307 Wedding preparations (1)
When she finally arrived at Zaria’s office, the latter was buried in a pile of work. She looked up as Natalie walked in and her serious face broke into a smile.
“Natalie, you’re early.” She remarked, getting back to work almost instantly. “Could you give me ten minutes? I’ll just wrap up my report and then join you.”
In a real sense, she was not early. They had agreed to discuss over lunch at 1pm and she was ten minutes late. Even so, she didn’t think telling Zaria that would ease her pressure in the slightest so she picked up the takeaway bags she had brought.
“I can wait in Desmond’s lounge. His meeting hasn’t ended either.”
Zaria nodded, inwardly thanking her. “Be right there.”
It was nearly 2pm when she finally couldn’t take her hunger anymore. She checked the time and realized she was an entire hour late for lunch.
She groaned. Natalie must have been bored to death waiting for her. But when she joined her in Desmond’s office, boredom was the last thing she saw. Ximena and Zeus were present too, and the three of them were laughing at something so hard that Ximena was nearly falling out of her seat.
It took a few seconds to realize that Zeus was the one responsible for making the two women who didn’t quite see eye to eye laugh their hearts out.
“Zaria’s here.” He announced when he saw her. The women looked over and Natalie smiled.
.....
“Busy day?” She remarked, since Desmond had dashed to another meeting right after the previous one ended. He hadn’t even eaten a thing.
“More like a busy week.” She sighed as she slumped into the closest couch in the lounge. Seeing the extra takeout bag, she glanced at Ximena. “I guess Liam didn’t have lunch either?”
“Forget about those workaholics. We can polish off their food and enjoy it without them.” She joked. They all giggled but agreed with her. It wasn’t like they could barge into the conference room and shove food into the men’s mouths.
“It’s a good thing that you two are here too,” Zaria said to Ximena and Zeus. “I will not have to track you down separately to tell you everything once Natalie explains it to me.”
Natalie wasn’t in the slightest bit worried about Zeus. Even if he ran to Lucy with everything they discussed or attacked Nathaniel on his own, he was on his sister’s side and his intention wouldn’t collide with theirs. Ximena, on the other hand…
“Are you sure? We can discuss it later.” She suggested, hoping Zaria would understand without her having to point everything out.
She did. “Don’t worry, Xim is like family.” She assured Natalie.
Ximena rolled her eyes. “Are you listening to yourself? I am more of a family to Zaria than you ever would be.”
Zaria facepalmed. “Xim, not now.”
Ximena huffed and although Natalie wanted to retort, what she had said was true. They might have a little bit of the same DNA running through their bodies but it wasn’t the fact that they only knew each other through Desmond. Technically, Zaria would trust Ximena over her, if she only had to trust one of them.
“So, wedding?” She probed, successfully ending the cold war that was threatening to commence.
Natalie ignored her unsettling feeling and asked, “you are certain that aside from Desmond, no one would overhear anything happening here, right?” She knew Desmond might have put security measures in place but depending on who was in charge, they could be a double edged sword.
Zeus shot to his feet. “Only one way to be certain.” He grabbed his laptop and messed around for a few minutes, then smiled at them. “There. What happens in this office, stays in this office.”
“Good.” She sucked in a breath and explained everything, starting from the moment she was kidnapped in the street to Nathaniel’s offer and their agreement.
Zaria was even more confused. “So he wants to attack me during my wedding, and you want me to plan said wedding?”
Natalie smirked. “I only said you should plan a wedding, not your wedding.”
When she caught on, she smiled. “Aren’t you the naughtiest? You want me to plan a fake wedding to trap him when he tries to attack me?”
“That’s the idea, yes.” She was relieved that Zaria didn’t think she was working with Nathaniel. Ximena, on the other hand, didn’t trust her much.
“How will we know you are not on his side? What if you are encouraging Zaria to plan her wedding so you provide the chance for him to attack?”
“Xim,” Zaria warned. Though to be fair, she had the mildest thought about it too. Not that Natalie was that kind of woman, but Lucy did try to hurt her parents. It would only be expected if she was mad about it. But again, if Natalie wanted to hurt her, she had a billion opportunities. It wouldn’t make sense for her to wait until the wedding day.
So she took out a notepad.
“Let’s have our lunch first.”
She finally remembered she was yet to eat. However, Zeus grabbed the takeaway bags. “I’ll warm the food. I believe there are things you can get done by the time I’m back.”
He was right. As soon as she opened the notepad, she jotted down a date.
“We can get married on the 9th of October.” She circled the date as she thought of a venue. “Desmond’s mansion will be good. The one on the private island. It can finally become useful.”
“You will only have a few days if you are getting married on the 9th.” Ximena pointed out, then remembered it was a fake wedding. “Right. It’s fake. However, you will have a lot of preparation to do in such a short time.”
That part was true. But again, “We cannot give Nathaniel a lot of time to prepare his attack. We do have an advantage of numbers. We are many, and he is a lone wolf. We can get a lot of work done in a day and he will need several more days to complete the same amount of work. This means, we have to get everyone we trust to help us.”
“I don’t know about that,” Zeus remarked, having overheard them on his way back with the freshly warmed food. “The moment you involve our parents will be the very moment you have to abort the plan.” He set the tray on the coffee table. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t agree with them. You shouldn’t be doing such dangerous things. But again, the only way to get Nathaniel and all his lackeys in the same room is by having a realistic wedding.”
That gave her an idea. She flipped the page and started listing down her wedding guests. “I hope they don’t use the short notice as a way to get out of it. I want to invite both Gabriel West and Nathaniel Su. Of course, we have to ask for Evan’s opinion if Gabriel is to become one of our ‘extra special’ guests.”
“Don’t worry about that. Once I tell Nathaniel everything you have planned, he will be there and so will Gabriel.” Natalie assured her.
“You have to tell him everything?” Zaria frowned.
Natalie nodded, and then wrote a quick email and told Nathaniel the date and venue. That was the most important part.
Zaria listened to her read the email out for their approval and had a gnawing feeling. Whose side was Natalie on?
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