Chapter 76 Teach me how to soothe a woman
He couldn’t touch her when she clearly didn’t want to be touched… right? Maverick stood outside Heaven’s door, breathing ragged, his knuckles white at his sides.
That conversation she had with his father still bothered him.She lied to him. He knew she lied.
And gods, he wanted to believe her so bad. He dragged a hand through his hair, trying to steady the roaring in his chest. He had sworn to break her for letting another man touch what was his.
But now?
Now she looked at him like he was a monster. It burned his chest.
He needed to breathe, thunk and get away before he snapped again. His phone buzzed, a message from Eva.
‘I will be staying with my parents for some time.’
He didn’t bother replying; he just shoved the phone back into his pocket and walked out of the house to the estate. The night air was cold enough to bite but not cold enough to calm him.
He stopped when he heard a man’s voice nearby.
“Baby, I told you…I’ll take you to that restaurant when my salary drops, hmm?”
Silence.
“Alright, alright, I’m not buying you off. I’m just trying to feed you enough so you won’t get exhausted from being angry.”
Silence.
Maverick narrowed his eyes.
The gardener was crouched among the rose bushes… whispering into his phone like a teenage boy in love.
“I’ll buy you that Chanel bag…the knock-off one Mrs. Virgo carries…. I know how bad you wanted it…I swear, honey.”
He laughed, soft, nervous.
“My leave is in a week. Stay angry till then, okay? Muahh.”
He kissed his phone.
Maverick just stared.
When the gardener turned and saw him, he nearly choked on his own spit.
“Young master..! I…I didn’t see… Please don’t fire me… I didn’t mean to take personal calls…on duty”
Maverick wasn’t angry.
He was… curious.
“How do you soothe a woman?” Maverick asked flatly.
The gardener froze.
He blinked once then twice, not fully apprehending the question or may be thought he heard wrong.
“…Sir?”
“That thing you were doing,” Maverick said, pointing at the phone. “…Teach me.”
The gardener looked like someone had just handed him a nuclear bomb and told him to babysit it.
“Uh… w–women…?” he stammered. “They like to be spoiled. With things they love. You just… have to know what she likes, sir.” He said scratching the back of his head.
Maverick frowned, genuinely troubled.
“I don’t know what she likes.”
The gardener stared at him like he’d grown horns.
“How…how can you not know…”
He stopped immediately, bowing his head fast.
“I-I mean…of course, sir, sorry, sir…”
Maverick didn’t care about the disrespect.
He cared about solving the problem with Heaven. Fix it all so she wouldn’t seek comfort in someone else again.
He soon found himself sitting beside the gardener, a perfectly straight, stiff, battle-hardened soldier receiving relationship counseling from a man in muddy boots.
The gardener hesitantly handed him his phone.
“These… are things women like,” he said, scrolling. “Pick something. Flowers. Bags. Shoes. Food. Surprises. Apologies. Uh… attention. PDA. Words of affirmation.”
Maverick stared at the screen like it was encrypted enemy intel.
The gardener coughed.
“Sir… before choosing anything, first ask yourself… How special is she to you? How would you feel losing her?”
Maverick’s jaw clenched. Hard. He didn’t want to dare think about it. She belonged to him and there was no other place for her except with him.
“Whenever she is far away, you lose your mind,” the gardener continued, waving his hands as if lecturing a friend, not the General’s son.
“Being around her gives you peace, when she’s hurt you feel hurt too. And when she smiles…ah!..it lights up your whole world.”
He sighed dramatically.
“Love is a crazy thing, sir. It's a sweet pain.”
Maverick’s entire body went still.
Love?
The word didn’t just land, it detonated.
The gardener, oblivious to the bomb he had just dropped into Maverick’s chest, kept talking.
“So, sir, treat her specially. As long as you don’t want to lose her…” he said, bowing again politely before hurrying off to get back to work.
Maverick didn’t move from that spot.
He sat there in the garden, the night wind brushing over him, the scent of damp soil in the air, feeling something sharp and terrifying unfold inside his chest.
Love?
He didn’t believe in it, he had never thought that was what he had towards her.
But then her face flashed in his mind. Her trembling voice. Her hazel eyes. Her smile before everything fell apart. The way his world felt wrong the moment she flinched when he touched her. The way he was restless if he didn’t know her whereabouts.
The way he felt like dying when he thought someone else had touched her.
Sweet pain.
He dragged a hand down his face, breath shaking with an emotion he didn’t dare name even though he knew it.
He couldn’t deny it.
Heaven wasn’t just an obsession, his comfort and his ruin.
She was the one thing he couldn’t lose.
And he had been the one destroying her.
His heart pounded so loudly, the gardener’s words looping in his skull.
“Treat her specially… what does that even mean…?”
He grimaced.
“What does she even like…?”
He raked both hands through his hair. What the hell was he supposed to do now?
He genuinely didn’t know.
He’d been sleeping with this woman for months, hunting for her in the dark, craving every piece of her…and he didn’t know a single thing she liked outside of his bed.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
For a moment, he considered marching back to the gardener.
What flowers do women like? Should I buy her a bag?Does she even like bags?
Heaven barely owned anything personal. Tonight, he would figure out the first step to soothing her