Dangerous Desire The CEO’s Hidden Woman

Francis and Scarlett stood in a tearful embrace. The heat between them was unmistakable. Francis was the one who broke the silence.

He said, “If you stayed here, Scarlett, I knew that you would be like a fledgling sparrow trapped in a cage forever. I didn’t understand this properly before, but I think it would have been much better for me to just focus on giving you a wonderful life without any worries… I kept trying to shield you from every possible danger, but that’s not realistic. The world is full of wonders, and life is only beautiful because of the moments of risk and danger that come enfolded within it… I have to let you live your life to the fullest. On your own terms.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“I just want you to be you.” he smiled slightly and continued, “In my eyes, you are different from other women. If I force you to be with me and be a stay-at-home mother, I know you won’t be happy. And I don’t want to see that happen.”

Scarlett looked up at him, and suddenly at this moment, she didn’t want to get a divorce.

“I want to give you freedom. I want you to go out and take risks if that’s what’s going to make you happy. If you fail and regret your choices, you still can come back home, and you’ll always have our son and me.”

Scarlett put her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest. She realized, all over again, what a great man she once married.

Francis brushed her hair affectionately. Scarlett looked up at him and giggled, “Francis, I think we can have the divorce now!” She was relentless­– no matter what the situation was, she would find some way to poke fun and tease Francis.

Francis held her face and bent down to rest a kiss on her forehead, and said smilingly, “Scarlett Morris, I will wait for you to marry you again.”

Everyone thinks that the secret to a successful marriage is to lower your expectations of the other. If you lowered your expectations, you were bound to remain pleased with however things turned out. If you were lucky, your spouse might go above and beyond. The perfect couple in the world still went through many fights in their marriage, but they had enough joy, trust, and good faith between them that the marriage survived the worst trials.

Scarlett and Francis made a clever pair. They chose to break up not because they didn’t love each other but because they loved too much and too deeply. In their opinion, being together reluctantly would destroy the love they had for each other, so they chose to break up and take some space and time for themselves as individuals. After they endured life, if they still thought the other was the best match, they would take the plunge and decide to get married all over again.

Perhaps others would think they were very stupid, but Francis knew what he was doing was the right way forward. Scarlett was still very young, and she was entitled to her own set of wild dreams. He couldn’t ask her to give up everything for him and Carlos. Francis had spent more than ten years in creating his own business empire, after all, so how could he not understand and support Scarlett’s ambitions?

Let love happen naturally, and give each other the freedom to fly through the sky– that was what they believed to be true, and how they chose to love each other.

After their meaningful exchange, Scarlett and Francis decided they should probably head downstairs. The guests had been waiting for a while now for the celebrations to commence.

Although the huge hall was full of people, there was pin-drop silence. People downstairs had caught wind that a very important conversation was occurring upstairs, so they had all grown quiet. There were only scattered titterings and the sound of glasses clinking every now and then.

Once they reached the bottom of the staircase, the spotlight fell right on the stunning couple. Francis took Scarlett’s hand, kissed it gently, and then twirled her around with a flourish. With that, the birthday party for Carlos had finally begun. This time, on the right note.

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Carlos had a great time at the party. He was the center of attention, and because of his exceedingly cute looks, he was popular amongst guests who wanted to have the chance to hold him for a few seconds.

Taking advantage of being his cousin, Stella finally got the opportunity to cradle Carlos. She carried him off to the next room, showing off how happy he was in her arms to all of her friends.

Seeing the success of the party, Scarlett breathed a sigh of relief. After all the stress and drama of the day, she was glad to see that everything was going smoothly.

“Look at yourself, you are so lame.” Chuck teased her.

“Well, I’m not very comfortable dealing with this kind of situation. My face is so stiff! My mouth hurts from all this smiling, Chuck.”

Chuck gave her a glass of champagne and had a drink with her.

“I learned that you want to go to France as an exchange student. Is that true?” Chuck asked.

When Scarlett heard that she coughed in surprise, “Wait, what? How do you even know about that? Who told you? Where did you hear that?”

She had just submitted her application a few days ago, so she had no idea how Chuck could have found out about her plans. She didn’t recall having spoken to many people about it.

Chuck replied, “A few days ago, my uncle and I had a meal with some of your professors at school. They happened to mention that you had submitted a stellar application to go study abroad. They said they have no choice but to let you go, even though they were hoping that you would pursue some research opportunities at the UI itself.”

With the glass in her hand, Scarlett spotted Francis about ten meters away. He was, as usual, standing right in the center of the crowd and rattling off one of his grand tales.

“Oh, I see…” Now she had more context to understand why Francis had been so moved to propose to her earlier that day. Everything made so much more sense now.