Yours, Until Needed
Chapter 150: Duels

Chapter 150: Duels

ELIANA

While their family was involved in several battles, one was even hotter than Ingrid and Alexa’s one-sided pummeling.

It was the battle between Lara and Nicholas. Most recently, there was a battle between Lara and Lucian.

Yes.

Such a thing was happening.

"You’re surrounded by a bunch of crazy people, you know that, right?" Rina had the gall to mention that while she was sitting next to me while munching on popcorn.

I gave her a once-over before confirming, "Yeah, I have one such crazy here. Munching on a pregnant woman’s snacks like she was one who couldn’t afford it."

"Hey. We’re sworn sisters. We share in goodness and sadness, so we definitely share munchies." Rina tried making her point by raising a piece of popcorn before eating it.

"Sure, we can also share information about pregnancy problems. You wait til that stomach of yours balloons, and let me see who’s going to lock up her snacks."

I watched as Rina shivered. She even craned back her neck.

"Don’t give me a stink eye when there was clearly a higher possibility of you getting knocked up."

"Hell nah!"

"Tell me again when your body wash at least smells like a woman’s." I judged her while laughing.

What’s a best friend for when you can’t freely judge her?

She scoffed before trying to change the subject.

"Don’t you have more important things to worry about? Like, have you seen the war going on in your kitchen?"

There was that.

Chester had been so excited this whole month, with everyone coming over to the house.

The big dog would wag his tail nearly the whole day, and none of us could help but give him more treats.

So, I wasn’t the only one ballooning like crazy. By the time this ended, one woman and a dog would need to go on a diet.

Mainly because everyone suddenly became chefs.

In a bid to determine what food I could and couldn’t eat, the house had a cooking challenge nearly every day.

Typically, it would be the parents and Auntie Lin. But recently and competitively, it was Lucian and Lara.

These two wouldn’t stop unless they provided the meal that would make me swoon.

Honestly, I don’t know what kind of reaction they want, but in general, they just want to be praised.

Obviously, I couldn’t praise them the same way because my Husband would throw a week-long tantrum. But thankfully, Lara wasn’t hard to please.

The good thing about this was that both were at least really capable of cooking, so the house never lacked a good meal.

And this was probably why Rina had been hiding out here. Partly for the food and partly because Idris had upped his game.

Our project construction phase was over, and we were on the very last leg of handovers and warranty maintenance. In fact, we’re about to open soon.

But Rina and Idris, especially Idris, would now have no reason to meet unless they discussed the following location.

From the earlier reluctance to design our second location, Idris was now actively working on it. Provided Rina was assigned to it, he was fine even if the area was somewhere in a different country.

He’d make it work.

Tsk.

Men.

Just like my man over there, whose schedule was supposed to look like the second coming of hell. But now, all of a sudden, he’s got the time to tour the world and get married, even as the Windham project was in full swing.

If there was actually anyone who was forced to work legitimately, that would be Nicholas, who was thrown heaps of work when Lucian handed over all the preparation files that he has worked on over the years.

He was going to maroon Nicholas in the office.

It was adorable.

Or maybe I was just biased because he’s my husband.

But then Nicholas being marooned didn’t stop him from competing with Lara.

At one point in time, I asked her about what was actually up with the two of them.

We actually have no idea what they were competing about, but apparently, something happened when they were stuck in that elevator as we staged our plan.

Lucian did say that they had a really compromising position, but he didn’t particularly look as he didn’t care.

Of course, our inner gossipers wanted to know, but Lara’s eyes just narrowed every time Nicholas was mentioned, so we stopped pushing it.

Oh well.

Eventually, the penthouse started smelling great, and the food now emitted aromas that were clearly begging to be eaten.

Now, while Lara could cook for us, provided Lucian was directly privy to everything she did, only Lucian was allowed to prepare my utensils and drink.

Then there’s that long list of prenatal vitamins that he would always prepare like clockwork.

And this cunning guy discovered that making eyes at me would get him a kiss in return for his hard work and impeccable service.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t the look he was giving me but the fact that he wouldn’t leave until I did it.

He’s like collecting some sort of toll-fee.

At first, Rina found that very distressing. Many actually did, especially Oliver.

The way he had to cling to the wall for support showed just how odd Lucian’s behavior was.

Probably scared the bejeezus out of these people.

But he didn’t care. And he especially liked doing it in public, like an animal that needed to pee on his territory.

However, eventually, everyone got used to it, and now they just know to look elsewhere, where before Lucian fed them dog food they didn’t even want. Especially Lara, who would always look like she was about to hyperventilate.

I always found this interaction amusing.

It was like dining with different types of troublemakers and thugs.

Even Lily fit right in with the penchant for escaping and ’adventuring.’ And to our horror, she once dragged Joshua over under the guise that they got ’lost.’

Yeah, right.

Like an entire city, lost.

"Eli, try not to look at them too much." Lucian squinted at the kids, and I asked why.

"Our child might take after them. What if we end up with a stowaway that would hide inside suitcases? I suggest looking at award-winning heroes. Or maybe good dogs."

"Hahahaha!"

Sure, maybe Chester 2.0 would be the better choice!