The Love Affair(Good Wife Better Mistress)

Happy Couple

As the bodyguards clear a path through the crowd, the shop assistants gather outside the stores to gawk. They've never seen so many bodyguards before. The entire shopping center looks like it's involved in some sort of military exercise. The assistants and the crowd feel nervous and scatter out of the path.

Some of the shoppers start to panic and scream. When they see Conrad and Chanel, they calm down. Chanel is clearly unhappy, and she tugs at the handcuffs and looks at the ground as she walks.

"Why have they handcuffed?" one shopper asks, "Are they filming some sort of police show?"

"How could they be filming? There's no camera!" replies another, "I think they're lovers. Have you ever heard that some lovers like to be handcuffed to each other? They want to be together all the time. I think it's romantic."

"The man is so handsome," gushes a shop assistant, "The woman is beautiful too, but why is she looking down?"

"She may be shy," answers another.

Chanel feels both shy and embarrassed. She hates all of the whispering voices.

"Please ask your bodyguards to leave," she asks Conrad in a low voice, "We're just shopping. We don't need so much security."

Conrad holds his head high and advances with long, confident strides. He seems to enjoy all the attention they're receiving.

"Don't you think it's great?" he asks with pride.

"No, I don't think it's great," Chanel mutters. "Don't you know that influential people are likely to be attacked in public places? A person like you must have a lot of enemies, and this shopping center leaves you exposed. Any sniper could get an easy shot at you."

Chanel knows that an attack is unlikely—the bodyguards are mostly there to prevent her from escaping—but she wants to unsettle Conrad.

"What a joke!" Conrad scoffs. "But, I always imagined you wanted to shoot me with a submachine gun instead of a sniper rifle."

You're not wrong," Chanel snaps back. "Though you don't have many virtues, at least you know yourself well enough."

Chanel looks around at the shops, selects a designer lingerie store, and drags Conrad toward the door. She knows that most men feel uncomfortable in lingerie shops, and she hopes Conrad will resist.

"Mia asked me to buy her underwear. Are you coming in with me?" Chanel says and flashes him a sour grin. "If you're too embarrassed, unlock the handcuffs, and I'll go in by myself."

Instead of unlocking the handcuffs, he enters the store, leaving her trailing in his wake. Conrad glances around the store and hooks a lacy pair of underwear with his index finger. "I'd like to see you in this later," he whispers.

Chanel snatches the underwear out of his hands and puts it back on a hanger. "I'm afraid your heart couldn't stand it," she says. "As you know, I don't care if you die."

Conrad laughs loudly, and Chanel catches several blushing shop assistants looking over at him. Once upon a time, she would have been attracted to Conrad too.

Now she fights the urge to stuff a pair of underwear in his mouth to smother his intolerable laughter. But he's so perverted, and he might actually enjoy it, she thinks.

"Stop laughing and help me pick something," she says.

It's essential that she buys something he likes, but she doesn't know where to begin. She browses racks of see-through lace and skimpy mesh. Conrad is such a playboy, and I bet there's nothing in this store he hasn't seen before, she thinks. What will arouse a man as jaded as him?