Hide and Seek: Married to My Master Part 2

13. Alessandro

I had to admit, Iceland was gorgeous. It was a little overcast, but the October air felt clean, crisp, and pleasantly cool. The leaves were already turning gorgeous shades of oranges, red and yellows. The people seemed friendly, and were apparently naive enough to speak openly about the employees' break schedules in front of people they'd never seen before.

I could possibly see myself settling down here, if Aria was determined to stay. The food looked iffy, but it would be a fun challenge to learn another language and immerse myself in a new culture.

But more importantly it would bring me no greater joy than to see Rurik's pathetic face every time Aria and I walked by, with our brood of children trailing behind us.

I couldn't wait to meet him.

I had no idea how things were going to play out in the next couple of days, before I had to return to California, but I needed Aria to want to come back with me. It probably had not been wise to immediately threaten to fuck her in a random alley... My game was clearly off; it had been too long since I'd been around her, and my self-control was precariously thin.

I was already failing miserably at the original plan to draw her to me in a way that would make me look like I had only the purest of intentions, and I was going to need to do some damage control when I met her at Daniel's preschool. I'd played the nice guy before. Briefly. But I could do it again.

Or I'd have to make Rurik look like a worse option than me, somehow.

I was about to pull up to Daniel's school to wait for Aria to arrive when Lara called. "Good afternoon, Mr. DeSantos. Are you in your hotel room?" She asked, sounding anxious as usual. She knew how important this emergency trip was, and that her failure to do something about Rurik sooner was the reason for it.

"No, I actually haven't even checked in. I...paid a visit......to Aria. At her job." That was surprisingly difficult to admit. Lara sighed heavily, and I knew exactly what that sound meant: she was disappointed in me. I was not used to being a disappointment, and I didn't care for it.

"Sir," she practically groaned, "We had a plan! What did you say to her? Were you at least cordial?" I was thankful she couldn't see me because she'd be able to tell I was actually blushing a little. I knew I'd fucked up the "let her come to me" plan big time, and now we needed to strategize.

"Lara, I went off script a little, ok? Probably fucked up the plans a bit, but I'm at Daniel's school now. I plan to be polite and respectful. I'll be nice. And don't fucking sigh at me like I'm a wayward fucking child. I haven't seen my wife in 3 years, and I've never met our child. I'm a little pissed at the way things went down between us." I could hear her sighing softly, as if she wanted to convey that she was still annoyed, but she knew I was about to lose my shit.

"Ok," she said finally. "I have a new plan... Be nice. Don't even introduce yourself as Daniel's father yet. Keep a respectable distance, and ask Aria if you can approach him. Whatever she says, do it. And you have to apologize for whatever you said earlier. She's probably terrified." She sighed again, but I chose to ignore it this time.

"You want her to start to trust you. You can't extradite her from Iceland, and a few other countries. So unless you just want her to keep moving around to countries that won't extradite her, or you want to risk your corporation that you've been working so hard to get control of again, she needs to come back. You have to be good to her for her to want to come back." I rolled my eyes but nodded, even though she couldn't see me.

I figured making passionate love to my wife as much as possible, frequently telling her she was beautiful, not ever making her cook or lift a finger, buying her designer clothes and purses, and taking her on expensive trips was being good to her. But I guess I needed to fucking coddle her now, and make her believe she was allowed to make decisions.