The Billionaire and His PA novel Chapter 98

The next day being a Saturday, Felix and Cassie had both wordlessly agreed to stay in bed until they got hungry but that plan had been ruined by two pairs of fists pounding at their door and demanding to be let in.

“They are not going to stop until we unlock the door.” Cassie said, burying her face in Felix's chest.

“I am aware. Just give me a moment.” Felix said, as he nuzzled her hair and tried to block out the sounds of the knocking, yelling and high pitched barking.

“If you don’t go now, they’re probably going to break the door down.” She warned.

Felix sighed. He slipped out from bed, shrugged on a pair of trousers and tossed Cassie one of his shirts. He had barely unlocked the door when it was flung open and three fast bodies burst in, each of them flinging themselves onto the bed.

“Cassie got up.” Lily screamed, bouncing on the bed. “We’re hungry.”

“And you promised that we were going to see Amanda today.” Aaron said, trying to pull her from the bed.

“I know, I know. I’m up.” Cassie said. She managed to find a way to sit up despite Lily, Aaron and Snowflake crowding around her.

“Can you guys give me a couple of minutes to take a shower? Then I’ll come down and make breakfast.”

The twins reluctantly agreed and left the room taking Snowflake with them. The moment they left the room, Cassie fell back to the bed. She knew they would be fine. Amanda wasn’t due to pick them up until later that afternoon and if they got really hungry, she knew that they would turn to their ‘secret’ stash of chips that they thought she knew nothing about hidden away in the bottom of their sock drawer.

“What are we going to do today?” Felix asked, crawling back into bed with her.

“There’s this new amusement park that just opened. Diana went there with a couple of her friends and she wouldn’t shut up about how good it is. The online reviews are pretty good and the entire setting is really cutesy and aesthetic.”

“Then that’s where we’ll spend our evening.”

************

Cassie held on to her stuffed bear with one hand and Felix with the other, trying to match his steps as they both ran for cover from the rain. Just as they had planned, they had gone to an amusement park later that evening. They had found out that a lot of people had also decided to go to the amusement park and as a result, they had had to park the car far away from the actual park and walked down leaving Cassie infinitely glad that she had worn sneakers. They had spent most of the evening going on the rides and playing carnival games. Felix had won her the stuffed bear and she had bought him cotton candy after discovering that he had never had it before. Just as he was about to take his first bite of the fluffy pink cloud, a fat drop of water had fallen to the earth and then without warning, the heavens opened and it had begun to rain. Heavily. The two of them had laced hands and like the other people in the amusement park, they had made a run for it.

They dashed into the nearest building, a supermarket named Happy Mart, alongside other people seeking shelter from the rain.

“Where’s my cotton candy?” Felix asked, looking at the stick that he had been holding. When he had left the amusement park, a large ball of cotton candy had been attached to the other end.

“It got dissolved in the rain. Did you know that cotton candy would melt if it came in contact with liquid?” Cassie asked pausing from wringing out her hair to stare at him quizzically. She snickered when he shook his head. “You’re so sheltered.”

“Yes. And so are you.” Felix said.

“Not like this.” Cassie said, holding back laughter as she waved her hand around toward the ceiling of the supermarket. “I mean sheltered as if you didn’t get out much as a kid. Which is no fault of yours. But it would always be amusing to me that today would have been the first time you would have had cotton candy. But we can make today another first. I know for a fact that you have never done your shopping for yourself.”

“I have never had a reason to do it.”

“Well we are in the super market now so today can be your first time.” She slipped her hands into his again. “Come on. Tonight, you get the full, regular-person shopping experience.” She dragged him along to the stack of trolleys and then delved into the world of regular-person shopping with him.

She they wheeled the shopping cart, Cassie guided Felix through the entire process. She let him pick which items he wanted to add to the cart, advised him on how to identify the top quality fruits and vegetables from the bottom shelf ones and explained to him why it was better to get things like bread and frozen foods last so they would get trampled by the other items in the cart or melt before it was time to leave the store.

“Please place your items on the conveyor belt and I’ll start scanning them for you.” She instructed.

Felix began lifting the items from the cart and putting them on the conveyor belt pretending not to be concerned about what he was supposed to do if an item didn’t scan or if an item didn’t have a barcode. He had seen that happen in a movie before. He sighed to himself. Cassie was right. He was sheltered.

Thankfully, everything went on smoothly. Emily scanned and bagged all of their things, everything forming a small mountain of plastic wrapped products in a corner. “Your total is five hundred and eighty seven dollars.” Emily announced.

Still looking around for Cassie, Felix dug around his pocket and handed his credit card to her.

Emily stared at the card in awe.

“Is there a problem?” Felix asked when he realized that she hadn’t gotten to swiping the card. Did they only accept debit cards? Or was it cash only?

Emily shook her head. “No. It’s fine. I just got a bit lost in thought.” In all her thirty-one years of life, she had never seen an actual black card before! And here was this man handing it over to her so casually to be used to purchase mediocre products at a dingy supermarket. If she owned a black card, she wouldn’t do her shopping by herself.

When she had handed him his card back, Felix put all of the shopping bags in his trolley and pushed it out of the way. He had gone through the entire process just as Cassie had instructed. He had waited in line. He had paid for the items. But there was still no sign of her. He had already figured out the game that she had played. She had left so that he could get the full regular-person shopping experience just as she had promised. They probably weren’t even out of milk; she had just said that to go and hide in a corner and monitor him from afar.

He stood there for ten minutes and there was still no sign of Cassie. Altogether, as the line had been extremely long, they had been separated for forty minutes. Had she needed to use the restroom? Or had she run into someone she knew and had stopped to chat?

He thought about calling her but then realized that he had left his phone in the car. “Excuse me.” He said to the security man at the door. “Can you please help me watch over these items? I need to go and check on my girlfriend.”

He left without waiting for the man to agree to his request or even signify that he heard what he had said. He strode through the various aisles in the supermarket, weaving through shoppers with their carts. He went through the entire store and there was no sign of Cassie. It was at that moment that he started to panic.