“I don’t know if you agree with me or not, but I feel like my father is playing games with us. Even if I break up with Kyle, I don’t think that he will support the merger. Instead, he’ll start to demand more from us. The more desperate he feels that we are, the more bargaining power he’s going to think that he has. That’s the type of person that he is,” Elizabeth explained.

It was difficult for me to listen to Elizabeth speak about her father that way. I didn’t even want to imagine what their relationship was like. Everything just sounded like business and very transactional without any feelings at all in the mix. Unlike me, Ace didn’t act at all surprised.

“Even if what you’re saying is true, you could always start by pleasing him by dumping your husband first. What do you think?” Ace suggested coldly.

“I could do that, but do you think that it’ll honestly be enough?” Elizabeth asked rhetorically.

“This is his only demand,” Ace pointed out.

“For now..” Elizabeth shot back with widened eyes.

I watched the two rapidly exchange words as a sense of dread came over me. The situation was already complicated enough but now it seemed like the list of complications just became longer.

“I take it that you’ve decided to break things off with your husband?” Ace asked.

historical

“We’re taking a break, that’s for sure. About permanently calling things off, I haven’t thought that far. You see, when I realized that it probably doesn’t matter, I just stopped thinking so hard about it,” Elizabeth said.

“For your own benefit, if not the merger’s, you should break things off with him. I don’t know how many times I have to say it,” Ace muttered.

“Well, I never tell you to break things off with your precious girlfriend..” Elizabeth pointed out.

I had to admit that she was right on this one. No matter how many times she had caused misunderstandings between Ace and me, she didn’t really say that she thought that Ace should break up with me or that he deserved someone better.

“You might be right about that but that doesn’t solve the problem that we have in front of us,” Ace reminded her darkly.

“The biggest challenge isn’t me breaking up with Kyle. It’s to make my father believe that I’ve broken up with Kyle,” she said as she stared straight at both of us.

Make him believe..?

“How many times have you lied to your father to make him lose all trust that he has in you?” Ace asked sarcastically.

“Just think about it. Do you honestly believe that he’s going to just take my word for it when I tell him that I’ve broken up with Kyle? We’re also not legally married so we can’t just sign some divorce papers either. It’s not that simple, unfortunately,” Elizabeth explained convincingly.

Now that she mentioned it, I remembered that the two of them were not legally married and that she was right that it was probably going to be hard to prove that the two of them had broken up already.

“So, what are you proposing that we do?” Ace asked the exact same question that was on my mind.

The only good thing about everything that was going on was the fact that Elizabeth seemed to have formulated a plan. My hands fidgeted restlessly on my lap under the table as I waited for her to disclose to us her genius plan.

“Ace, I really need your help..” she said before smiling hopefully his way.

“Of course, I’m going to help you and help us. So, can you please just tell us what you have in mind already?” he demanded.

“Ace, I need you to be my fiancé again,” Elizabeth said with a straight face.

..What?

What?!

I had no idea how long the silence in the room stretched out for as Ace and I both stared back at Elizabeth. The entire room was so quiet that all I could hear was the heavy beating of my own heart. It just felt so unreal that I wasn’t sure if I heard or understood her properly.

Why is she asking Ace to be her fiancé? Does she want them to get engaged? Why? How?

Endless streams of questions filled my mind as I struggled to wrap my mind around her outrageous proposal. I turned to stare at Ace when I could get my body to move again.

Surely, he won’t agree to something so crazy, would he?

“Rina..” Ace called my name.

“Y-Yes?” I replied in a shaky voice.

Although he had called my name, his eyes were on Elizabeth and not on me. The sound of the chair scraping against the wooden floor seemed to echo so loudly around us as Ace stood up from his seat again.

“We’re going home, Rina. She’s clearly lost her mind,” Ace said as he offered me his hand.

I glanced at his hand and then my gaze shifted to look at Elizabeth’s face as I hesitated about what to do. Sure enough, I also though that Elizabeth’s proposal was just crazy. I had no idea where that outrageous idea came from, but I was glad that Ace didn’t seem the least bit inclined to go with it.

“Ace, please wait..” I pleaded with him before I could stop myself.

Although my mind was telling me that we should walk away from her crazy proposal, my instincts were telling me that there was something more about her proposal. If we walked away now without hearing her out, we may be missing out on a way to get the merger underway. Unfortunately, so far there hasn’t been any other clear solution to our problem.

“Ace, why don’t we listen to what she has to say? I’m sure that she’s got a good reason to say something like this,” I said without standing up from my seat.

Ace didn’t say anything, but his brows furrowed as he stared down into my eyes and my upturned face.

--To be continued..