The Faceless Billionaire Celebrity Wife

"What the...?!" Shikera laughed out loud, listening to her teammates talking on the audio recording.

"...That is simply compensation that the man gave us, in return for letting him see her for a few more days in order to ask her out. And besides, we didn’t force Cyprian to foot our bills too..."

"Did you hear that, Ethan? What if I went there instead and they planned something like this for me too?" She asked, still laughing. She didn’t pause the audio yet but placed it on the table, loud enough for Ethan and Esther to hear.

"Nothing. I am a very tolerant man," Ethan replied simply, but the eerie smile on his face was enough to show Shikera that he didn’t mean what he said. She didn’t want to get him angry unknowingly so she kept quiet and continued listening to the audio.

It looked like their discussion about Cyprian and her supposed admirer had come to an end so Shikera was about to stop the recording when she heard an exclamation from it.

"What the fuck?! Is that an older version of Shikera?" She heard Atlas’ voice say.

"OMG! You don’t think it’s her mom, right? They look so alike!"

With eyebrows raised, Shikera looked up at Ethan and laughed.

"Look at them speaking gibberish just because they have the opportunity to enjoy themselves over there," She said.

"Gibberish?" Ethan had heard what they said too, and though a thought was now nudging at the back of his mind, he didn’t want to think too far.

"Yeah, they are saying they saw someone who looks like me enough to be my uhm... mother, who is six feet into the ground," she explained, hesitating a bit before mentioning her mother because she knew just how much Ethan seemed to loathe her.

"Oh, then the person probably looked a lot like you. Let’s listen to them more." Ethan purposefully evaded talking about her mother.

"That might be the case but still, seeing the person and immediately thinking about me. I would have believed if Cyprian was the one who told me the person looked like me. By the way, did she record them talking about her when she was not present?!" Shikera asked, talking to no one in particular. She could not help but laugh when she thought of how sly her friend was.

Just then, the audio ended and Shikera switched off her phone.

"Let’s go complete your assignment, Esther. I have to wake up early tomorrow," she stood up, her chair scraping against the cold tiled floor.

★★★

’It’s not supposed to have this much effect, right? Plus I ate a healthy breakfast right after tasting it," Shikera contemplated inwardly, rubbing her hand against her belly. She was feeling a dull ache in her belly, in contrast to her chest which seemed like an insect was eating her from inside.

She wondered if it was because of the cookie which she had tasted while baking Esther school snacks that morning. Her eagerness to act on the young girl’s review from the previous night had made her taste all of the snacks herself to make sure there was no much sugar but now, they seemed to be acting against her.

"Are you alright?" She heard Ethan ask, turning to see him staring worriedly at her. They were in his car right now, and on their way to DL Corporation where she would meet Mrs Mason at the cafe on the ground floor.

"I am. Just feeling a bit sleepy," she lied.

Ethan nodded and returned back to scrolling his tab. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Within an hour, they arrived at DL Corporation underground parking lot and all three of them alighted. Raymond and Enoch were the ones who dropped Esther at school so they were not with them presently.

"Ruth, go with her but be sure to keep your distance so you won’t draw attention. I will use the elevator myself," Ethan instructed, ready to kiss Shikera goodbye when she stopped him.

"I won’t be staying long at Preston and will leave for home immediately so why don’t you just let me take this car?" she asked, ignoring the pain in her chest to ask him.

"That’s alright, but Shikera, are you still angry with me?" Ethan frowned, looking straight into her eyes.

"I am, but for an entirely different reason," Shikera replied seriously, rolling her eyes. She waved him goodbye and walked away from there, a tiny smile forming on her face.

Shikera found her way to the cafe and as soon as she stepped in the building, she spotted Mrs Mason in where she was sitting not far from the door. Smiling, Shikera waved at her and was surprised when the woman did not return it.

She walked faster and approached the table, before taking her seat in front of Mrs Mason.

"Good morning, Mrs Mason," she greeted.

"A good morning to you too, Miss Anderson. Did you sleep well?"

Shikera nodded, raising her brows at the apprehensive mood of the woman before her.

"Is there a problem, Mrs Mason? You don’t look so well," she questioned.

"It’s not about me, Miss Anderson, but about you. I think you should be very careful," Mrs Mason replied. She could see the confusion vividly expressed in Shikera’s eyes, and she knew that it would only intensify when she was done talking to her.

"I have always been very careful. Why?"

"I know this will sound very absurd to your ears, Miss...no, Shikera, but I saw your mother at the airport a few days ago."

Shikera observed Mrs Mason’s face, trying to check if the woman was joking but she found no signs that that was the case. Why was everyone playing around mentioning her dead mother these days?

She sighed, like one who wanted to patiently explain why one plus one equals two, to a five year old who was supposed to know that.

"Mrs... Alright, since we are going informal, I’ll comply. Aunt Lu, you of all people know that my mother is dead. And she actually died a few months after I was born so what’s this that you are saying? You saw my mother?" she questioned, her voice laced with unbelief.

Mrs Mason looked left and right, not surprised that Shikera did not believe her. She leaned across the table to Shikera and extended her phone.

"Watch that video," she whispered.

Shikera collected the phone and played the video, her frown deepening as seconds passed.

"Where did you see her?"

"At the airport, when I went to pick Chairman Anderson up."