From Deadbeat To Doting; Something Is Wrong With My Husband!-Chapter 52: [I missed you.]

To the following VIPs; Thank you Lara12, darling. I really appreciate the constant support and your gifts. I’m giving you shout-out for being amazing!

And to Southernburn! Omg, thank you so much. You’re such a sweetheart.

...

But she could find anything since his gaze was like a frozen lake; expressionless, distant, and utterly cold.

Lucian, however, wasn’t thinking about any of that. He was looking at the way her collarbones protruded more than they had ten days ago. She looked thinner. Paler even.

The week in the hotel had clearly taken a toll on her, and the sight made an unfamiliar knot of irritation tighten in his chest. Hence, the frown.

"I... I thought you were having dinner downstairs," Brianna managed to say, her voice sounding small in the vast hallway.

"That’s Lucifur. He’s developed a taste for the Wagyu. He doesn’t like to be disturbed."

"Ah." Brianna narrowed her eyes awkwardly.

The silence stretched between them. She felt ridiculous, pinned under his indifferent stare while her mind was screaming about the "Monster" she had fled.

Moreover, Lucian didn’t look awkward. He didn’t even look interested. When he noticed the conversation had ended, he simply stepped to the side, letting his shoulder brush hers with a chilling nonchalance as he walked past her toward the master suite.

Brianna could only stare at the back of his head. The relief was quickly replaced by a hot flash of annoyance.

"Tsk."

’He is already back to being a robotic jerk.’

Bringing out her phone from her pockets, her thumbs flew across the screen as she typed a message to the housekeeper.

[Why didn’t you tell me it was just the cat downstairs? I just walked right into the person I’m trying to avoid. Thank you. Is he actually better or just acting? Did you notice any suspicious attitude from him?]

She pressed Send with a tap of her finger.

Bzzz. Bzzz.

The notification sound was not from downstairs or from her own pocket.

Following the sound, her eyes found Lucian’s palm immediately.

Upon being exposed, Lucian paused mid-stride. Though he didn’t turn around, he slowly lifted the device in his hand–a rose-pink phone that Brianna didn’t recognize as his.

Could that be Annie’s phone?

Over the last ten days, "Annie’s" messages had shifted from professional updates to something that made her raise her brows constantly.

The questions had become a relentless interrogation:

"It’s been so long. When are you coming back?"

"Why did you leave so suddenly and quickly? Did your President Lucian do anything wrong?"

"Are you eating well? You must eat. You looked so thin when you left."

At the time, Brianna had chalked it up to Annie being a gossip or the overprotective housekeeper over the phone. She had answered vaguely, keeping her "cover" at the condominium. But now, seeing the rose-pink phone in Lucian’s hand... the truth was right before her. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

The "Annie" who was so worried about her appetite? That was Lucian.

The "Annie" asking if the President had "done anything wrong"? That was Lucian, mocking her, or perhaps, testing to see if she would vent her frustrations to a servant.

"You’ve been very chatty with the staff," being caught, Lucian remarked smoothly as he looked down at the notification she had just sent.

Brianna felt a wave of disbelief. She realized that while she was sitting in that lonely room, thinking she was "safe," she was actually pouring her status updates directly into the hands of the man she was running from. He hadn’t just been recovering; he had been stalking her through a five-inch screen.

"I didn’t realize Annie was so interested in my diet."

Lucian finally looked up from the screen. The reflection of light from the phone’s screen made his eyes look like dark voids.

"For a good course. Annie is a very... thorough employee. And she has been cooperative too. She knows that if the wife of the house falls ill, it’s her head on the line."

Moving closer, "But then again, some questions are better answered in person. Don’t you think?"

He held the phone out to her, and she saw the last message he had typed but hadn’t sent yet under Annie’s name: [I missed you.]

Brianna’s heart did a traitorous skip as she stared at the unsent text. [I missed you.] was a startling shift from the cold man standing before her.

What was she supposed to say back? Did he really mean that or was he messing with her again?

She quickly regained her composure. As a psychologist, she knew better than to trust the impulses of a brain still recovering from trauma.

Her voice dropped into a steady and detached tone, avoiding meeting his eyes all together. "You should probably return that to Annie. And perhaps get some rest."

Aware of her avoidance, Lucian didn’t look offended, though he reached out and took the phone back. Casually swiping to delete the draft because his wife had made the words seem like nothing more than a typo in a legal brief.

"I’ll do that once I take care of some things. It’s late, you should get some rest."

He turned and walked away toward his study without a backward glance.

Brianna headed towards her room too, falling onto her bed.

The next morning, Brianna hurried downstairs, her hair still slightly damp from the shower. She had woken up a bit later than usual, which was because Rochelle refused to come over like she used to.

Walking into the dining room, she was expecting to find the usual cold and empty expanse of the table. Instead, the scene was bizarrely domestic.

Bzzz. Bzzz.

[Mrs. Colburn, I may not be able to meet you at work. I caught a cold. But I found a temporary replacement for you while I’m unavailable. I sent him your address and he might be over in a while. Please don’t fire me.]

Brianna found Rochelle a bit too dramatic; it wasn’t like she was just going to fire her. Though she had always threatened her in the early years of her job, she’d fire her.

Looking back at how close they are now, she could only smile.

But the smile didn’t last when she found Lucian sitting at the dining table, scrolling through his tablet. He didn’t look up when she entered. But rather... annoyed. His jaw was set, and his eyes were narrowed at the center of the table.

Brianna sat across from him, reaching for a piece of dry toast. She didn’t have an appetite, but she needed the fuel. As she reached for the silver sugar bowl to sweeten her tea, she left the lid skewed, making a few white grains spill onto the dark wood.

The sound of Lucian’s tablet hitting the table was loud!

He stared at the open sugar bowl as if it were a crime scene. A vein in his temple throbbed. Looking at the lid, his eyes found Brianna with an expression of silent judgment. Her "messiness" was perceived as a personal insult to his recovery.

"The lid, wife," it sounded like a warning. "Close it."

Brianna didn’t say anything, she brought her tea cup to her lips, slurping the deliciousness.

"You seem to really be enjoying your tea. You know, most people manage to drink without making it a sound effect."

Brianna set the cup down, unbothered. "It’s a hot beverage. Physics requires a bit of air."

Lucian looked at the skewed sugar lid, then back at her. He looked less like a petty male and more like a man who was fighting a very specific type of morning headache.

"Physics or not, try to keep the acoustics to a minimum. If you start treating the dinner table like a foley studio, I might have to start charging you for the emotional labor of listening to it. Close the sugar. Please. And don’t do it the unusual way you do it. Try to tighten the lid this time."

Unusual way?

She looked to her left. Sitting in the high-backed velvet chair next to her; perfectly upright, paws tucked neatly under its chest, was Lucifur.

The cat wasn’t on the floor. It wasn’t begging. It was seated at the table as if it held a seat on the Board of Directors. It was even staring at the sugar bowl with the same judgmental squint as its master.

"You’re annoyed by a sugar lid but the fact that there is a predator sitting on a five-thousand-dollar chair at the breakfast table is... normal?"

Lucian didn’t even glance at the cat.

"Lucifur has manners," Lucian replied coldly, finally reaching over and snapping the lid of the sugar bowl shut with a decisive clink. "He understands the concept of closure. Unlike some people."

He finally looked at her, his eyes tracing the pale hollows of her cheeks. He looked annoyed that she was barely eating, annoyed that she was leaving for work, and annoyed that his perfectionist personality was coming off as grumpy.