I do,” Ace said before he reached out a hand and patted the top of my head.

Frankly, I was still too shocked to say anything although I heard every word that he had just said to me. My chest just felt tighter and tighter with each word that he spoke to me as my emotions started welling up inside of me. The familiar stinging sensation at the back of my eyes told me that I was about to start crying.

“I guess I can always whisk you away from here. We could elope and run away somewhere far away together and all that…” Ace said wistfully as his large hand continued stroking my hair gently.

“Did you really think that?” I mumbled as I kept on staring at his face.

“Not really, simply because I know that it’s not right and not realistically an option for us. You can’t have a normal life that way. You’ll be far away from your mother and my father will find a way to nag us endlessly until he dies, or we do, whichever comes first…” Ace continued before he let out a soft chuckle.

Despite the fact that this was supposed to be a serious conversation, I failed to hold in my laughter and ended up giggling. At that moment, I thought that it was the strangest thing in the world how he could make me want to cry one moment and then make me laugh just seconds after. It still amazed me how far he was willing to go for the sake of our relationship. It wasn’t like I had the right to blame him for not putting his all into our relationship and I didn’t think that he wasn’t taking proper care of me. However, with how busy we both were at work and with all the secrets that he had been keeping from me, I had to admit that there were times when I thought that he wasn’t thinking about our future together.

I bit down hard on my lower lip as I tired my absolute best to keep my tears from spilling over. The pain in my chest felt overwhelming when I finally realized just how wrong I had been about him. The guilt ate up at me when I realized that Ace had probably been thinking about our future all along. It hurt even more when I thought that unlike me, who just worried endlessly about it, Ace was actually busy and working hard to make things work out for us.

Three years is actually a long time…

To spend that amount of time dating in secret would be difficult and I was in the position to confidently say that given the secret relationship that I had with Kyle. Just thinking about it made my mood darken even further. Needless to say, that ill-fated relationship ended in complete failure for me. Looking back on it, I was forced to accept that the fact that I had to keep our relationship a secret probably allowed him to use me the way that he did. While I was cherishing the secret loving world that we had created and shared between us, Kyle was probably using it to conveniently hide our affair from the world.

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I believed that everything must be different with Ace and that he wasn’t using me; however, I had to agree with Ace that having our relationship out in the open would be much better. If nothing else, we could go on dates openly. We could have dinner in public like everyone else. We could go to crowded places and go on trips to popular holiday destinations. The endless possibilities of how we could spend our time together helped push the tears of guilt away from my eyes and replaced the frown on my face with a small smile of hope instead.

Things will get better for us. Thanks to Ace, things will improve at a much faster rate.

“Thank you, Ace…” I thanked him as I reached out and gave his hand a small squeeze. _{Please visit ƒ𝘳ee𝒘𝚎𝐛𝘯𝐨ν𝑒l. 𝒄o𝘮}

His hazel eyes widened slightly at me as if he was surprised that I was thanking him. Perhaps he didn’t expect me to thank him for all that he’d done. However, I felt that he more than deserved all the thanks and appreciation that I could shower on him.

“There’s really no need to thank me for anything,” he said before he smiled so charmingly at me.

I felt that layering that precious smile on top of everything else that he had done for us wasn’t at all playing fair. How could I possibly make it up to him or be good enough for him?

“Of course, I have to thank you. I really mean it, Ace. Thank you for all that you’ve done for us. Thank you…for thinking of our future…” I thanked him repeatedly and once again I felt like I would start crying.

“Even if that’s the case, it’s too early for you to thank me. It’s still just an idea and a plan, nothing more. The merger isn’t happening yet. My father hasn’t acknowledged our relationship and everything else,” Ace said before showing me a slightly sad smile.

How he sounded quite regretful while saying that as if he felt like he could have done better for us just tore at my heart. If Ace thought that what he had done for us wasn’t good enough, then I had no excuse to say for myself for basically having done nothing but rely on him for help and support almost all the time.

--To be continued…

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