Painting Paper Hearts | ✔

Chapter 13- Let the Fake Relationship Begin

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I was already convinced that Marcus's pad was a work of an architectural and design genius.

Not only did he accomplish to make a small space look, well, spacious than it should be, he even had an upper level where it led to a dedicated balcony; the lake in a perfect, sky-high view and the skyscrapers of the city stood tall and proud beside the penthouse building.

The sight from the twenty-seventh floor would easily make a skeptic small town girl like me to move to this superb city. This was, by far, my favorite part of his penthouse.

We sat here all day. We must've enjoyed each other's company that we just noticed that we had consumed the whole afternoon talking about the most random things.

I'd normally call this type of day a waste of time, but Marcus would rather call it one of his rare moments that he'd gladly treasure nowadays.

According to him, he seldom spent his nights in his own abode as he was always occupied by a pile of paper work and endless meetings— he even had a week where he jumped back and forth, country to country, just to meet his business partners, stakeholders, attend charity gatherings, appear to interviews and press cons, magazine photo-shoot, book signing, and public speaking.

It was actually pretty shocking when he intentionally handed over his agenda book from his demi-office. The whole year was already planned out! It was even more mind-boggling that he was so known around the world, yet I never seen his face before.

I must be too pre-occupied by stressing myself with school projects. After all, university cost too much money. Both Nana and Mom were supporting my education; I didn't want to disappoint them by failing a class or even dare dropping a class. I always gave it my best shot.

"You're the CEO, you're the boss. You can take a leave whenever you want, right?" I asked him. But his honest response was even though he had a fancy title attached next to his name, that title only added to the weight he had to endure.

Although he had the prestige label at such early stage in his life, it was rather a curse than a blessing he once said.

I couldn't quite grasp his complaints about his sumptuous lifestyle at first because truth be told, being born into a ludicrously rich family sound much uncomplicated especially for someone like me. No laundry to be done, no dishes to be washed— all he had to worry about was how and where to spend his money!

Or so I thought.

I couldn't hold back the pang of sympathy as he reiterated his humdrum, as he described it, of a childhood.

"I grew up in a strict environment because of our family name, so the way that my mom solved the snooty paparazzi is by putting as much bodyguards as possible, and keep us busy with extra-curricular lessons like music, horse-back riding, and even sports. Home-schooling is also an alternative, but mom figured it'll be better to go to a private school instead."

"After high school, my position as the next heir became more obvious because my dad introduced me to the corporate job as he made me work every summer as an intern in all of the departments. And it became a routine, you know. Every summer, I'll be the intern. I even had the opportunity to see the assembly line in one of the factories up north. By the time I finished college, got my MBA in management, dad retired and I took over."

"The company is responsible for over five thousand employees who work from all over the globe. They work on the front lines, Emerald. I have big decisions to make to make sure that the business is up and running in a smooth sail—also to make sure that my employees are satisfied with working under my care. I need to work ten times more than they do because without them, I wouldn't have been living such a luxurious lifestyle," was another thing he said which struck my mind the most.