I ignored a call from Abigail and sighed. She must have heard from my mom that I asked her and Dad to come to visit me whenever they managed some time.

I wasn't receiving Abigail's calls because I was still mad at her for hiding about my accident and being in partnership with my parents, so if I did receive her call and spilled any truth, she would most likely pass the words to my parents.

"You okay?" Elian asked, looking at me in concern.

I nodded with a smile and looked back out the car window. We were currently on our way to the office.

"You don't look okay." He brushed a lock of my hair to get a proper look at my face.

"I'm okay, El—"

"Your cheeks are puffed," he stated.

I shot him a glare, and he returned me a sheepish smile.

"What are you going to talk to your parents about?"

I had only told him that I invited my parents to come but didn't tell him the exact reason.

All my life I have lived with my parents trying to shackle me down with their backdated perspective. It was hard to live with that until high school, and it was harder to get out of that to attend university so far away. But with time and distance, it has gotten easier to speak my opinions to them. Yet, the hardest part was to get through them—to make them understand that maybe Elian wasn't the ideal man they imagined for me, but he was the only man I have ever loved and wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

Maybe some would say that I didn't have to care about their approval. But at the end of the day, no matter how cruel they could be at times, they were still my parents who brought me up with love—two of the people I loved and cherished most in this world. That's why I needed them to approve of him.

"Just something. It's been a long time since I have seen them."

Elian hummed, not looking satisfied with my answer.

I took a deep breath and turned to hit his arm, not so hard.

"Ouch, what was that for?" he winced dramatically.

"What did I say about my cheeks?"

"Never bring them up?"

"Exactly." I hit him again. "And you did the exact opposite."

"I don't get what your problem with your cheeks is. They make you look cute and innocent," he replied, earning himself another hit. "Oww, oww, boyfriend abuse."

"You deserve this."

He caught my wrist that was about to hit him again and pulled me closer to his chest. "No, I only deserve your love, Ms. Fleur."

"No, you deserve even more hits. We are in the car, Elian," I hissed, glancing at the driver who was professionally keeping a straight face.

"So?"

"So you are shameless."

"Sure, if you say so."

I shook my head, a genuine smile starting to form on my face. I only meant to distract his mind so that he wouldn't worry about my internal turmoil, but somehow, it turned into me smiling genuinely. I always felt happy with him.

I just finished taking interviews for my assistant and had some free time, so I had the sudden thought of checking my fake account, which I had Jace recover for me when I managed to remember its ID.

I checked the drafts but still didn't find the proof that I was sure was attached to a mail. Sighing, I checked my actual email account for any new mails, only to notice that I hadn't cleared my spam inbox.

When I opened the spam box, my eyes almost popped out of my sockets at the sight of a certain spam mail from my fake account, with all the proof attached.

Which means... our whole company was in trouble while I had the proof in my email spam box the entire time?

How can I be so damn stupid?

I didn't hear the door of my cabin opening until a pair of arms came to wrap around me from behind. "Hey."

I was still too shaken up to respond.

"Hey, you okay?" Elian asked, tilting his head to look at my jaw-dropped face. His eyes followed my gaze to my laptop, his expression soon starting to resemble mine. "Is that..."

I nodded.

"Alena, we ran," he murmured. "We had to stay on the run and maintain a low profile for weeks."

"I know."

"Cops were after us."

"I know."

"We—" He huffed. "Never mind. No point beating a dead cow." He reached over and closed my laptop, then nuzzled against my cheek, already managing to make me forget about my blunder. "So how was the interview? Do we finally have an assistant for our COO?"

I smiled and grabbed a file. "Yep. I shortlisted three of them. I'm going to call them for a final interview in a little while."

He took the file and skimmed through the pages. He twitched his lips and commented, "They look promising."

I arched an eyebrow and asked, "No other comments?"

"They will do good as an assistant. In fact, this guy right here," he showed one of the candidates on the file, "was my second choice for my own assistant. If Rowan ever quits, I'm going to hire him."

"So you mean, you have no problem with my assistant being a guy?" I asked, slightly disappointed.

"Absolutely not. Why would I?"

"Aren't you worried that a guy will do all my job? He's going to stick with me 24/7, you know."

Elian closed the file and said, "First of all, he's not going to be with you 24/7 because the company will pay him for 8 hours a day. Secondly, should I have any problems? Yes, if the guy is flirting with you. No, if you guys are two friendly colleagues. Thirdly, I'm not a crazy jealous person, if you are under that impression. I just get jealous when I have no security."

I smiled and got up, wrapping my arms around his neck while his were on my waist. "So you don't get jealous usually?"

"Not unreasonably, at least."

"You are amazing, you know that?"

"Yes, which is why I'm confident that I'm the only man you want."

"You're right to be confident in that," I said and gave him a kiss.

"Didn't we agree on no PDA in the office?" he asked teasingly.

"Where's the public?" I asked, pushing him back until he was pressed against the wall. "It's just the two of us, and I have some downtime right now, and so do you, seeing as you are in my cabin right now."

"I was actually on a round on your floor. But who cares about that?" he said and was able to kiss me when someone knocked on my door, and we immediately shot away from each other.

I sat back on my chair, and Elian grabbed whatever file he could find.

"Come in," I said.

"So Ms. Fleur, are you sure that this marketing plan is the one you want to go with?" Elian started saying when one of the assistant candidates entered.

"Wait for a second, Mr. Holland," I told him and turned to Elian. "Yes, Mr. Storm, that's right."

"Okay, then. This is final. I'll leave now." Elian closed the file and made his way towards the door. When he was behind Mr. Holland, he turned around to wink at me.

A smile ended up spreading across my lips.

"Mr. Holland, take a seat," I said.

"Thank you for giving me the opportunity, Ms. Fleur," he replied.

I smiled and asked, "Okay, this round is going to be a little more personal since I need to know I have the right person."

"Yes, of course, whatever you want to ask."

"So how well can you keep a secret?"

"Yes, so my new assistant is Ryatt Holland, the guy you suggested."

"Good choice. But do you have to go back to your place tonight?" Elian asked, looking at me with pleading puppy eyes when the car stopped in front of my apartment building.

"Yes, my parents will be here this weekend, so I need to clean my apartment, otherwise, Mom will lecture me infinitely."

I spent the whole last week at Elian's place. In the meantime, my apartment collected dust, and I couldn't afford to show my parents that miserable, uncleaned apartment. I had only been here once after my door was fixed and to pick up more clothes.

"Guess it can't be helped," Elian sighed.

An idea occurred to me, so I suggested, "Why don't you stay the night at my place?" He was about to grin when I added, "You can help me clean as well."

His grin turned into a tight-lipped smile as he said, "Sounds great. I will ask someone to bring me my clothes."

After we reached my apartment, I was disgusted by how much dust had gathered.

"We need to start cleaning as soon as possible," I said urgently.

"Wait. Let's wait for my change of clothes to get here. You can't expect me to clean around with my favorite suit on."

"Don't make excuses. Take off your suit, mister, and get to cleaning." I was about to head towards the kitchen to take out the cleaning products when I was lifted off the ground. "Elian!" I squeaked when I was in his arms.

"Can't cleaning wait a bit?" he asked suggestively.

"No. The apartment is so dirty."

"We don't need the whole apartment. We just need the bed."

I blushed and murmured weakly, "You are crazy."

"I can be—" He was cut off by the calling bell. "Are my clothes here that fast?"

"Let me go and check."

He dropped me to my feet, and I made my way to the door and checked through the peephole, only to gasp.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"My mom and dad."