The convenient marriage

Chapter 21. A sleepless night

After the first clashing of swords in the war which had the ultimate goal of surrendering of the weaker fairer party in favor of the more assertive and bolder party...

After the first fight regarding the future sleeping arrangements which had been won by Zane, Aria was bit by bit getting more dispirited because of the upcoming night, as time quickly flew by. But she had no choice other than to reign in any remaining denial words she had left.

Once Zane had brought out her behavior from the past, she had lost any arguments she wanted to add to her explanations. She was inhabiting the body of another, and she selfishly wanted the children that were about to be born.

As a result she had to accept the previous Aria's life in its entirety. If she was too reluctant or stubborn insisting on having her way, if she would not compromise... what would follow would most likely be a divorce. And with Zane's capability and power, receiving the custody of the children was as easy as snapping his fingers. Not to mention he sadly had a point... as a married couple it was reasonable to sleep on the same bed.

Moreover, he had been nothing but a gentleman so far and she did not dislike him at all. She quite liked their current lifestyle. Just like this living their life together wouldn't be too bad.

Without realizing it, Aria had lowered her bottom line in regards to how close she would be to Zane, thinking it was as far as she would go, as far as she would permit. But she was not aware, that once she lowered her bottom line once, she would be prone to lower it again, until she would have no bottom line left to lower.

'Aria, eat while it is still warm.' Zane said, when he saw that the small woman was looking dazedly at her plate filled with food, but had no inclination to start eating.

Seeing her lost in her thoughts, he could guess what she was still pondering about... it was the matter about sleeping on the same bed as him. She had been a bit dazed because of this reason throughout what had remained of the day, and she was getting more absentminded as night arrived. During the day she had still been alright... somewhat. But now she was completely out of it.

Perhaps he should have brought Pudding over from the mansion during the day, especially since Aria had asked about him. But bringing Pudding over, naturally meant bringing a maid with him also. The small dog was still not trained where he could do his needs and Aria could not look after him alone without tiring herself out.

So he had reasoned with her that, each day from Monday to Friday, a maid would come with the dog as long as he was at work, for Aria to play with him to her heart's content, but would bring him back to the mansion when his working hours ended.

It was better for the dog to have the possibility to also play outside in the garden of the mansion, a possibility the apartment couldn't offer. Believing his logical arguments, Aria agreed that the dog might not get enough fresh air in the apartment and readily complied with his arrangement.

Naturally, his real reason was that with the maid with them in the apartment he could not bond with Aria, and get along with her, reaching his ultimate goal of becoming a real wife and husband. Their interactions would become limited with a third person between them. Aria felt comfortable with the maids and considered them her friends, she would most likely neglect him if one of them was with her all the time. But these words he had not told Aria, well... it was not necessary for her to know, he reasoned.

Still he should have brought the dog over at least for today, to let Aria relax her mind and let go of her worries. At lunch she had appeared alright, she had eaten all her food, then she had relaxed on the couch watching some TV shows until before dinner. All this time he had some work still left to do and also wanted to leave her some time to get accustomed to the situation so he had only stayed inside his apartment's office.