MELTING MY CEO HEART - SEASON 2 EPISODE 59

As Liz heard Will’s tone which was filled with loss and sadness, her heart lurched.

Silently, she walked to him and held his hand, as if to encourage him to go ahead.

Liz was no stranger to this feeling of grief over something that was lost. In situations like these, instead of spouting fake condolences without even knowing everything that had happened clearly was something that should never be done.

As if the feel of her hand was giving him the courage to move forward, Will continued.

Walking forward, he led Liz to an empty clearing.

It was rectangular in shape, and although a few plants had started to grow, there was only grass growing for the most part, unlike the rest of the natural forest where the undergrowth was mostly moss and other plants.

In other words, it looked like this area had been cleared and landscaped for some purpose.

It was 100 feet in length and breadth, around the size of a tennis court.

Leaving her hand, Will walked forward and stood in the center of the clearing before raising his hands and proclaiming, “Here, we built our dream. Come on.”

Nodding, Liz walked forward, but stopped when Will raised a hand.

“Where you are standing was supposed to be the beach area of the hotel, where people could simply go sunbathe to forget the worries of their life.”

What? A beach?

Seeing the puzzlement in Liz’s face, Will explained, “That is the plan for the hotel that we built in this area long, long back.”

“You and Keren?”, Liz asked, as she was imagining a little girl and boy hopping around and using stick figures to build their dream.

However, Will’s reply surprised her.

“No. Me, Keren and…Louis.”

Hearing this new name, Liz waited for him to elaborate on who it was.

She had seen a flash of sorrow pass across his eyes when he mentioned that name, so Liz could tell that it probably meant something to him.

Sure enough, after a few seconds, Will first lowered his hands before walking towards Liz and saying, “First, Elizabeth, I need to tell you that I cannot directly talk about my childhood in a linear fashion. I…am not used to opening up, but I want to, to you. However, is it all right if I do that in parts? This is one part, and I wanted to start with this.”

Hearing this strange request, Liz sank into deep thought for a second or two before replying, “Of course. Where’s the fun in sitting down one day and unraveling everything about each other? I will do the same. Besides, Derek once said that the journey of discovering someone else was one of the most beautiful parts of a relationship.”

This time, it was Will’s turn to be puzzled. That cute little kid had spouted words of such deep meaning?

Seeing his confused expression, Liz chuckled and said, “He was reading it off a movie’s advertisement to practice English. He didn’t understand the meaning, but the way he said it with complete concentration was so adorable.”

This served to break the slightly tense atmosphere, making Will laugh softly, too, before taking both of Liz’s hands into his.

Liz remembered what had happened this morning and her extensive plan for revenge, but she put it aside graciously for now as she really did want to find out more about Will.

“Thank you. Yes, it is a beautiful journey, so let this be our first step on it.”

Taking a deep breath, Will turned around and quickly pointed at a few areas in the flat land.

“Hotel entrance, with a roller coaster to the side for kids and young adults. There, a novel scary house restaurant. Here, a wave pool and a snow room. An open penthouse with a basketball court and an infinity pool….”

As Will listed one implausible section of the hotel after another, Liz’s eyebrows rose more and more until they couldn’t go any higher.

After a few seconds, Will stopped and noticed Liz’s expression before smiling slightly and saying, “We were kids!”

Oh, yes, of course.

These were kids with billions of dollars at their disposal.

Realizing this, Liz felt that it made sense, more or less, remembering that old movie “Richie Rich” where such things had been shown to be the reality.

“How did this fascination with hotels begin anyway?”, Liz asked, as dreams like these usually wouldn’t come to be without some reason.

Sighing, Will said, “And that is the main part of this part of my childhood that I wanted to tell you about. When I was little, there were many instances when I felt like…escaping from that world. A world of pressure, expectations, and suffocation. Louis’s father used to own a chain of hotels, and it was in one of those that I always found refuge. We used to play around the entire hotel, and I used to forget about everything. It was my personal escape. My…paradise. So, I and Louis started dreaming of our own hotel which we could build exactly like we wanted. Keren joined in, and the three of us began planning in earnest. That…is how my dream came to be.”

Liz could see it. A cute little kid wearing an adorable suit running around and planning a hotel.

At this moment, she really did feel like she had gotten closer to Will at least by a little bit, as she had begun to understand him more.

However, a doubt popped up in her head.

“If the three of you made this, then why isn’t Louis’s name on the board? And why don’t either of you mention him?”

This question replaced the nostalgic expression on Will’s face with one of sadness again.

Leading her to the signboard again, Will this time took her closer to it.

When she looked at it from arm’s length, Liz noticed that there were a few words that seemed to have been burned off above “William and Keren”.

The wood was dark in the first place, so she hadn’t been able to see it before.

“There, the words ‘And Louis’ used to be there, until they were burned away by him before he left.”

Without waiting for Liz to ask the obvious follow-up question, Will continued.

“He left because his father and mine had a falling out, and my father used his status as a major stakeholder to force Louis’s father out of the board of the company that he, himself had set up.”