Sleepover
Sonia did not tell Toby that Jessica had discovered the truth of her birth story—that she was not her
parents’ biological daughter.
If she told him, given how much he cared for her, he would only take it upon himself to investigate how
Jessica had discovered such information in the first place. More importantly, Sonia thought she could
look into this herself without troubling him; otherwise, she would appear truly useless.
Toby, on the other hand, didn’t notice that she was hiding something from him as he lowered his head
and burrowed into the dip in her shoulder. “So, you’ve agreed to it?” he asked.
She hummed in response, nodding once. “With the microchip that you gave us implanted in her, we don’t
have to worry about losing track of her. Besides, I highly doubt that she would do a runner.”
“That’s good enough,” he murmured softly before he glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s getting late.
We should get some sleep.”
As it was drawing close to 10:00P.M, Sonia let out a full-body yawn and said groggily, “You’re right. I am
pretty tired.”
She had stayed up the whole of last night to knit him a scarf on top of babysitting and nursing him out of
his hangover for a better part of today. As of now, she was drained.
All she wanted to do was to lie down and sleep through the night.
“Come on, I’ll bring you to the room,” Toby offered as he took her hand in his. She glanced down at their
intertwined hands and did not plan on pulling away. After all, holding hands was par for the course for
any loving couple.
She allowed him to guide her toward one of the bedroom doors, but her expression shifted slightly when
she saw which bedroom he was leading her to, and she stopped in her tracks.
Toby stopped as well, and turned to look at her in askance. “What’s wrong?”
“This is your room,” she pointed out, jerking her chin toward the door before them.
He nodded. “I know.”
She stared at him incredulously with wide eyes. “Toby, are you actually asking me to sleep in your
room?”
“Don’t you want to?” Toby asked, his gaze even and unaffected.
Sonia fell silent at this.
It looked like things had turned out the way she felt they would. When he said he was going to turn down
the bed earlier and went into his own bedroom, she didn’t think much of it, only assuming that he had
retreated into his room to locate spare blankets or whatever. After all, with all the other rooms in the
penthouse left vacant, it would only be natural that the beds were bare.
Alas, she had given him too much credit. Toby had never intended to set up any of the guest rooms for
her; he wanted her to sleep in his room instead.
Then again, she shouldn’t have been too surprised by this, given his past record of climbing into her bed
in the middle of the night while he was staying over at her place.
She wondered how far he would go just to sleep with her on the same bed and what other
ungentlemanly tactics he might employ to that end. He’s probably going to reenact the whole incident
where he sneaked into my bed.
At the thought of this, she facepalmed like she was in utter disbelief before she sighed as she said in
resignation, “You know what, it’s fine. I’ll just have to make do.”
As she said this, she put a hand on the doorknob and twisted it. When the door swung open, she led the
way into the room.
Meanwhile, Toby’s eyes brightened when he saw that she agreed to sleep in his room. He practically
flew after her, and he would have glued himself to her like they were magnets if he could. He had been
pretty worried earlier that she would turn him down, but now that things were progressing in the direction
he liked, he visibly relaxed.
Upon entering Toby’s room, Sonia immediately caught sight of his bed, which was large enough to fit
several people at once, and blushed. While she knew that intimacy was off the table tonight, she still
found herself thinking about it and the size of the bed didn’t help to quell her rampant thoughts.
She rubbed her temples and winced. This is all Toby’s fault. That pervert has been polluting my good
senses with his own impurity. Why else would I be having such thoughts as soon as I see the bed? Stop
thinking about it. Stop right now.
Then, she tapped her forehead with her knuckles, forcing herself to calm down by taking a deep breath.
At the sight of this, Toby quickly intervened to pull her hand away from her head and he looked serious
as he asked, “What’s wrong? Do you have a headache?”
“No,” Sonia answered. She squeezed out a faint smile and responded, “I just thought of some amusing
things.”
“Amusing things?” He clearly did not understand what she meant by that.
She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s nothing. Okay, let’s go to bed. I’m exhausted.” A yawn followed
her statement, as though to prove her point.
Toby surveyed the fatigue on her face and the pale shadows beneath her eyes, and his heart twisted. He
gently ruffled her hair as he said endearingly, “Okay, let’s sleep.”
Sonia hummed softly, then lifted the covers before sliding beneath them.
While she did so, he rounded the bed to lie down on the other side before he reached out with an arm to
pull her into his embrace, his gesture so natural that one might think they had been sleeping together for
the longest of time, much like an old couple.
Her fingers brushed his arm, which was snug around her waist, and she felt her lips twitch in
amusement. He’s a complete natural. He didn’t even bother to ask before cuddling me. Apparently, he
had none of the bashfulness that came with the tender beginnings of a relationship, which was just
another way of saying he was roguish.
She shook her head in mild exasperation but did not lift his arm off her, and took this unexpected gesture
of affection in stride.
She was already worn out from the day’s events, and her eyelids felt heavy as soon as her head hit the
pillow. Darkness was slowly washing over her, tempting her with rest.
All in all, she was desperate for sleep, and she couldn’t be bothered if the world collapsed on itself. Very
quickly, she could no longer resist the darkness that was beckoning her and she fell into a deep slumber.
Her exhaustion was evident in the sound of her breathing, which seemed louder than usual.
Toby, on the other hand, had only just woken up not too long ago, so it went without saying that he was a
bundle of energy. He lay on his side, propping his head up with one hand as he gazed at Sonia’s
sleeping profile.
No matter how long he looked at her for, her face remained the same, and this was true even as she lay
unmoving on her side of the bed. However, he realized that he could not look away, and he was only
growing more enamored with her.
After what felt like a long moment, Sonia finally turned to her side. It was only then that Toby switched off
the main lights in the room, leaving only the yellow night light that illuminated the dark. Having done so,
he slid beneath the covers and closed his eyes contentedly.
The next day, Toby was woken up by the sound of a ringing phone.
He opened his eyes slowly and glanced at the woman in his arms.
Her eyes were still closed, and she was sleeping soundly, completely undisturbed by the incessant
ringing of her phone.
As he was worried that she would eventually be stirred from sleep if the ringing continued, Toby carefully
propped himself up and grabbed the phone from the nightstand.
It was Sonia’s phone that was ringing with an incoming call and the screen was flashing with Daphne’s
name displayed on it. With a quick swipe of his thumb, he put the call through and lowered his voice
deliberately. “What?”
When Daphne heard this, she froze on the other line before she hastily pulled the phone away so she
could look at the screen. Having made sure that she had indeed called Sonia’s number and not someone
else’s, she put the phone back to her ear and asked cautiously, “P-President Fuller?”
Toby hummed in confirmation.
She sighed, relieved that it was indeed Toby on the phone. She had thought that it was some other man,
and that gave her a fright. Why is President Fuller the one answering Chairman Reed’s phone, though?
And at such early morning hours, too. Could they be…
The sudden realization that Toby and Sonia had spent the night together dawned upon Daphne, and all
her doubts dissipated instantly. She adjusted her black-frame glasses and asked delicately, “President
Fuller, may I know whether Chairman Reed is with you at the moment?”
“She’s still sleeping,” Toby answered impassively in his crisp morning voice, one hand pressing the
phone to his ear and the other toying with a strand of Sonia’s hair.
Daphne raised a brow. She’s still sleeping? She gave the clock on her office wall a cursory glance, and
noted with no small amount of astonishment that it was nearly 10:00A.M. Heavens, if Chairman Reed is
still asleep at this hour, that could only mean that she had quite the rough night with President Fuller!
She’s probably too worn out to wake up.
Not knowing that Daphne had sorely misunderstood, Toby continued in a clipped tone, “I could pass on a
message for you if you’d like. If it’s nothing urgent, I’ll get her to call you back as soon as she wakes up
and you can talk to her then.”
“That’s fine by me, President Fuller. Please get Chairman Reed to call me back when she’s awake. It’s
nothing particularly important or urgent,” Daphne replied courteously.
He nodded slightly. “Understood.” He hung up and set the phone down on the nightstand, then took his
own phone so he could call Tom.
At this moment, a pair of delicate hands darted out from under the covers and wrapped around Toby’s
arm, followed by a soft voice asking, “What time is it?”
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