The Faceless Billionaire Celebrity Wife-Chapter 33: Question and Answer Session.

Her lips parted of their own accord as soon as she felt Ethan’s lips on them, pouring in the water while using his tongue to trap the droplets of water which slid out of the sides of her mouth. After repeating the action three times, Shikera finally whispered that she was okay and Ethan dropped the glass of water. He helped her to rest back on the bed, and adjusted her duvet up to her chest before standing up from the bed to sit on the couch.

In a few minutes, her heavy breathing subsided and Ethan stood up to check on her when he saw that she had fallen asleep. He walked forward before bending over to swipe the stray hair hanging over her face to the back of her ears. This made her pale face even more visible to him and he sighed; even though her face was always pale on a normal day, today, it looked ghastly pale and her lips were parched as if she had been starved for several days.

Just then, Raymond walked in, a drinking straw in hand. Seeing that his boss’s wife was already asleep, he stopped dead in his tracks. He had had to get the drinking straw sterilized before bringing it and that was why he had been late. Was his boss angry?

Ethan could detect Raymond’s nervousness from his fidgety movements but he ignored him, instead giving him an instruction.

"Contact her team leader and request for a one week leave. If she tries to prove crazy, then educate her on the consequences of craziness."

"Yes Sir," Raymond bowed slightly, stepping out of the room excitedly. From the spy they planted at Preston TV, who had given them information on the schedule of everyone in Shikera’s team apart from the new members, Raymond could see that the team leader and Cyprian wouldn’t be around the next day. So why not postpone visiting the place to two days after when the both of them would be at work; that way, he would be able to kill two birds with one stone. He would complete the assignment given to him, and resolve Cyprian’s misunderstanding at the same time. A smile came to settle on his face as he marveled at how wise he was.

—

Shikera’s health had been restored to normalcy after two days but even when she was up and about and her doctor had pronounced her healthy enough to go back to work, Ethan refused to let her go.

"You can’t control my life! My doctor has pronounced me healthy so why are you still stopping me?!" She had argued, when her car key was forfeited from her and her movement restricted, by Ethan.

"Your doctor pronounced you healthy? Ask her who was the person who doctored you back to health and didn’t leave your side even when you looked as ghastly as a ghost!" Ethan had argued against her, shutting her up completely.

Now, Shikera could only imagine how furious her Team Leader would be at work, while thinking of which excuse she would give when the time comes for her to defend herself. An idea popped into her mind and she settled for it, since she could not find any one better than it anyway.

Meanwhile, at Preston TV, Raymond stood upright in front of Shikera’s Team Leader. Inwardly, he marveled at how many times he had come here since his Boss married Miss Anderson. He might as well start working as a reporter since his facemask was becoming a frequent image at Preston TV.

"So you are telling me Reporter Anderson was not here yesterday and you are just coming to ask for a leave now?" The woman asked in a calm manner, contrary to how Raymond thought she would have behaved. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"That’s true. We would have requested for it earlier but her absence was caused by an impromptu arrangement," Raymond explained. Seeing how she was being cooperative, he decided to give her half truths too.

Team leader Zuresh nodded, wondering what Shikera had gotten herself into that her father had to send someone to request for leave on her behalf. She excused herself from Raymond and walked to where Cyprian and the rest of her teammates were sitting.

"Anything happened on Friday? Or did you guys meet against my instructions?" She asked them, looking from one to the other until she scanned all of their faces. She found it strange why Cyprian and her old teammates were wearing guilty faces while the rest of them wore straight faces.

From that, she could detect that they had met against her instruction. She could only pray that Shikera was alright.

"Reporter Anderson won’t be coming in for the rest of this week so we will need to share her projects among ourselves. See me in the News room before you leave today, Leigh," Giving a slight nod to Raymond, she walked away from there.

Cyprian stared after her with different feelings battling themselves within her. One was worry that she did not know what state Shikera was in right now, then jealousy that Raymond was actually the contract husband arranged for Shikera since he was the one that came to request for leave on her behalf, then dread of what her Team leader would do to her once they were in that News room. From the woman’s countenance, Cyprian could tell that she knew they had disobeyed her instruction.

"Reporter Leigh," she heard a call and looked up to see it was Raymond. What was he still doing here?

Thinking that Shikera might have sent him to her, she stood up and excused herself from there. She walked out with Raymond following closely behind her, while failing to notice Erica signaling to Jaden, who stood up and followed them.

When they got to the garage, Cyprian stopped and turned to face Raymond.

"How’s Kera now? What are the symptoms she’s showing?" She asked, while watching as Raymond removed his facemask.

Raymond had expected a barrage of questions from her, seeing as she was the one who led the way here when he had expected her to ignore him, but he did not expect that all of the questions would be about Miss Anderson.

"Is that all you want to ask?" He asked her, disbelief vividly expressed on his face.

"What else do you want me to ask you? Perhaps...how is your married life? Or why do you keep restraining Kera?" She asked him back, her tone heavily laced with sarcasm.

Raymond sighed; his suspicions were true after all. The past few days had gone by with him trying to reach Cyprian, and her brothers stopping him every time. They even went to the extent of picking her up from work every day so as to restrict Raymond. And now, when he finally met her, he still needed to resolve heavy misunderstandings.

"Cyprian, can you just ask me please? Ask without concluding...just ask me anything you want except it’s related to Miss Anderson’s...or Shikera. Ask me anything apart from that?" He whispered. This was the best way to resolve misunderstandings; asking and answering. He was too dumb to go round and round trying to resolve anything so he was just going to ask her questions instead.

Cyprian, whose mouth had parted in awe, could only close them back without saying anything. After examining Raymond’s face for any sign of deceit, she asked,

"What? You prepared your answers in advance, right? And you thought this stupid Cyprian is going to fall for this like she did four years ago, right?"

"That’s why I told you to ask. I will relay my side of the story and then you judge by yourself, Cyprian. The only thing I will request is that you excuse any actions that I carried out, when I was dumb,"

"I should give him the benefit of doubt since he’s begging this much," Cyprian said inwardly, before looking up determinedly.

"Alright then, here’s my first question,"

A few metres away from there, hiding behind a black car was Jaden who sighed in frustration. He had followed these two in hopes of hearing something valuable about Liam Anderson’s daughter but who knew he signed up to a court hearing.

He was not about to listen to someone’s love story so he stood up and tiptoed away from there, in time for him not to hear Cyprian’s first question.

"Four years ago, the first day you approached me was to ask if I knew anyone who went by the name Shikera Anderson, why were you looking for her?"