Bargain Bride: The Billionaire’s Forced Wife

IN A SMALL RECTANGULAR TABLE, various elites and business people are having their conversation. Men dressed in suits and women in their dresses. One would think that the people in that table are very important. Just from the sophistication and elegance they elude, people inside the place will really turn their head to them.

“It’s a pleasure to have this afternoon with the both of you, Mr. and Mrs. Vitali,” one of the female business partners of their empire stated before they stood up to leave the place.

The women are busy conversing with each other while the men are shaking their hands, a sign that the meetup was a success.

Chiara smiled to their business partners. “Thank you for inviting us today. I hope you liked our gift,” she responded as her hand touched the hand of her fake husband.

“Your gifts are extraordinary!” one male business partner spoke. “I like it, oh no, I love it!”

Series of chuckles can be heard because of his energy. They all walked towards the parking lot of the place. It was still early in the afternoon and the sun is shining brightly, hitting Chiara’s face as they stepped outside.

“Too bad Mr. Vitali is still not feeling well,” one of them stated with a sad tone. “I hope you will recovered fully soon.”

“Yeah,” Chiara responded and playfully tapped the arms of her fake husband lightly. “I was skeptical to bring him at first since he is still not feeling well, but my husband told me it’s alright. Please bear with him for he cannot converse a lot at this moment. He gets exhausted easily.”

The business partners, who trust Ezio so much, bought Chiara’s excuse. Besides, they know what incident happened and it’s not quick to recover from that.

“We should be the one apologizing,” a man spoke. “We disturbed Mr. Vitali’s resting hours.”

The fake husband, Victor, shook his head and waved his hand. With a baritone voice that resembles Ezio’s, which he practiced for hours, he spoke. “No worries.”

Those were just two words but their business partners looked at it as a precious thing. They thought that Mr. Vitali is exerting so much effort just to respond to them.

Their business partners bid farewell and gave their thanks to the two. When Chiara and Victor entered the car, Victor slumped on his sit and drew a deep sigh.

“That was exhausting,” he spoke before drinking water from the tumbler. “I felt like I lost my voice from hours of not talking.”

Chiara chuckled for a short time before telling the driver to go to their safe house. “You did a good job. I think they didn’t notice.”

“My face feels so sticky,” Victor complained while looking at himseld at the small mirror. He looked at Chiara with a pleading face before asking, “Can I remove it now, signora?”

She nodded at him and Victor wiped the makeup out of his face as fast as a lightning. He used several wet face wipes before the makeup was completely off. Victor smiled when he saw his face went back to normal.

“I was worried the makeup might melt earlier,” Chiara spoke while typing in her phone. “The air conditioner was just right above you.”

“I didn’t notice that, signora,” he replied before thinking of something. “If it was signor Ezio in that situation, he would have the air conditioner transfer to another area.”

Chiara laughed inwardly after hearing that. She knows her husband will really do that. After all, Ezio wants everything to adjust for him, well, expect Chiara. He is willing to adjust for Chiara.

She dialed her friend’s number. Chiara has been trying to contact Nick for days yet she hasn’t received any reply to her texts or call backs.

However, like the past days, only the system voice telling that Nick is unreachable greeted her on the other line.

Victor heard his signora’s loud sigh and he couldn’t help but to ask. “What happened, signora? Is there an emergency in the office?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been trying to call my friend, but he is always unreachable.”

“Can’t we go to his place?” he asked.

“No,” she responded while shaking her head and typing messages for Nick. “we can’t. He is on another country.”

Victor’s lips formed an “o” and didn’t speak for a few seconds before suggesting, “How about his social media accounts? Or maybe you could text or call his friends or family.”Owned by NôvelDrama.Org.

“He deactivated his social media account, and I don’t know his family’s contact number,” she answered. “I haven’t talked to his parents since they migrated.”

“Maybe you could try his family’s accounts?” he asked, not sure what to suggest.

Chiara’s eyes beamed after hearing that. “You’re right,” she responded. “I’ll do that.”

After sending messages, Chiara felt worry covered her whole body. It’s unusual for Nick not to be reachable for days. Is he that busy?

At the back of her mind, she is thinking that something bad happened to her friend. The last time they talked, he said that he was investigating a huge case. What if the person behind that is powerful and it attacked Nick?

Chiara shook her head. Overthinking things won’t make the situation better.

Just after she sent message requests to Nick’s family, she received a text from Sophia, thanking her for helping and that she just finished interviewing the three suspected staffs.

Chiara replied, asking if she could call her. After a few seconds, she agreed and Chiara dialed her number.

“Hi, Chiara!” Sophia spoke from the other line.

“Good afternoon, Sophia. I’m glad that you already received the report. How is the talk to those three people?” she asked before closing her laptop.

Sophia hummed while thinking. “We found nothing that can lead us to my husband,” she spoke with disappointment and sadness in her voice. “They have people who can prove their alibis. We also found evidences that tell that they are not really the one who kidnapped my husband.”

“What are you going to do now?”

The woman on the other line sighed. “I don’t know. The only thing I’m looking right now is the Armano Darte. I thought that was a person. Turns out it was a brand as per the report.”

“Yep,” Chiara replied. “Actually, I already did a background check on that brand. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No worries!” Sophia exclaimed. “Did you find something?”

The car stopped on the side of a grocery store as per Chiara’s order. Victor left to buy more water for him and some snacks. He has a hunch that the conversation his signora is engaged to will be long.

“That brand was owned by Giovanni Giordano’s mistress, but my intel told me that was Mr. Giovanni who runs the business,” she started. “I tried looking who the representative who attended the contract signing that day, but we still can’t find anything.”

She waited for a response, but Sophia has been quiet for a while. When Chiara looked at her phone to check if the call is still connected, she saw that it is still running.

“Sophia?” she asked. “Hello? Are you still there?”

Sophia’s attention was turned back to Chiara upon hearing her voice. “Sorry, Chiara. I was thinking about what you said.”

“I see,” she replied. “Do you remember anyone from that brand who approached your husband that day?”

“Well honestly,” she trailed off. “I don’t know anyone connected to that brand until you mentioned about Mr. Giordano’s relationship with the owner.”

“For the past weeks, Mr. Giordano visited our house. At first, it was just a casual meeting. Just to ask how we are adjusting in a new neighborhood,” she added. “Until he started coming for business.”

Chiara kept quiet but made sure to make sounds of recognition so that Sophia will know that she’s still connected.

“And then I started noticing my husband not including me in their conversation, which seldom happens,” her voice became weak and pale. “Then there are days that my husband is on a bad mood after meeting with Mr. Giordano.”

“Bad mood?” Chiara asked with interest. “What could be the reason of that?”

“I don’t really know. I tried to ask my husband but he won’t answer me. He just said it’s nothing, ” she responded.

When the line became quiet, Chiara spoke. “I don’t want to blame someone, but what if Giovanni has something to do with your husband’s disappearance?”

“I can’t deny that I also have doubts with him,” Sophia spoke. “I asked my husband not to entertain him because of his bad reputation. I don’t trust him.”

“Well,” Chiara looked at the time. “If you need help on investigating about him, just let me know, okay?”

Sophia nodded. “I will. I’ll check if I can see something that can connect him to that day. I’ll be in our building tomorrow, asking the staffs for more details. Thank you, Chiara.”

When the call ended, Chiara saw Victor standing outside, just beside the car. He was looking at something.

Chiara traced his sight, and from a far, she saw Caterina walking out of the grocery store. There is a plastic that carries small container of milk and the other one has raw chicken.

Caterina stopped on the end of the pedestrian lane, waiting for the signal to cross the road. Chiara and Victor just watched her from a far.

When the light for pedestrians turned green, Caterina and two other teenagers crossed the road. Caterina was left behind a few inches because of her having difficulties walking.

However, just as she was about to reach the middle of the lane, a black hatchback drive straight through her, bumping her fragile body.

Caterina’s body flew meters away from her original position, and the black hatchback escaped the scene, leaving the victim bleeding while clutching her baby bump.