Dear Mr Billionaire

Chapter 15

"Wow, this place is huge." Blake exclaimed as they entered the city gates.

"Yeah, it's about 180 acres and has over 9,000 rooms." Emily replied examining the pictures she took on her phone. She had wanted to visit the Forbidden City since they studied it in highschool, it was one of the reason she took Chinese as her language elective all those years ago.

"Ok. The chances are we won't see the whole thing, anything specific you want to see, or are we just going to wander around?" Blake asked a bit overwhelmed by size of the Palace.

"Palace museum, then we can wander. Actually. Museum, dragon wall, then we can roam." Emily replied taking his hand and leading him deeper into the city.

Four hours, a museum and countless rooms later Blake was ready to go home, after making a mental note to add cardio to his bi weekly gym visits.

"My feet are killing me, can we take a break?" Blake asked sitting on a bench. He was carrying bags full of souvenirs Emily insisted she needed to buy making his arms just as tired as his feet. Maybe extra weights would be beneficial as well. Was it possible to do weights while on the treadmill?

The trip so far had consisted of Emily, the one woman tour guide and translator, giving him history and random facts about the Palace. He had learned only the God could set foot in 10 thousand rooms, so the Emperor had 9,999 and a half rooms built. He didn't try to point out that the half was technically still a room, as Emily had given him a threatening look when he asked why they felt the need to put 10 statues in one room earlier on the tour. The thought of having stone faces watching his every move seemed strange and made him uncomfortable.

" But we still need to make our way to the Dragon wall." Emily pouted standing in front of him. One look at her and he knew he had lost.

"Remind me never to give Dall that look, after having you use it on me I feel bad for her." With a sigh he stood up from his resting spot and made his way to the wall. According to the map it was outside the city, and if they left now maybe he could convince Emily to go back to the hotel right after.

"Yay! We can see the wall and then get dinner. I promise not to feed you anything weird this time." She promised jogging next to him.

"What are we eating?"

"Pork?"

"Pork? Do you even know what this is?" Blake asked setting his fork down and staring at the girl sitting across from him.

"It's barbecue pork, with sticky rice. It's really good here try it." She help up her chopsticks for him to try. Blake had no choice but to trust her, leaning across the table he took her offering. His eyes widen in amazement, the food looked more questionable than last time, but it was also a lot better. Authentic, Emily had said.

"Told ya it was good." Emily laughed taking a piece for herself.

" So, what made you want to learn Chinese?" Blake asked trying to make some small talk with his dinner date. Not a date, he reminded himself, just dinner with my coworker.

"Well, we did a whole semester of it in history class, that might have been part of the reason." Emily answered taking a sip from her drink.

"And the rest of the reason?" Blake didn't miss that she only said part of the reason and was curious to know more about the girl he had spent a week with.

"Ethan and Claire." She replied stuffing food in her mouth. Blake was curious to know just how much influence her friends and family had on her.

"Did they know you were interested and too shy, or did they bully you into learning a new language?" Emily tilted her head to the side, thinking about the question. The act however made Blake smile, she looked adorable like a puppy trying to figure out its next move.

"Both, I think?" He looked up at her, eyebrow raised in question. "Ok, fine, I am extremely competitive and when they took a language the we all tried to outdo each other. Ethan is lazy so he took Spanish, Claire wanted to be better so she took French and then I took Chinese."

Blake laughed, it sounded like something a group of friends would do, curious to learn more about his not date. "You guys sound like you had a lot of fun growing up." He pointed out.

Emily nodded " We used to go on strange family trips because my Mom is an animal behaviourist. There was this one year, we spent all summer camping because she needed to gather data on some specific type of bird or something. I'm telling you it was horrible. Living in a tent for three months and then it was hot. Like hot and humid, and my hair. Have you seen my hair in the humidity? Like its already a mess but this was something else. And Ethan has all these pictures of me with leaves and twigs sticking out of it, he tried putting those in the high school yearbook"

Blake took in the story, he saw the way Emily's eyes light up when she retold her family vacation. The hazel eyes lighting up with excitement made him smile, and wish he had not been an only child to a struggling single mother.

"Well if it makes you feel better," he began, "my mom couldn't afford school trips, so I got a job in the cafeteria. Well it wasn't a job, i would 'volunteer' during lunch and in return i would get left overs and the school used to sell these homemade cookies. Anyways I would take the cookies and sell them to the kids in my next class." Blake admitted, a red blush tinted his cheeks at the admission, making Emily smile.

"So Kenny gets his drive from his dad?" She teased making Blake laugh.

"Yes, my son gets all his drive from me, even though he is not related to me and is only considered my son when he wants money. But I will take the compliment" They spent the rest of the meal laughing and sharing memories, before heading back to the hotel and stopping at the gift shop one last time.

"Mr Redford! We have great news for you sir." The same man that had assisted with their check in a week earlier rushed over to were Blake and Emily stood waiting for an elevator.

"It's Redwood." Blake corrected slightly annoyed someone would mistake his last name. Emily rolled her eyes and turned to the boy with a smile on her face and wondered why he hadn't just spoken english to Blake the day they checked in .

"Sorry, sir. We have a new room open for you and the missus. We are sorry you had to spend honeymoon in a small room." The boy said excitedly taking a small bow, he handed Blake a new room key and ran back to the front desk before either one could protest.

"Missus? Really? Do I look like the kind of person who would agree to marry you?" Emily asked with a smirk, Blake said nothing as they got on the elevator, once in their room he picked up their already packed bags and made his way to the new room. His silence had Emily questioning if she had said the wrong thing. Wanting to apologize she waited until they reached their new room to say something.

As the door closed and she opened her mouth to say something, only Blake was one step ahead of her. He trapped her against the door, arms blocking her only escape.

"I think we both know the answer to your question." With those as his final words he headed to the door she assumed was the bathroom.

She didn't miss the wink he gave her as he closed the door. Her face turning red and she wondered what had just happened.

~~~~~•~~~~~•~~~~~•~~~~~•

And that's the end of the China trip.

I'm not sure what happened there at the end. It's completely different than what I had planned. Ohh well.

I'm going to hide now.

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