I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found(6)

"What was that all about?" I muttered, under my breath, but he didn’t answer.

We’d made it halfway back to our room before I saw someone hurrying towards us - I recognized him as the resort manager, who’d introduced himself to use when we checked in.

"Mr. and Mrs. Thorne," he said, slightly breathless. "Please accept my deepest apologies. I was just informed by the restaurant staff -"

"It’s fine," said Daniel, shortly. "Not your fault."

"All the same," said the manager. "I promise you, he will be removed from the premises. We absolutely do not allow our guests to be harassed."

"Thank you," said Daniel, hurrying me into the room and shutting the door behind us.

***

I didn’t ask any more questions until dinner - which was room service, naturally. Daniel had been doing a lot of pacing and looking out of the open wall, but hadn’t ventured back outside yet.

"What was that guy talking about?"

He was looking at me, so I knew he heard the question, but he paused a long time before answering. "There was a lawsuit," he said. "A long time ago." He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. "It was frivolous, but I settled. One of the conditions of which was that neither one of us would discuss the details."




I leaned forward slightly. "Not even with your wife?"

He just shrugged.

After he’d opened another bottle of wine, he looked at me again, carefully, and seemed to notice the way my eyebrows were still slightly knit together.

"Don’t worry about it," he said. "It’s nothing."

"I’m not worried," I said. "Just curious, that’s all."

"It’s very boring," said Daniel, smiling. "I promise."

Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better.

After dinner, Daniel went to take a shower, and I immediately pulled out my phone to see if I could search out some details of the mysterious lawsuit. Normally I tried to avoid searching for his name, for my own sanity, but his reticence had me deathly curious.

I knew that there was a decent chance it wouldn’t have been well-covered, especially if it was more than handful of years ago. But it turned out to be even worse than I’d suspected; there wasn’t a single mention of Daniel Thorne being involved in any sort of lawsuit, ever.

This was going to drive me absolutely insane. There was plenty I still didn’t know about Daniel, after all the time we’d spent together, but nothing had ever intrigued me this much. One thing was clear: he didn’t want to tell me. I was pretty sure whatever settlement he’d agreed to didn’t actually preclude him from sharing the details with his wife, for God’s sake.

What had the journalist said? Something about Daniel’s "ability to take action" being the thing that set him apart from the crowd. It had put Daniel on his guard - clearly, that meant something.

I curled up on the sofa and tried, unsuccessfully, to quiet my mind. These last few months had been…strange, to say the least. From time to time, I still felt like I was just pretending to be Daniel’s wife. I still held the secret, deep inside, that our relationship hadn’t started out as something real. No matter what had happened since - no matter what we were now - every time we were out together, every time I told "our story," every time he put his arm around me, every time I looked at him, I would remember.

But then there were those other times.

A few weeks ago, before we’d left for our second honeymoon, I remembered walking into the kitchen and catching sight of him unexpectedly. He was folded up on the floor, halfway under the sink, and really my first thought should have been oh God, I hope he’s not trying to fix something himself. But instead, I just stood there, dead still, and my heart twisted with a feeling so intense I almost couldn’t breathe for a moment.

These little interludes were becoming more and more frequent. I’d grown up as one of those girls who rolled my eyes when people talked about love so strong it was a physical pain in your chest, and now I’d turned into one of them.

But still, I had a hard time to wrapping my head around the concept of Daniel Thorne, the businessman. I was starting to become more familiar with him as a public figure, but that was different. Not too long ago I’d seen him give a keynote address in front of a crowd so large it almost gave me stage fright on his behalf. But he didn’t show a sign of nervousness, and he commanded them with an effortless charisma. He was still uncomfortable dealing with people one-on-one, but he’d gotten much better at hiding it. I think I was often the only one who noticed how much he wanted to shrink into the corner, once the speeches were over.

The part of his mind that actually came up with ideas, and figured out how to act on them, was still a mystery to me. There were times when I wouldn’t see much of him for a few days - he’d spend nearly all his time in the office, only coming home to sleep occasionally. When it was over, he’d have pages and pages of ideas submitted to the people who actually implemented whatever he came up with. But now, I found myself wondering what his process had been like before he had a whole team of people to do the practical work for him. When he got his first ideas, did he build the prototypes himself? Where had they come from? Were they simply strokes of inspiration, or had he toiled over them for days, weeks, years?