Side Effects

Chapter 8

"I really want to go to the Chatuchak Market with you," Alaya told me. "But it's only open on weekends, so we can't go until tomorrow. In the meantime, we're going to go get you some jeans, and eat some street food."

I grinned at her, nodding quickly. "Okay, lead the way!" The worst thing was, I had no jeans other than the ones I'd worn on the flight, so it probably made sense to get some more. Of course, I wanted to upgrade her outfits too. Maybe we'd get me something for relaxing, and her something for business. I still expected the majority of her new outfits to be bought in Rome though.

We took the Sky Train over to the Siam Paragon, a big shopping mall where I had little doubt that we'd find plenty of things for both of us. It turned out to be more overwhelming than I thought, but we did end up with what we wanted. I got Alaya a stunning, cream colored suit from Bottega Veneta with cropped pants and jacket, and white heels from Jimmy Choo, then I got myself two pairs of high end jeans from Hugo Boss. Yes, I could have got them at better prices, but it was a fun outing, and we even avoided the distractions of the aquarium and the expensive car dealers in the mall. Hell, I could buy a Bentley or a Maserati here if I wanted to! But no, not today.

"I can't believe you spent that much on me!" Alaya complained as we walked out of the mall.

"What? I told you that you needed business clothes! You have to know I'm going to spend a lot more on you in Rome!" I reminded her, if only to see her blush.

"Kian, come on! That suit by itself was worth more than almost all the clothes I already had, and I'm not even mentioning the fucking shoes!"

How could I have resisted though? The cream colored suit with her gorgeous Latina skin was a stunning combination. "But that suit will last you for years, and people will be ready to sign any deal you want as soon as you walk into a conference room wearing that. You'll own any room you're in with your look and attitude."

She looked down at the sidewalk as we walked along towards some street vendors, but I could still see a hint of a blush on her face. Fuck it though, she should be complimented when she deserved it, and I wasn't going to be shy about doing just that.

"Every time I think this trip can't get any crazier, it does." She threw her hands in the air, almost hitting me with her bags before she started laughing. "Seriously though, gracias Kian. This is amazingly nice."

"Well, now you can show me some of this street food that you were talking about!" I pointed out.

She nodded a little nervously. "I only read that there were food stalls all over the place because street food was so popular, so I was thinking we might just wander about until we find a few good things to eat. I have a feeling we'll know what we want to eat when we see it."

It took every ounce of my willpower that I already knew what I wanted to eat, because I'd woken up to it. But I was able to keep my mouth shut about that. "That sounds like a fun plan, I'm sure we'll find some good food."

And we did. We took a right turn off a main street and found ourselves on a little side street with a ton of food stalls on both sides of the street. As much as I loved the hotel restaurant, I had to say, this whole area smelled delicious, and I had little doubt that we'd find a bunch of things to fill our bellies.

I'll be the first to admit, I don't know for certain everything we ate. There was a really delicious sausage on skewers that I had several of, some grilled shrimp on skewers, little packets of mangoes with sticky rice, more fried bananas than I could count, and some little crepes with some unidentified fillings. We ended up going back for seconds for some of the things we liked and spent almost an hour just wandering up and down the street and pointing at more things that we wanted to try.