It was a terrible choice for her...
Yet Erika Linder was implacable as her piercing blue eyes when she told Mika, "You'll marry me or Uncle Ramil gets what is coming to him."
Mika could not let her beloved uncle go to prison. Besides Erika was too...
Mika sat beside Erika on the plane to America and sank into her own thoughts.
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She took a glance at her wife who was busy reading tons of reports and emails in her laptop.
Wherever Erika was, there was the laptop, the printed reports, and the full concentration she gave to them. The Filipina twisted the ring that the blonde gave her around her finger, watching the light catch the stone and sent out a myriad of colors, its value no longer a mystery to her now that she knew who she married.
Since their very brief stop by the river, Erika had been cold and detached. The only interaction they shared was when she was being drilled with as much information that she would need to carry out the duties as Erika Linder's wife without raised eyebrows. Mika knew this would be an impossible task, especially when it concerns "the" Bret Sanford.
Bret also knew about her Uncle Ramil. How will he react when Erika tells him that she married Ramil de Jesus' niece? Her uncle was a gambler... the worst kind. Erika came from a wealthy family with oil money behind them for many years. Why she had picked on her, she did not know, except for her vulnerability and Erika's ruthless determination to have her own way. On normal circumstances, it would have been a difficult situation. But as things were on her case, Bret Sanford would pounce on her and would be watching her every move in case she showed a family weakness for other people's money.
Erika must have felt her eyes on her, her attention not as closely on the reports as she thought.
"Nervous, Mika?" The blonde spoke without looking at her.
"A bit. I don't really know anything about where we are going and... and I don't really know what to expect. I... I mean..."
"I know what you mean." The American put the reports and closed her laptop. "OK. I will tell you everything you want to know," She said with patience that Mika found hard to believe of her. "As to what to expect, behave as if you are my wife. Get into the habit of it. That should be enough to convice everybody. Once we are on the States, we'll fly to Baltimore and then straight down to Chesapeake."
Chesapeak Bay... that was where Erika would take her to live... a place the blonde called home. She wondered if it would be home to her as well. There had been a few times when she had panicked at what she had done in agreeing to marry her. The main time had been when she stood at the altar and said "I do." Erika had looked down at her and she had actually felt tension in the other woman, as if she expected her to shout "No!" and run off. She had smiled strangely afterwards, kissing her briefly and taken her arm with a cool possessiveness, and it had been too late then to shout "No!"
She was brewing up a burst of anxiety now. But Erika's blue eyes look comforting.
"Tell me about the house again." She begged huskily, grateful that the blonde was being for the moment so kind. "Tell me about Markland."
