“Sure, I’ll do that. After that, we can discuss how we sort out the other tasks that Celine and her team had been covering behind the scenes,” Reiner suggested.“Ok, let’s meet up back here when we’re done. Maybe in like 30 minutes? I might take a little more time in the kitchen,” I told Reiner while I tried not to sound too stressed out.“Don’t stress, Natalia. This isn’t even close to the end of the world,” Reiner said jokingly. “I know that…” I mumbled in reply. Reiner smiled at me before he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on my forehead as his large hand patted the top of my head lovingly. I looked up at his face when he stood up again as a feeling of pure thankfulness flooded my chest with warmth. Thank you for being here with me, R…It was fully because of my own selfishness and stubbornness that Reiner was stuck here running an orphanage for kids with me. When Reiner took me on a holiday to help me on this project, he probably never anticipated that we would end up taking
“R…” I whimpered his name as I turned around in his arms to face him.“Go to sleep, Natalia…” Reiner whispered to me before he kissed my forehead. His arms wrapped a little tighter around my body before I felt the pressure from his hand behind my head. With slight force, he pushed my head to burry my face against his chest. It felt so good and so secure to be held in his arms like this. It was like he wanted to shield me from all my troubles with his large body. I breathed in his familiar scent as I nuzzled my face against his hard and muscular chest. “I love you…” I whispered. I felt Reiner nodding his head above me as his large hand stroked along my back in a slow and steady motion. When I woke up the next morning, I was still wrapped up in his embrace. For the many nights that followed, he held me just like that until sleep claimed me. …When the help that we were waiting eagerly for finally arrived, I was disappointed beyond measure. I stared at the lone figure of a young man
Maybe because he was new, Nick worked harder than any of us. Reiner and I worked long hours, but Nick worked even longer hours. He basically slept in a room in the orphanage and worked first thing in the morning until he went to bed at night. “I like this place. I think this is a good orphanage. The kids are good kids too. The teachers are kind and the food tastes great,” Nick complimented everything like this was a real paradise on earth. “You’re right,” I agreed with him before I started laughing quite loudly. Reiner approached our table before taking the seat next to mine. He gave Nick a brief smile of greeting before he got straight to business.“Natalia and I are flying back to the main island tomorrow. Sorry for the short notice but I think it would be better for us to talk to King as soon as possible and King agrees. We’re leaving this place in your care until we’re back. Ok?” Reiner asked without giving Nick much of a choice.This was the first time that I was hearing about
There’s got to be another way, right?“I’ll do it. If you’ll let me, I’ll like to move to manage the orphanage full time,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. I’m sorry, Reiner, but I just can’t think of another solution that it better than this. If no one else is going to take it on, will you please let me do this? King’s emotionless face transformed into a look of frank surprise while I felt Reiner stiffen next to me as he turned to glare at my face. After saying that so boldly, I had no other options left but to hold my ground. I am not going to back out of my words. Although my idea was crazy at best, I didn’t regret my proposal at all. “Will you…allow it, please?” I asked King when he failed to give me a response. “Interesting. Very interesting…” King commented as he rubbed his chin in thought.“I cannot allow it. We’ll find another way,” Reiner spoke up before King could come to a conclusion.My head whipped around to face Reiner as my mouth hung open. What did he just
“I’m sorry for proposing something crazy like that without consulting you or getting your permission first but I didn’t have any other choice. You heard what King said about shutting down the place and moving the children to other places…” I explained. Reiner didn’t reply and that confused me even more. What more am I supposed to say? “Can you please say something…?” I begged against his back. Reiner was silent for moment but then I heard him let out a long sigh. Maybe just like me, he had been figuring out what he wanted to say. I felt his hands on my wrists before he began gently removing my arms from around his body. I let him do what he wanted and soon he turned around to face me. His face was solemn, and I knew that I wasn’t really going to like what he was going to say. However, I was prepared to compromise so that we could both move on happily with our lives. “Do you even understand what your proposal means?” Reiner asked accusingly. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to ge
Reiner went completely silent as his blue eyes stared deeply into mine. He’s so tall and the way he stared down at me made me feel so intimidated…but not this time…“If I told you that this might be my dream, would you still stand in my way?” I asked although I knew that I was being unfair. Please answer me before I start crying right in front of you.Instead of replying to me, Reiner reached out and grabbed my wrist firmly before he tugged on my arm and pulled me into his arms. “R…” I whispered his name in surprise as I felt the familiar warmth of his embrace surround me.His arms tightened around my body before his large hand held the back of my head and pressed my face closer against his chest. I could feel the strong beat of his heartbeat against my ear and before I knew it, I had wrapped my arms securely around his naked upper body. “I can’t let you go…” Reiner muttered softly, and his arms tightened again around my body. “Then…can you find a way to come with me?” I asked bef
Life at the orphanage was a rocky ride right from the start. It truly helped to have more people on the team who could help on all fronts of the work. Nick and another staff that Reiner had recruited over from the company handled most of the administrative work along with me while Kat and the other staff focused on overseeing and helping out with operations. Kat turned out to be a big help and the fact that I could trust her to get things done flawlessly truly helped me to focus on solving the problems in front of me. Within three months, the orphanage was off to a better start, and we were able to welcome our first new batch of children without having to increase costs at all thanks to optimizing some processes and writing off expenses from Celine’s fraud case. Now that I thought of it, I never got around to finding out what happened to Celine and her team. When I asked Reiner, he just smiled and told me that I could consider them ‘gone for good’. The way he smiled so coldly at me
It was clear that Reiner was their favorite and not me and I had gotten very used to that fact. It didn’t bother me at all, but I did find it funny and always entertaining to watch Reiner play with the children. Whenever work got busy for Reiner or whenever he returned from a trip away to the main island, the children were always super excited to see him. “Look at this, Knight…” A boy waved a handmade figure of clay at Reiner. “Did you make this? It looks cool!” Reiner complimented as he bent down to get a closer look at what the boy was holding. It was amazing how a little reaction of interest from Reiner brought so much joy to the boy’s facial features. The boy couldn’t stop beaming proudly up at Reiner as he explained what his inspiration behind the figure was.At times, I couldn’t help but wonder if Reiner was really happy living with me on this random island with the children as a way to be with me while I worked hard on the mission that I had chosen for myself. I didn’t have