Chapter IV. The Awakening of an Unwanted Interest, Part 1:

Roy.

Long before the event began, I was supervising the arrival of the guests from my office. I don't usually get involved in the promotional plans of our chain's hotels. I have executives who take care of that. If I had to review the marketing strategies of all the hotels belonging to the Miller Group chain, which are spread across Europe, Asia, and America, I wouldn't have time to live.

However, I had a personal interest in this case because, when my spies investigating my sister's husband informed me that he was on the guest list, I decided to attend the event as the head of the Miller Group's international hotel chain.

Patel's invitation stated that it was a special request from one of the event organizers, but it didn't say who. However, my spies had already made it clear to me that Patel had been staying in different hotels for days with a certain woman who had not yet been identified because she took many precautions, such as wearing sunglasses, a wide-brimmed hat, or a floppy hat. They did not usually check in together and always requested adjoining rooms. They were caught because they had been spotted in all the hotels where Patel had stayed during surveillance. The investigators suspected that the woman was also married.

The first thing that set off alarm bells for the group of detectives I hired to watch Patel was that these encounters coincided with his supposed business trips, which he used to tell Ailan about. He never left London. So, every time my sister told me that her husband had traveled for work, the detectives sent me his location in a London hotel; some of these hotels belonged to the Miller chain. His reservations were always under a false name and booked by the woman with him.

I had also discovered this, among other things, thanks to the bribes received by the Patel household staff. I learned about the treatment my sister received from her husband's mother and her own husband, who practically lived off Ailan's earnings, even though he worked. All of this made me decide that my sister needed to open her eyes.

As I watched the screen showing the guests arriving, I waited for Ailan to accompany me to the party. My attention was drawn to a group of guests who arrived together. Each and every one of them—men and women—looked like they had stepped out of a fashion magazine. They were all perfect, especially a beautiful woman with dark brown hair and golden highlights. She wore a red dress that hugged her body with a heart-shaped bodice that reached her waist. Then, it fell in yards and yards of fabric that floated around her to the floor. This gave her an attractive sway when she walked. The bodice accentuated every curve of her body.

The bodice's suggestive closure caught my attention the most. It was tight enough to resemble a corset, and the back closure consisted of several laces in a sexy intertwined pattern. I assure you it barely allowed her to breathe. Worse yet, they pushed her voluminous breasts up to a heart-shaped neckline, exposing the white skin of her shoulders.

The dress wasn't indecent, but it encouraged men to undress the woman, so that, once she was naked in front of you, you could compensate for the coldness of this action with your body.

I became interested in knowing what color her eyes were and enlarged the images of her to try to identify them. While doing so, I was surprised by my sister and my assistant, who entered the room. I was so focused on my investigation that I didn't hear them come in. It was Aila's irony that snapped me out of my trance:

"Wow, Roy William, it seems that your satirical habits from college haven't been overcome yet. Let me know if you need to relieve the tension. I can leave. How about ten minutes? That's too long. Five? Then you can proceed to..." I interrupted her, looking at her seriously.

I inherited this technique from my father, who could convey everything with a glance. My mother always told me that, if not for my blonde hair—which I inherited from her, unlike my father's dark hair—I could easily be the clone of the great Norman Miller.

"Very funny. He wasn't a satyr. They just came to me. I took what was offered to me, little girl," I said, refocusing on the images and changing cameras to avoid seeing the Scarlet O'Hara on duty. However, I couldn't help but look at her one last time before passing the camera at the entrance to the event. I was just in time to see the idiot Patel enter alone, without a woman accompanying him.

"Yeah, right!" I heard Ailan say in her usual ironic tone as she sat down in an armchair and attacked the box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates on the table in front of her.

"Where's your wonderful husband, Wendy?" I said to my Herman, calling her by the affectionate nickname I always used for her, referring to Wendy from Peter Pan. I called her that because she had always lived in a fantasy world, idealizing everything, especially love. Here was the result.

"Well, he's working. He had to go to Scotland and will be back tomorrow.” Arturo,” she said, gobbling down the third Ferrero Rocher.

She called me Arturo, meaning King Arthur, because I was always justifying everything for the common good from my position as king, she said.

"Then can you explain to me why he just entered the event at this moment?" I asked, turning the laptop toward her to show her the frozen image of her husband entering the event.

For a second, she stopped eating and looked at the screen seriously. Then, she looked at me furiously.

"Are you up to your old tricks again, Roy William?" Maybe he was sent to this hotel event, and I was wrong. Besides, remember that he doesn't know who I really am. I even feel guilty about that," she said seriously.

"Well, if you're so sure, why don't we go see him? He's not just attending the event; he also has a room reserved at the hotel under a woman's name,” I said, handing her the list of reservations for that day and pointing out the room number.

She looked at me incredulously for a second, but after thinking about it for a few seconds, she smiled at me again.

"All right, you win, Roy William, but I'm warning you. If everything you're telling me is nonsense, I won't listen to anything you say about this anymore. You'll have to accept your brother-in-law for who he is: your sister's husband," she said.

"Okay, deal," I said, offering her my arm to accompany me to the party.