THE LAST MINUTE GROOM : CHAPTERS 1 – 20
CHAPTERS 15 & 16
Jeslyn stirred awake and stretched while turning on her side. She furrowed her brows as she tapped the soft and fluffy thing she was sleeping on with her eyes still closed.
‘When did manufacturing companies make the car seats this fluffy and wide’? She thought.
She slowly opened one eye and saw a white duvet covering her lower body. Her other eye flew open and she immediately sat up to glance around the place she was in.
It was a big room painted nude with gold intricates. The two single chairs placed beside the gold curtains were also gold, and a floor-to-ceiling window separated the balcony from the room with a white long curtain.
Jeslyn couldn’t believe what her eyes were seeing. She blinked and blinked again, still, the images didn’t disappear.
She lowered her eyes to the bed. The large king-size bed with a gold headboard and gold frame was the most prettiest she had seen… and the beautiful chandelier that was lit above her head made her throat go dry.
What about the floor? The fluffy cream foot rug placed under the bed that spread to cover a small space around the bed made Jeslyn forget to close her mouth.
She had seen wealth and tasted it, after all she is the young Miss of the Lee and Chen family, but this luxury right in front of her was something she had only seen on TV.
THE LAST MINUTE GROOM : CHAPTERS 1 – 20
After admiring the room, Jeslyn went back to sleep. “That’s enough, we have seen too much luxury. Dream goddess, I want to wake up, take me back to the car.”
Jeslyn closed her eyes while patting the bed with a small smile on her face. Even though she’ll be living in the slum from now on, she won’t be upset because she had dreamed of living in a room that her enemies cannot afford. That’s a great achievement and a good sign that she would be crushing them all.
At the thought of that, she chuckled and opened her eyes, hoping to see herself in the car, but no, she still found herself in her ‘dream’.
“Dream goddess, are you joking with me? Do you want to trap me in my dreams too? Is my life not hard enough already? Please take me back and I promise to not sleep in the car ever again. Besides, this might be my last time riding a beautiful car.” She joined her hands in a pleading gesture and stayed like that for a while, but still, nothing happened.
“Ok, fine. It seems you want me to look around the house before you send me back. That’s so kind of you. How did you even know that I was longing to bid farewell to my room? Were you reading my mind?…”
Jeslyn talked to the ‘dream goddess’ for a while before she got up and started to admire the things in the room. She wandered around until she found herself in the walk-in closet and almost fainted from shock.
The white massive room was no different from a store in a luxurious mall. Everything a lady could ever want. From clothes to shoes, bags to hats, wigs to cosmetics, and even watches and rings which includes earrings, nose rings, finger rings, and so on. Goodness, the closet was a sight to behold!
Jeslyn closed her parted lips and started walking from section to section in admiration. She could only look and didn’t touch anything. What if she touched and broke something out of shock and the ‘dream goddess’ wants her to pay, where would she get the money?
What if the ‘dream goddess’ wants her to pay by staying here and doing the cleaning and maintenance, doesn’t that mean she would be seen as a dead person on earth and buried?
“No, no, I haven’t made those people pay and that innocent man I married, I haven’t divorced him yet to set him free.” Thinking of that man, Jeslyn sighed.
She walked out of the closet and checked the bathroom. The bathroom was a little simpler with gold curtains above the bathtub, a white ceiling, a chandelier, a large mirror, and flower vases.
She sighed and closed the door before heading out of the room.
As she walked down the corridor, the feeling she got from the house was a weirdly quiet and super clean house. She couldn’t get the right feeling, but it somehow reminded her of that man she married… Weird!
She walked down the fleet of twirling stairs and finally found herself standing in the sitting room.
Jeslyn sighed again. Although there was nothing much in the sitting room. However, from the soft tone of the nude paint on the wall to the brown couches and brown rug with a center table on top of the rug, wow-ed Jeslyn so much that her mouth fell open.
“Dream goddess, I have seen enough, please take me back.” She said and was about to head back to the room she came from when she heard…
“Ahh!!… Who are… Jeslyn Lee?!”
Jeslyn turned to look back and almost got the shock of her life.
The specie in front of her was so handsome that she didn’t know that she was almost drooling.
Call her whatever, but she got a soft spot for handsome men and that was why she could fall into the scheme they plotted for her, using Ray.
If Ray was handsome, then this guy in front of her has no name to qualify him.
“Y– you are fine,” she blurted without thinking.
“Huh?”
“I said you are beautiful.” She said again with dreamy eyes before she smiled. “The dream goddess knows what I love. She’s making me see them one after the other. If only I can touch him.”
It’s a ‘dream’, so of course, she can do anything which includes acting shamelessly.
Rex blinked. He didn’t understand what she was saying, but one thing he desperately wanted to know was why the infamous D-list singer was in his home… no, his brother’s home. Unless…
Rex gasped with widened eyes and mouth… Wholly lost, so much so that he didn’t see when she came to stand in front of him and hugged him.
“Beautiful people should be hugged,” She said.
Rex froze when their bodies came in contact… Those two peaches in front of her chest were soft and…
“What is going on here?”
Rex woke up from his stupified state and hurriedly pushed Jeslyn away.
Jeslyn was confused. In beautiful dreams like this, such things don’t happen. Wait, that voice…
Jeslyn and Rex simultaneously turned to look in the direction of the voice.
Her eyes turned saucers. He is here too? Why?
“B– brother, wh– who is… wh– what is she doing here?!”
“Huh?” Jeslyn looked at Rex who had his finger pointed at her while his large eyes rested on the man standing by the door.
The man had no expression on his cold face as he looked at her. Yes, his emotionless eyes were on her for a long time before he shifted his gaze and settled them on the blue-haired young man who still had his finger pointed at her.
“She’s my wife.” He said before heading towards Jeslyn.
Rex felt different emotions run into him at once. One was disbelief, another was disbelief, and the third was… massive disbelief!
How could his brother say something so, so, so unbelievable?!
His mind suddenly started to spiral out of control as he started to remember the things that had happened and placed the missing puzzles.
They had gone to Rose City to look for crucial materials for their investigation. They booked the best hotel and on that fateful day, he and his brother decided to use the hotel’s bar. His brother had gone out to use the restroom and it took a long while before he returned.
On that same day was Jeslyn Lee’s wedding which was also taking place in the hotel. When his brother came back, he told him he had gotten married.
THE LAST MINUTE GROOM : CHAPTERS 1 – 20
A week later, they were heading to the airport and a crazy lady asked to be given a ride to the cemetery and which was also where Jeslyn Lee’s grandfather was being buried.
Rex glanced at Jeslyn who was moving back from his brother and his brain spun to the right path. “The crazy Miss on that day was you!”
Well, his cry did nothing to pull those two’s attention.
Jeslyn had been crying in her mind for the dream goddess to take her back as the man in front of her was suffocating her with his handsomeness, plus his aura was too overwhelming for her to want to be around him.
‘He’s dangerous!’ her mind had been screaming and she was not blind to that fact.
Well, she was… when she married him.
“M–Mr. S– stay right there, d– don’t come, take another step…ah!”
She yelped when she fell onto the couch. She hurriedly sat up and screamed, “dream goddess, I command you now, take me back!!”
Maverick paused at her scream with his eyes still on her.
Rex, who had been watching the show with his pointed finger following Jeslyn around, knitted his brows and let out a sound to show his confusion. “Huh?”
“Wait, ” he put down his finger. “You think you are dreaming? Is that what I think it is?” He hurried over to stand beside Maverick.
“Of– of course. Does this look real to you?” Jeslyn replied while blinking.
“Pfft… hahahaha….” Rex couldn’t keep his snicker and laughed so hard that he held his stomach. He pointed a finger at her and said amidst laughter. “Jeslyn Lee, you are… hahaha…”
“Wh… what is it? What’s so funny?” Nobody answered her and she watched the man walk towards a single couch and sat down with one leg over the other.
After Rex had laughed his intestines out, he also sat beside Jeslyn and said while trying to look serious. “This is no dream, Lee.”
Jeslyn looked around the house one more time and shook her head, “You can’t be serious.” She refused to believe it.
The first reason was that she was clearly sleeping in the car and when she woke up, she met herself here.
Secondly, this house is too luxurious to be owned by someone in Rose City. Her Lee family was the richest. If they cannot afford a house like this, then no one in the whole City would dare. Unless they want to relocate to the slum.
Thirdly, Jeslyn was brought up in wealth and spoiled rotten with the latest brand of everything; from accessories, and clothes to furniture. She knows most of the brands and from all she had seen, starting from the room she woke up from, to the sitting room and even the style of the interior decor, no designer in the whole of country A does it.
“You are not in country A.” Maverick finally spoke. From the way she was looking at the decorations in the sitting room, he figured out what she was thinking.
If Jeslyn had been shocked, now she was more flabbergasted at what she just heard.
“Wh– where am I?”
“Country M,” he answered.
“Ahhhh!” Jeslyn screamed and jumped up to her feet.
Rex sighed. He was still wondering what his brother was thinking. How could he bring someone from another country into their country? Not even a strong-hearted person but a little puppy like Jeslyn Lee.
Now, he’s only going to sit back here and watch how his brother explains to her…
‘wait, let me get my popcorn. Drama is about to begin! Hehehe’
Just when Rex was attempting to stand up and go get himself popcorn, he heard the devil say, “Rex, explain to her.”
“Eh?” Rex looked at his brother and saw that his eyes were already closed and his head was resting on the chair.
‘Why again was I born as his junior brother?’ Rex asked himself with sorrow in his eyes.
How was he going to explain the situation he doesn’t know to this dumb young lady?
‘Why is my life so hard?’
If only that idiot didn’t fail her mission, she wouldn’t have been sent to prison and would have been the one doing this trouble right now.
Rex sighed and motioned Jeslyn to sit down before he started to explain things to her, but what exactly?
THE LAST MINUTE GROOM : CHAPTERS 1 – 20
CHAPTER 16
Rex sighed and motioned Jeslyn to sit down before he started to explain things to her, but what exactly?
Jeslyn sat down with a skeptical look on her face. She had heard of country M. In fact, the whole world knows of country M, but what she doesn’t understand is why she is in this villainous place.
Country M is known for her two names ‘paradise in hell’ and ‘kindness is lost’.
Country M is the house for the wealthiest and most demonic set of humans that could ever exist in the world.
Committing all the sins there are in the book is their fort. Although, they do it diplomatically.
They don’t go about stealing along the streets or picking up a lady on the road to rape. Carrying out ‘petty’ crimes like that is considered the work of a weakling and such practices are frowned upon.
Being able to survive in country M automatically means the person has a dead heart.
From the police to the citizens are horrible humans and only a handful of people could be said to be ‘kind’ and that ‘kindness’ is extended to some members of their families and friends alone.
Although that might be it, there are still few who know what love is and they aren’t stingy to show it.
However, the lover and the loved has to be at the top of the game, or else the enemies lurking around would use that against them. After all, the struggle to be at the pinnacle is no joke.
Getting dragged into a country like that would certainly make a faint-hearted person like Jeslyn pee on themselves.
“Miss Jeslyn, I don’t know what happened, but from what I understand, I don’t think it was my brother who married you, but rather, you married him, correct?”
Jeslyn slowly nodded and glanced at the man whose head was on the headrest of the chair.
“Good. It was your fault for not knowing who you were marrying, so…”
“I want a divorce!” Jeslyn immediately yelled.
Rex choked on his words and his voice disappeared while he looked at his brother who also happened to be looking at Jeslyn.
Seeing those menacing eyes staring at her, Jeslyn shrank her neck, almost curling on the couch.
“Our deal was one year,” he said. From his hard voice, it was obvious he wouldn’t be welcoming anything else except that deal.
“B– but what I married you for is over now, I lost.” She didn’t know where the courage came from, but she was glad it came.
“I also had a condition and I said it, didn’t I?” Maverick asked with his thick dark brown raised.
“Huh? You said what? I didn’t hear you state your condition.” She refused to be cornered or forced to live in this hellish country, especially not with this man that reeked of wickedness.
“It so happens that I need a woman for my brat… I said something like that, did I not?” He quoted what he said that day before he agreed to the deal.
Jeslyn blinked and knitted her brows, trying to recall but she couldn’t remember much. All she could recollect was him saying ‘brat and deal’ before she pulled him away.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember, the deal cannot be changed. As for the contract, my lawyer will bring it over in a while.”
“…” Jeslyn stared incredulously at him. Can this be called kidnapping?
“Valen will be coming home soon, get the servants to return to the mansion and set everything in place for him.” Maverick got up after entrusting the task to Rex.
“Got that, brother.”
“Come with me,” Maverick said to Jeslyn who was wordlessly regretting her actions on that day.
She got up like a confused robot and slowly walked behind him. She didn’t know or care about where he was taking her to. She made the wrong decision, so she could only abide by his rules now.
She had never heard of where a contractor suddenly became the contracted. What an amazing life she’s living.
THE LAST MINUTE GROOM : CHAPTERS 1 – 20
Jeslyn followed Maverick out of the house, wondering where he was taking her until she realized he was showing her around the massive building!
Should she laugh or cry at this predicament? Was this the right time to show her around the house? She was already feeling like dying when she realized she was in country M and this man is showing her around the house, is he for real? What eyes is he expecting her to admire the beauty of the house with?
“Ehm, Mr… don’t you think it’s not right to be doing this right now when my brain has been fed with too much trouble to swallow? My brain is already suffering from indigestion and you are giving me more, please can I return to the house? I want to rest.” She held her head dramatically, feigning dizziness.
Maverick glanced at her. Seeing how ‘exhausted’ she seemed, he gave a small nod before turning around and heading in the opposite direction.
Jeslyn watched his disappearing back with narrowed eyes for a few seconds before her eyes lit up like she just got an idea and she ran after him.
“Mr, wait up!”
Maverick paused in his step and turned to look at her.
She beamed, making her look like a cute fluffy doll. Even though she knew that she was using her cutest expression right now, the man in front of her didn’t seem to care at all.
“What?” His voice was so distant like he was stopped by an annoying stranger.
Well, she’s an annoying stranger and Jeslyn was aware of that.
“Ehm, you see, I was thinking, ehm… see, I know we are married…” she said ‘married’ in an awkwardly low tone, like it wasn’t real.
“…and it’s a contract. I understand that you want to stick to the end and I’m not going to oppose, after all, I caused it. However, what I wanted to say is that…”
She walked up to him and grabbed his right hand.
Maverick frowned slightly at her touch but didn’t pull out his hand.
The audacious little bunny was too preoccupied with how to explain her intention that she missed the reaction he gave at her touch.
With his left hand in his trouser pocket and his right hand in her hold, he stared down at the middle of her head.
Jeslyn looked up at his face and wondered why he was so tall.
‘If I ever get the chance to kiss him, I’ll have to either wear tall heels or stand on tip toes and he will also have to lower his head a little…damn!’
Realizing she had lost track, she gently hit her head before she beamed again. “Mr, can I return to my country?”
Seeing his face changing, she immediately let go of his hand and waved at his face in a hurry. “No, no, I’m not saying I want to divorce. I mean, uhm, this country is not for people like me. I want to return to my country but I can still remain your wife and when it’s time to divorce, you can send the divorce papers over and I’ll–”
“No.” His cold and stern voice sounded.
“Huh?” His reply startled her. What did he mean by no?
“Mr, there’s no reason for me to be by your side, right? I have a career that I–”
“Miss, you have issues up there?” He pointed at her head.
Jeslyn shook her head out of reflex.
“Then, you mustn’t have forgotten my condition for accepting the deal, right?”
“Eh, you said it’s for a brat and–”
“That brat cannot travel out of this country, which means you’ll have to stay here.”
“But my career! I’m a singer, a well-known singer who will soon be climbing to be a C–lister in a few weeks!” She knew she was lying, however, staying anywhere in the world is better than staying in this country.
Maverick stayed silent for a while before he responded. “Being here doesn’t stop you from doing anything. There are great companies here, I’ll get Rex to find you one.”
“No, Mr. I don’t use the back door to attain my dreams.”
“Neither am I giving you access through the back door.”
“What do you mean?”
“What you heard… return to the house, your stepson will be back soon. How you make him trust you as a stepmother is all up to you.” With that said, he walked away.
Jeslyn’s lips fell open in disbelief. What did he just say? Did he just…
“Hahahaha…”Jeslyn suddenly laughed. “It seems my life is just getting worse by the day. No problem, I’ll endure, so far I won’t die before I ruin those people.”
She murmured to herself before she turned around and headed to the house.
Walking back, she caught sight of the sparkling blue-colored pool a distance away and couldn’t help but beam. She loves water and she could envision herself a few days from now diving into that pool in her bikini.
Jeslyn entered the house and climbed the stairs. On getting to the passageway, she stopped and brushed her fingers through her hair.
“This is unbelievable, haha…” she laughed awkwardly.
She looked back to where she was coming from but no one was behind her, so she sighed and shook her head.
“Well, we can’t get lost, can we?… Jeslyn, you can do this!” She patted herself on the shoulder and continued to walk forward.
The complication of the passageway, plus the designs of the large doors got her confused.
“How can all the doors be the same? Where is the room I came out from? God! Why is a house this big and complicated anyway?…. Forget it, I can just open all the doors until I get to my room.”
The floor she’s standing on has three rooms with the doors looking the same. She got baffled as to which room she should go into.
“Let’s start with this,” she said and walked to the first door on her right.
Turning the knob of the first floor, it didn’t bulge… It was locked.
“This is not the room,” she shook her head and went to the other door. “This should be it.”
She turned the knob handle and… voila, it turned!
Jeslyn smiled and pushed the door open.
“…”
She stared speechlessly at what was in front of her. T–this isn’t the room, she thought and was about to shut the door when she heard,
“Enter.”
“Ah!!” The fright she got made her open the door wide with her hand holding tightly to the door knob while her body rested on the door.
Maverick, who was standing behind her, watched her cute reaction for a while before he bypassed her and stepped into the dimmed room.
“M–Mr. Can you please, make some noise while walking In the future? You almost scared me to death.”
“No,” he didn’t look back as he threw her the answer.
“Ok, then I should just head to my room.” As she was about to turn, his voice fell.
“Your room is not on this floor.”
“Ah?”
“Last floor.”
“Oh… ok, let me go–”
“Come in,” he told her again.
Jeslyn walked into the dimly lit room and sat on the black couch.
Looking around the room, she found nothing to interest her. From the brown wall to the black couches and black doors, down to the hot chocolate curtains and brown rugs… it gave her the wrong feeling.
The only breather in the room was the white sheets on the bed, though it had a black duvet tucked into the bed frame from the lower half of the bed… so sickening!
‘Must your room look like a coven?… Anyways, it’s a beautiful coven’, she shook her head at her taste.
Well, she might be the only person in the world seeing beauty from something that makes one’s hair stand on end.
While Jeslyn was busy with her thoughts, Maverick dropped a document on the table.
“You should read through that and sign it,” he said.
Jeslyn knitted her brows in puzzlement before she followed his jaw that was gesturing to the table. She looked down to see a brown envelope.
She opened it and pulled out the paper that had a ‘contract’ written on it.
She sighed– like she wasn’t expecting him to really take this marriage to this degree.
Well, it was her idea.
Flipping open the pages, Jeslyn suddenly developed a headache. She rubbed her temple in frustration.
“Why must these contracts, terms, and conditions… In fact, why is everything about law this complicated, cumbersome, and exhausting? Can’t they write things more straightforwardly? Ah, my head already.” She lamented while flipping over the pages.
Jeslyn had thought she was thinking that in her mind until she heard a snicker.
THE LAST MINUTE GROOM : CHAPTERS 1 – 20
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