Married to my Suspect

JONATHAN'S POV

I turned to the familiar voice and stood up, a pleased smile crossing my face. I started towards her but remembered my secretary.

"We'll talk about this later. Be available for dinner today. I'll pick you up." I told Danielle.

"There's no need. I'll come and meet you there."

I narrowed my eyes. "We're getting married in a month tops. I'll come and pick you up." I remarked to her protest."

She crossed her arms, not the only sign she didn't appreciate my high-handedness. Her tense figure could snap with how stiff she had become. "But you don't know where I stay." She protested again and I smiled.

"This isn't the nineteenth century. Your address is on the application you filled. I'll call you when I'm done." I dismissed her and with a huff, she left the office, greeting the woman I'd thought I wouldn't be able to see again.

A smile lifted her face and she started towards me. "My boy." She said and hugged me tightly.

"Mrs. Brighton." I hugged her just as tight.

She pulled back and frowned at me, a playful glint in her eyes. "Lorraine. Not Mrs. Brighton."

I laughed as she pulled me in a hug again. "Alright ma'am."

She pulled back and surveyed my face. "It's been a while. How have you been?" She caressed my cheek in a motherly gesture, something she had done since we had met about five years ago. "I never thought I would see your handsome face again."

I laughed and led her towards the couch. "Me too. It's good to see you again. How did you find me?"

She crossed her eyes, "Don't mind me. I just came with no prior invitation."

"And it's good that you did. It's wonderful to see you again."

She smiled and blinked fast, a sign she was trying to hide her watering eyes. "Me too. After you two graduated, I knew you would make your impact, but you even surprised me with this." She said, looking round the office. I followed her eyes, seeing what she was seeing. The expanse of the office, the presence of the obviously expensive table, couch, things I couldn't really dream of when I was in college.

"I know right." I commented, and her eyes rested on me.

"Are you alright? I heard the news. You two were so close." Her eyes started watering again, and I dragged a tissue to her, which she used to blow her nose. "Sorry." She apologized and I shook my head.

"I'm fine. It's been years now."

She studied me silently. "Did I tell you this? The first time, you boys came to see me regarding your assignment and wanting to take extra curriculums so you could finish earlier. I was very nervous, I could barely keep my train of thought."

I thought back to those days at college. While I'd been a very studious student, knowing what I wanted in life, Ethan and I knew education wasn't really our end goal. This company had been our goal right from high school, but his parents hadn't supported the idea of both of us venturing into business with our little to no experience so we'd agreed to take business courses and try our best to finish early as they weren't also in support of us doing business while we were still at school.

"All the professors then were always whispering about how good both of you were, but the fact that you weren't interested in talking with anybody, and you only kept Ethan close, made you a force that couldn't be reckoned with, kind of."

I nodded, agreeing with her. I hated company for the most part and college wasn't exactly a place people could thrive on their own, but being in the school we were had taught us we had only each other to rely on. It was more like a world of competition where people didn't mind eating other people to keep their place at the top.

"I didn't think you were nervous. You looked so collected even as we told you our ridiculous requests." 

She laughed. "That was only an external front, and that was because I also had Margaret to contend with. Young adults are terrifying when they set their minds on something, especially something the university doesn't agree with or support." She mock shuddered, and I smiled, remembering her daughter. Margaret was one of the few people I could say I was scared of as well. She had a way of seeing through people and making people do what she wanted, not at all in a manipulative manner. I just didn't know how she did it.

"How is she doing now?" I asked. When I had graduated, she had still been studying law. But that was after changing her major from journalism and initially from economics. Like I said, things always went the way she wanted, regardless of how illogical.

"Oh, she's fine. She now owns a bookshop where she manages a café and a children's park near it. This could be what she'll do, as she has stuck with it for almost a year now, or she might discover something else she wants to do. You never can tell with her, but one thing that has stuck is her love for you. She wants to know what your plan is."

I shook my head. "I rejected it." She had made a deal when I had graduated that if I wasn't married at twenty-five, she would have no choice but to marry me, and while marriage to her wouldn't necessarily be a terrible thing, I felt nothing for her and didn't consider it right to do that to her. I respected her and her mother way too much for that."

She sighed. "Well, I'll have to let her know. You should thank me, though; she almost insisted on coming with me." She mock shuddered again, making me laugh. Your company would have been on fire now.

I nodded, and we fell into a comfortable silence.

I stood up and offered my arm. "Let me show you around the company." Mrs. Brighton, my best and most knowledgeable professor, was one of the main people that had impacted both my life and Ethan's, and to a large extent, we owed the success of the company to her. She had been one of the few people that had believed in us and backed us up when we had almost gotten in trouble with the school before she had gone abroad for a sabbatical leave, a few months before we had graduated.

"It would have been nice if Ethan had been here as well." She whispered and rubbed her eyes. "I'm so sorry I keep on bringing him up. It's just..." She sniffed. "... I think he would have really felt at home here. This was a big dream for both of you."

I nodded. "Yeah. He would have."

She looked at me. "I heard the news at the last reunion we had. It's such a pity, what happened. He was such a bright boy and full of joy. Always lighting up every room he walked into."

Unlike me, I didn't say that out. Which was why it made absolutely no sense. How would a bright boy like that choose and decide to take his own life? Right at the pinnacle of the success of his company. The day before the company's one-year anniversary, a day we'd planned and prepared for months. I wasn't believing that nonsense, and I was determined to find out the truth.

She hugged me, and I hugged her tightly, trying to take her comfort. "But it's okay. I just came to see for myself that you really were doing well. It's been years, and I've been wondering."

I released her. "Thank you so much. It's so good to see you again. Hopefully, in a few years, I'll be able to see you at Margaret's wedding. Unfortunately, not as the groom." She winked, and I laughed.

"Unfortunately not. I'm getting married. Very soon."

Her jaws dropped. "What? That's great news. I thought you were never going to."

I nodded. "That's what I used to say, but I recently reconnected with an old flame in college, and we decided not to waste any time again. I'll invite you to the wedding, if we have one." I felt bad about lying to her, but the goal of the wedding was to make everyone believe the news. I couldn't leave any stone unturned, including my former course mates.

She started clapping. "Wow. That's great news. Make sure you invite me to the wedding; I would love to see the woman that captured your heart that was so closed to my Margaret."

DANIELLE'S POV

I opened the door to my childhood room, breathing in the smell of dirt and dust. It had been a while since I had come home, and, as per my mother's normal behavior, she hardly entered my room. It was a wonder she had been able to live in the house where my father had been murdered. I couldn't do it again even if I was threatened to. I looked at the bed, the place that had always been plagued with nightmares since that very night, each one worse and more graphic than the last, all involving my father being murdered while I hid and watched like a coward.

I turned at the sound of footsteps and fell into my mother's arms. "Mum."