The least that I could do for her at the time was to offer to host her for the night, although, to be more correct, Ace would be hosting her since it was his place and not mine.

“Rina, why don’t you take Elizabeth to her room and help her settle in a little? Elizabeth, you should shower and go to bed early. You can figure things out tomorrow,” Ace suggested.

Elizabeth seemed lost in her own thoughts again and only responded with a small nod of her head. I quickly got up from the sofa to lead the way to one of the guests’ bedrooms. Without a word, Elizabeth got up and followed me while looking very absent-minded.

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…

“She’s taking a shower, then I guess she’ll go straight to bed. It is quite late…” I reported dutifully to Ace when I returned to the living room.

Ace was still sitting on the sofa, and he looked so tired that my heart ached for him. As he had instructed, I took Elizabeth to one of the guest bedrooms that hadn’t been used for a while. Big thanks to the housekeeper for keeping the room clean and ready to receive guests all the time, because thanks to her, I didn’t have to do anything much at all.

At first, I feared that things may get awkward between us if we were left alone together, but I found out very quickly that I had nothing to fear. Elizabeth wasn’t in the mood to throw any harsh words my way and she just wordlessly followed all the instructions that I told her. I did consider that she could have slept at any hotel that she wanted given how much money she obviously had but then I realized that she must be in need of quite a lot of emotional support right at that moment.

“That’s good. Thanks for doing all of this, Rina,” Ace thanked me with a look of relief on his face.

“It’s fine. I just hope that she…you know…will feel better soon…” I replied as I lowered myself down on the sofa next to Ace.

Naturally, he wrapped an arm around my shoulder, and I leaned my head onto his shoulder. I could feel his exhaustion as well as my own. There were many questions that I wanted to ask him, but I doubt that Ace would have the answers that I was looking for. While leaning my head on his shoulders, I realized that there were some answers that required us to work together to figure them out. It wasn’t fair for me to simply open my mouth to burden Ace with my questions because I had the responsibility as his partner to stand by his side and help him unravel some of the riddles.

We stayed silent for a while, and it truly felt enough for us to be breathing the same air. His presence felt reassuring for me, and I hoped that he felt the same way. Ace seemed to be thinking about something and I didn’t want to disturb his chain of thought.

“Elizabeth should be all good when morning comes,” Ace told me reassuringly.

At that point, hosting Elizabeth for another night wasn’t at the forefront of my mind at all. I had to admit that there were other more prominent concerns such as the future of the merger. I had never imagined that Elizabeth’s father would become an issue given how certain she seemed of his agreement and support. Nothing was going smoothly, and yet again, another obstacle had been thrown our way.

“She can stay here for a while if she needs to. She seems…very troubled…” I whispered in reply.

I felt Ace’s arm tighten slightly around my body before he turned and placed a kiss on the top of my head. I found it strange and quite unexpected how worried I was about Elizabeth. Perhaps it was because she was still a fellow woman and women should support each other.

“Umm…does Kyle know that she’s here?” I asked curiously.

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“I don’t know. I’ll leave it up to her to tell her husband,” Ace replied flatly.

“Right…that’s probably for the best,” I murmured in agreement.

“She’ll toughen up tonight, and tomorrow, she’ll be back to the Elizabeth that we all know so well…” Ace said with certainty before he looked down at my face and smiled.f𝔯𝗲e𝒘𝙚𝚋𝐧oѵe𝗹． 𝒄𝗼m

“I really hope so…” I mumbled while still not daring to ask about the future of the merger.

“Let’s shower and call it a day, shall we? Let’s go to bed…” Ace asked invitingly.

“Yeah…” I readily agreed.

“Don’t worry too much. There’s always tomorrow and we can always worry then…” Ace advised jokingly before he laughed a little.

His large hand ruffled my hair teasingly before I swatted it away playfully. Although we didn’t get to have our dream dinner date together and things were not quite going well for all of us, I could still smile. It made me feel conflicted inside, but I was secretly glad because it made me feel like we could get through anything together.

…

**The next morning**

“You don’t have to pick me up…”

I woke up the next morning to find out that Ace’s predictions were spot on correct. When we emerged from our bedroom, Elizabeth was already dressed and on the phone in the living room. She glanced our way before putting a hand up to wave at us and then her attention returned to her phone call.

“Of course, I’ll be in the office today. Did you expect me to just ditch my work?” she asked sarcastically.

Her tone was cold, and it was clear that she didn’t quite like what she was hearing on the phone. Whatever hardship and emotional breakdown that she went through yesterday seemed to have passed and she was really back to her old self. At least, that was the way that it seemed to me. Although I knew that a part of what I was seeing was her acting tough, it still made me feel relieved and impressed with her fighting spirit.

--To be continued…

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