The Billionaire's Forced Alliance

Chapter Sixteen

After he watched the ladies scurry upstairs, Ben sat on the sofa with a thud, almost in a trance. Per se, he had no motivation to even talk. He was traumatized, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Richard and Vivian had already sat down, but Alex was still hovering over him, with questioning eyes. He bobbed up his head. "Wh-what?"

"I still can't believe you're married. Wow." Alex sighed, huffing loudly. "Ben, god, I can't--I can't--"

"Okay, I'm sorry, Alex. I should've told you, but there wasn't time! She got pregnant and it was my responsibility to, you know---I figured I'd tell you once I reach." Ben uttered, his heart breaking to lie to Alex.

Honestly, Alex had been the only person  who never betrayed him, he was the one who never lied, Richard and Vivian knew about this scheme, but he didn't and Ben couldn't seem to forgive himself. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down. "So sorry, man."

"It's okay. It's--shocking but yeah, you did the right thing." Alex said and then extended his arm. "Let's hug it out."

Ben got up and obliged, patting his back in a friendly gesture and soon Richard and Vivian joined in, making it a locker room group hug. To give it a similar feel, Vivian shouted, "Go, Hamiltons!"

And the three of them simultaneously  cried. "Yes!"

After the hugging session, Alex sat beside Ben. "So, what's up with the government project?"

Ben found himself growing unbelievably uncomfortable. He had no answer to this question. "Uh--yeah, it's going smoothly. Two month's time is needed before everything's finalised." He didn't, for once, underestimate Alex's perfect knowledge of legal formalities and procedures, he just prayed to some sort of divine power and uttered the first thing that came into his mind.

Alex nodded. "Oh, yeah, government procedures need time."

Ben wanted to kill himself, but he didn't, of course. He needed to call Sanjeev about the consent letter as soon as possible and follow up on that. He remembered a very important thing and sprang up from the sofa, lunging toward his bag. He opened the small, flat briefcase with a double-lined chain and pulled out a mahogany coloured organizer.

Zipping it unfolded, he took out a document and handed it over to Alex. "Here are the power of attorney papers of the company and also the ownership papers, that consisted the requisition of power that went from your hands to mine."

"Why are you giving them to me?" Alex wiggled his eyebrow and stood up, taking them.

"I live alone, Alex. I'm---married now, but Sarah's here with me, and my condo is empty. Rob has keys so he's gonna come around and clean the rooms but he's a young lad and he only comes once in the afternoon! I keep these papers in a safe, and that's why I brought them here. I can't risk--"

"Yeah, yeah. Let me put them in my safe," Alex nodded, retreating his steps back to the study room and shutting the door behind.

"Oh. My. God." Ben uttered, putting his palm on his face. "What am I gonna do?"

The silent spectators reverberated back to life. Richard approached him. "Okay, buddy, calm down. Alex is convinced, there's no need to panic."

No matter how much others said it was gonna be alright, Ben still felt the need to give out a frustrated cry of unhappiness. Honestly, he had never experienced that feeling of complete and unbound joy, except for when he was with the Hamiltons. Now, he was lying to a Hamilton, and that was searing his heart and splitting it up in two equally dingy parts.

"I've--I've never lied to him, Rich. And it's--it's killing me. Am I--am I betraying him? Am I the bad guy, like that Indian asshole?"

Vivian cooed, "Do you mean Sanjeev?"