THE CROWDED MARRIAGE

Chapter 21

Maeve Dominique Valencia
-present-

I don't want Ivory to be my version of beautiful yet painful experiences or memories. I want him. I want his love.

So I'm silently waiting for Filoah to enter the picture of our marriage. I've been anticipating her, making myself ready... but it looks like she has already given up. She has never meddled with us since my engagement with Ivory until now.

If she couldn't fight for Ivory, then I'm different. I'll fight for Ivory's love. I want Ivory not just to be part of my past but also to be part of my present and future. I want him to be my first and last. I want him to be my endgame. I want us to be together until the end and last of our breath. I want us to end up together in this life.

I want to embrace the thought of how I want to love a person... at 'yon ay mahalin at ipaglaban siya kahit pa na maubos ako, o wala man akong kapalit na matanggap sa pagmamahal na ibibigay ko.

"Clear your schedule next week."

That's what I remembered from Ivory... so I finished everything this week, even though my body was still reacting to what we did on his birthday.

If I want to clear my schedule for next week, I need to free up my workload for next week. I also told my manager, and she was stressed with me again, but she had no choice. She adjusted everything. While in my family company, I still do my work, even though I have the privilege to just escape my responsibility. I don't have my secretary yet in the company, but the one monitoring me is my dad's secretary, so I told him that I wouldn't be available next week. He had no choice but to adjust for me, but the secretary provided workloads this week for an exchange.

So I rarely see Ivory since we're both busy.

Then, the day before our travel week came, I already had a free day. Because of my excitement, I baked some pastry with my own recipe and without looking into tutorials. With some of my practice, I think I can perfect it now.

So even if I was alone in Ivory's huge penthouse, my excitement was lingering all over the place, especially in the kitchen area.

Pina-deliver ko sa yaya namin yung ingredients kaninang umaga kaya naman complete na lahat ng kailangan ko.

I was subtly dancing and humming while mixing the ingredients. I'm really excited for tomorrow, especially for the whole week. Finally, magkaka-time na ulit kami ni Ivory for each other. It's been a while.

I was finished in the middle of the afternoon. I put my finished product into a nice pastry box. When I was satisfied with the packaging, I also put it in a small paper bag. It was two in total.

When I was finished, I placed the paper bag on the kitchen counter. I cleaned myself and changed my dress. And since I was in the mood, I styled my hair.

I looked at my watch, it's still the afternoon... mamaya pa makauwi si Ivory. I just decided to visit dad even though our last encounter wasn't good.

Dad's secretary was the one who saw me when I finally went to the company, so he let me enter my dad's office because he didn't have a meeting at the moment.

"Dad," I said softly as I entered the room.

My dad was reading a pile of papers in front of his desk, like usual. He didn't look at me.

"What do you need?" he asked in his business tone.

I took a deep breath, then walked toward his office desk. I put the small paper bag on the side of the desk.

"What's that?" He just gave the paper bag a quick glance.

"It's a homemade pastry. It's my first specialty, so I want you to have a taste of it. And I'm also giving that as my way of—"