Second Chance

Mercy Textile Industries

Third person:

"Is everything ready?" Mrs Donavon asked looking at the house.

It was Mercy's birthday today and the entire Donavon family decided to give her a surprise party. Mercy hates doing anything big on her birthday. She instead liked celebrating the day she was adopted by her family. So they could only do little things. Though it was called a surprise party, it was a mere get together of Donavon and Montero families with some gifts for Mercy. Except the two kids who were already asleep as no one would let them stay awake this late. They would give their gifts in the morning.

"Settle down everyone. When is Mercy arriving?" Thomas Donavon asked.

"Her friends said that she'll be left the club half an hour ago. There's a chauffeur with her. Most probably she'll reach any minute." Brandon Donavon replied.

Just as he said that, the sound of car break was heard outside. Ralf quickly switched off the lights and waited for Mercy to enter to surprise her.

As soon as Mercy entered the house she sensed something was wrong. One, because she had great instincts and two because her house had motion detector lights. As soon as someone entered a room, the lights would switch on automatically without reaching for the switch. Since it didn't, it meant someone switched off the lights intentionally. Everything was fine outside and the guards were all on duty so no robber would have entered.

Mercy sighed as she understood what was going on now. "I told you guys I like celebrating the day of adoption as my birthday instead of today. What was the need for all this?"

Ralf switched on the lights and glared at Mercy while others looked disappointed. "Woman, why is it so tough to surprise you?" Cindy said irritated.

"Because I'm smart." Mercy said with mock arrogance and everyone chuckled at her cuteness.

"Happy birthday Mercy." They greeted.

"Thanks guys." She replied smiling and sat at the head seat left for her. In front was a huge cake with a single candle. "What am I? One?"

"Well, we thought putting twenty two candles would be a waste of the cake so we let it be only one." Mrs Donavon said.

"Alright then, happy birthday to me." Mercy said in a sing song voice and blew the candle before cutting it and feeding each one at the table.

When it was Luke's turn, before he could stop himself, his teeth already bit Mercy's fingers lightly and his tongue lightly touched her fingers as well. Mercy turned scarlet and pushed the entire huge piece into his mouth quickly before retreating her hand which resulted into Luke's entire jaw being filled with the cream on the cake.

She glared at Luke before saying a little sorry. Mercy didn't know why but such accidents were happening too much these days. When they travel together in the car, a slight twist of the car would send his body flying on her. When they played with the kids, more often than not, he would touch her lightly in places that made her squirm. On top of that, no matter how much she tried to ignore, she could still feel his heated eyes on her. On top of that, his always gentlemanly ways with her, his complete and unconditional support on no matter what she did, made her attempts to not having any romantic feelings for him a complete failure.

She took a deep breath and tried to forget about it. Which was easier said than done.

In return of the glare, Luke smirked. Four years of intense stalking made him see through Mercy's reaction quite properly and her nervousness and awkwardness satisfied him immensely, far more than what was necessary and what was willing to accept. Mercy is his wife anyways and was beauty too. If he did not have sexual desire for this woman, he had to doubt his sexual orientation altogether.

No one noticed their little interaction. Or to be more specific, everyone pretended not to see their little flirting. Mercy and Luke might not be aware, but the romantic tension between them was thick enough that even a blind person could tell there was something going on between them. They thought they hid their feelings well but in reality, everyone was aware of their feelings for each other. Of course the only exception was they themselves.

Their family just gave them space to realise their feelings on their own. Unexpectedly, it took four years and their chemistry increased but they remained ridiculously unaware of their own feelings.

"Let's start with the gifts." Mr Montero said coldly, a little irritated. He didn't understand why his grandson and granddaughter-in-law, who were outstanding usually were acting so dumb now.

"Yeah, let's." Thomas Donavon said, sharing the same resentment as his old friend.

Mercy started focusing on gifts to forget about the predatory eyes that was looking at her with a little too much of passion. She smiled as she thanked everyone present for their gifts. Mercy Donavon never lacked anything. So the price of the gifts truly didn't matter. What really mattered was their thoughtfulness.

The last one left was Thomas. Mercy squinted her eyes on the old man when she only saw a file in his hands. "I swear to god old man, if you give me another project as a birthday gift, I'll scream." She threatened. Everyone looked at him displeased. Especially Mrs Donavon and Luke.

Mercy already had to work her ass off with the number of projects she had to oversee. If another one is added, she'll probably go nuts.

"It's not a new project." Thomas said extending the file towards Mercy as everyone sighed in relief. "It's a new company I bought." He said shocking everyone. "It used to be a well reputed textile company and was about to make it big until fourteen years ago. When it's chairman died in an accident and another person took over. It has been going in losses ever since. I bought it right before it went bankrupt. That being said, it will need a lot of work before it can become profitable again let alone return to its former glory."

"I swear old man, no one has ever tortured me more than you...." Mercy shut up abruptly when she saw the name of the company.

"What?" Brandon Donavon said taking a look at the file. "Mercy Textile Industries. Wow, it's like it was made for you love. Don't worry, most of your projects are already over. We'll help you take care of everything that's not. You focus on this new company. I'm sure you'll bring it to the top again."

"Yes Mercy. We'll help you. We're not as heartless." Mrs Donavon said intentionally jibing on Thomas. She was a straightforward woman. If she didn't like anything, she said it out loud. If you can deal with it, well and good. If not you can go to hell.

People were all busy talking about the new company. While Mr Montero was quite surprised.  Buying this company which was about to go bankrupt was absolute foolishness. It would be easier to start another company. On top of that, Donavons already had a subsidiary textile company. He didn't understand why his friend made a deal which was a total loss.

No one except Thomas and Luke noticed Mercy's unusually quite and distracted behaviour ever since she saw the name of the company.