Sleeping With The CEO-Chapter 319: Heart Overload

When it came to feelings, the human heart could take a lot. Happiness, sadness, rage, heartbreak, disappointment, and unimaginable joy. Whatever emotion was thrown at it, the heart could take it.

But like with everything else in the world, even it, had its limits.

Too many emotions felt all at once. Or if one particular emotion exceeded the limit. Like maybe feeling too much sadness, or too much happiness. Then the heart just couldn’t take it, and sometimes it would just stop, and that would be it, a life over just like that.

Derek did not like to think on such things. But he was pretty certain that that had been the route that he was heading.

His heart had been working at maximum capacity for weeks. People might say heartbreak, like it was something that just happened all at once.

Like a bone snapping in half in a single instant. But the difference between bones breaking, and a heart breaking was that a heartbreak happened over and over. And it was a slow, painful thing that never seemed to go away.

Making it hard to breathe, to think, to do anything productive, and Derek had been enduring it for weeks. He had been so glad when he and Emily had reconnected that he’d instantly felt all of those symptoms disappear as though banished by magic.

But even with the joy of having his Emily back.

Another emotion had soon enveloped his heart, amplifying the closer they had gotten to Haven manor.

Worry.

Derek had been worried that the love of his life, and his mother would not get along. That thanks to his mother, crossing the line so monumentally.

Their relationship would always be one of oil and water. The two of them unable to get along no matter what.

When they had finally met up again after their disastrous first meeting. Derek had been half expecting for a catfight to break out on sight. A thought that had nearly given him premature grey hairs. He had wondered whose side he would be on if such a scenario were to occur.

Would he be backing Emily through it all, or would he be protecting his mother from harm? But most likely he had realised that he would have been in the uncomfortable position of standing in the middle while the two of them tried to claw at each other, and hurt him in the process.

Derek had looked into the future, and seen himself stuck in an eternal tug of war between his mother and Emily. He knew people where that was the case. A man who loved his mother, and also loved his wife... but the two women detested each other.

The poor guy living under constant stress, not knowing what to do, or say whenever the two of them were under the same roof. And for a while that had seemed as though it was going to be Derek’s reality. His mother and Emily had not addressed the issue right away.

Instead they had gotten to talking like they were old friends. Leaving Derek to stare at them incredulously. Unable to believe what he was witnessing. His shock at listening to his mother and Emily talk about opera, like they met up every other weekend to discuss the subject had kept him quiet.

To an outsider it might have seemed like just a regular conversation. But there had been something about it, that had been so heavy that it had instantly made Derek wary of interfering. Their smiles had been too sharp, their words soft to the point of sounding like hisses.

So he had kept his mouth shut, and focused on his meal. Throwing a look at the two women every so often and staying out of it. In the end his choice of silence had proven to be a good one.

Without his prompting, his mother had come right out with it and apologized again.

Not trying to make excuses for herself, just coming out with the facts and begging Emily to forgive her.

To Derek’s eternal relief, Emily had chosen not to drag the issue. She had simply stated her own terms and conditions, which all boiled down to... do not do it again. And just like that the whole thing was water under the bridge.

There had been no holding back the sigh of relief that had escaped Derek when their truce had been reached.

He had finally been able to dig into the blueberry muffins with gusto. Chiming in from time to time as Emily and his mother talked.

The two of them getting to know each other in earnest. All of the fake cheerfulness of their earlier conversation completely gone.

Now they spoke of his mother’s love for baking, and Emily’s gift for embroidery. The two of them talking about how their respective hobbies helped them to express themselves. The conversation sounding way more authentic than the one that they’d had about opera.

It was nice, but Derek could not help but feel as though it would be even nicer, if one more thing was handled.

But it seemed that he was not the only one who was having that thought because Emily spoke up before Derek.

"Mrs Haven, getting to talk to you has been great. But it would be dishonest of me to claim that all of our issues have been resolved in just this one afternoon. There is still one more thing that needs to be addressed," Emily said, and Derek’s mother lifted a brow, silently urging her to go on.

Emily complied easily enough. "When you set your plan in motion, I was not the only one who was hurt by the deception. My mother had to witness me fall apart, and I know for a fact that that hurt her," Derek watched as his mother’s eyes widened in understanding. The tips of her ears turning red as shame set in.

"You have apologized to me, and I am grateful for that. But I believe that things would be even better. If you also apologized to my mother as well,"

His mother was silent for a few seconds, but then she nodded at Emily. "You are absolutely right. Let me grab my coat and we can go," She said.

Once his mother left the room, Derek leaned over and planted a kiss firmly on Emily’s lips.

"What was that for?" She asked, and he shrugged.

"Just a thank you for being yourself," He told her, leaning in for another kiss.

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