Billionaire Brothers 2 : Love Has A Name (54 page)

Placing a hand on Seleste’s thigh, Vince answered, “You know that, baby.”

“I c-can’t be like that, Vince. I can’t submit.”

Vince gave a sad smile as he ran his hand up and down her thigh. “I know. That’s why we got a divorce, remember?” Then he sighed. “We can’t keep doing this to ourselves and to others, Seleste. It’s selfish and unfair. I love you with all my heart, but we’re like oil and water. You won’t submit and neither will I. Why continue to torture ourselves like this? We have to
stop
.”

Seleste slightly nodded, either in understanding or in agreement. “
She
wants your name,” she softly said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I already have that. You told me it belongs to me. She
can’t
have it, Vince. It’s mine. You’re mine.”

Vince took up her hand in both of his and kissed the wedding ring that Seleste never stopped wearing. “Yes, it’s yours. True, I’m yours. My heart’s yours.” Kissing the ring again, he brought her palm to his cheek and closed his eyes. “I can’t promise you that I won’t share my love with someone else. But I promise you, Seleste, that I will never marry someone else. Because I will never,
ever
love anyone as much as I love you.” He kissed her fingers. “I love you.”
Kiss
. “I love you.”  
Kiss
. “But we have to say goodbye.”

And with every word, I gagged. I’d never understand these two.

Vince got up with a heavy sigh and walked out of the room, leaving a heartbroken Seleste behind. Just then, a maid set down a crockery of gravy on the table that swam into my nostrils and sent me into dizzying nausea. My throat was suddenly clogged with everything I’d just eaten. I bolted from the table and made it right in time to the nearest half-bathroom to regurgitate. Over and over, I heaved out all that I’d eaten. This illness was beginning to exhaust me. I couldn’t fathom what could be making me this ill. Was I being slowly poisoned or something?

After cleaning up and returning to the dining room, I noticed Seleste and Romaine trading glances. Lynn met me halfway with a cup of tea. “Drink this. It’s ginger tea. You might feel better.”

Lynn’s eyes blew wide when I muttered a “thank you.”

Was a ‘thank you’ from me that big a deal? The woman made me tea, for heaven’s sake.

“Axia,” my mother said cautiously. “Romaine told me you’ve been like this since you arrived. Are you —”

“Look, would you all just eat your damn dinner and stop worrying about me? I said I’m
fine
, okay?” I irritatedly snapped. Changing my direction, I started back out of the dining room. “People get ill every frigging day. I’m no exception just because I live a healthy life.”

My initial intention was to head upstairs and lock myself in my room. But standing between the staircase and the living room, climbing the stairs suddenly seemed like a task that I wasn’t up for. And the plush, white daybed was beckoning.

It didn’t matter that Vince and Eve were sitting on the sofa opposite, engaged in a heated conversation. All I could think about was how amazing my tired body would feel on the daybed’s plushness. So I dragged myself in that direction, setting the teacup down on the coffee table as I passed by it, disregarding the confused stares of Vince and Eve, and threw my body down on the daybed with a contented sigh.

I was asleep before I was even awake.

XXIX

Five days later …

S
oft murmurings fluttered above my head, accompanied by a constant beeping sound. I wanted to open my eyes, but at the same time I wanted to stay asleep. Failing at forcing myself back to sleep, I reluctantly flicked my eyes open. The room I was in wasn’t mine. It was white, clinical, and smelled like bleach and old people. The bed I was lying on was stiff, narrow and uncomfortable.

“Axia?” a familiar voice said.

Turning my head to the left, I saw Trudy and Tish hovering over me, smiles brightening their faces. My eyes briefly left them and flitted around the room, as I came to the realization that I was in a hospital. How? Why?

“What am I doing here?” I asked in confusion. “What happened?”

“I’ll go let the nurse know you’re awake,” Tish said, scurrying from the room.

Trudy took up my hand and kissed my fingers. She was in her gym wear, looking disheveled. “You fainted this morning while we were working out?”

“What?”

“You fainted,” she repeated. “You’ve been out for over four hours.”

As I lifted a hand to rub my forehead, I noticed the IV drip connected to me. “I-I don’t know how … did the doctor say it’s serious?”

“They gave us no information because we’re not family. The only reason we’re even in here is because Tish knows one of the nurses. I wanted to wait for at least twelve hours before calling your dad to give him a scare.”

“Thanks for not calling him. He doesn’t do well with stuff like this. He’d worry himself to death.”

Trudy kept my hand tightly grasped in hers. She was worried, but she knew better than to voice it. Panicky questions and worry phrases always tick me off. People tend to take life way too seriously. Things happen. To anyone. And all we can do is deal with the crap as they come. Then arm ourselves in preparation for the problem that’s tomorrow’s.

A tall African-American doctor swept into the room with Tish following behind.

“And she’s finally awake,” the doctor chirped, filling the air with cheer. “I’m your doctor Clarissa Munda. How are we doing, Miss Blacksille?”

Now that’s the spirit. The optimism in her voice gave me hope that all would be well.

“I’m fine. Just wanna know what caused me to be in this bed and when I can get the hell out.”

Clarissa walked up to the beeping machine beside the bed and began conducting the usual crap process that doctors do, where they check and scribble on their clipboards with strings of “hmms”. So annoying.

This might have been my first time in a hospital since birth. Growing up, our doctors came to us. Even now I had my own doctor, Marian, who I call whenever I have problems — which was seldom.

Patience ran empty. “Are you gonna tell me what’s wrong with me or not?”

She peered at me with a bright smile, then flicked her gaze over to Tish and Trudy in question.

“They’re family. Just tell me.”

Clarissa shrugged, then beamed at me. “You have nothing to worry about, dear. Results show that you are around seven weeks pregnant. Your sudden fainting was on account of low iron deficiency that rendered you anemic. This can easily be solved by a prescription of iron supplement —”

“Whoa, whoa,
whoa
. Did you just say
pregnant
? How?”

She arched a brow at me. “Oh, Miss Blacksille, must I sit and illustrate to you how a woman gets pregnant?”

Shooting upright in the bed, I glared. “Not like that. I mean, I’m on the injection. I
can’t
be pregnant.”

Clarissa pursed her lips and tapped her clipboard. “Oh, but you are. I’m sure you know that contraceptives are not one hundred percent effective. Sometimes those little buggers weasel their way through that bulwark, Miss Blacksille.”

“But-But wouldn’t I have known sooner, like four weeks in or something?
Seven
weeks?”

“Well, it’s always different when you get impregnated while on contraceptive. Especially with the injection where there is no monthly bleeding, you can get pregnant and don’t even realize until you’re as far as three months in. Such has happened on numerous occasions.” She pinned me an accusing stare. “But I’m thinking you’ve been getting the symptoms and have been overlooking them.”

Ignoring her, I tried to rip the IV drip from my hand.

“Wait, wait, Miss Blacksille,” she said, rushing to take over the work of freeing me. “You don’t want to do an ultrasound?”

“No,” I snapped. “I don’t care for it.”

“And here I was thinking this was going to be good news,” Clarissa muttered, more to herself than to me. That would explain why she’d been so cheery.

I cut my eyes over to Tish and Trudy, who both stood frozen and wide-eyed, seemingly more shocked than I was. “Tish, phone Marian. Let her know there’s an emergency. Give her my penthouse address and have her meet me there in an hour.”

Tish nodded and left the room, while Trudy’s eyes bulged further, knowing what that meant. “Axia, you’re being impulsive. Think about —”

“Piss off, Trudy. This is not your life, it’s mine.”

I leaped off the bed when the nurse was finished with me and went to the bathroom to change out of the crumpled blue cape. When I returned, I took second note of Trudy’s gym wear. If she was here and not at work, then … “What was your reason for not turning in to work today, Trudy?”

Trudy winced and lowered her gaze. “That you fainted…”

“Dios mío, what part of ‘do
not
give out any information about me’ don’t you understand?!”

“What was I to say? I reported to the manager of my floor that I can’t come in today because of an emergency. The next thing I know,
he’s
phoning me himself, demanding to know what’s so much of an ‘emergency’ that I can’t make it to work.” She gave me her famous ‘please forgive me’ expression. “Axia, you don’t understand, he’s been extremely hard on me of late. It’s actually a bit frightening. It’s like he has everything I do under close observation. This is what I was afraid of when I told you I didn’t like it that you two were —”

“Whatever,” I dismissed.

Tish popped back into the room. “Marian says she can be there in forty-five.”

“Perfect.”

Marian perched upright on the edge of my uncomfortable white sofa. Her middle-aged features were smooth with subtle make-up, her dark brown hair wrapped in a neat coiffure, and her slender frame was clothed in a sharp, charcoal pants suit. She pursed her lips, folded them, unfolded them, tapped the docket in her hand, brushed and patted her coiffure. I was sitting across from her, erect, hands folded on my lap.

Soon she had no choice but to address the topic on hand. “Are you
sure
that’s what you want to do, Axia?”

Before I could answer, she continued her speech of persuasion. “Most women take at least a week to think about such a decision. You’ve only found out less than an hour ago. Perhaps you could sleep on it and see if your view changes in the morning?”

“My view won’t change, Marian. This baby doesn’t have a father and I’m not raising it on my own. Better yet, I don’t
want
a child. Anyone who knows me knows that much. What the hell am I going to do with a baby? This baby thing has never been in what I envisaged for my life. Let alone being a single parent? Hell. No.”

Marian continued in the same vein as if she heard me not. “A decision like this may lead to profound guilt and remorse in the future. Strong enough to induce suicidal thoughts. Also, the harmful —”

“I don’t want it!” I bellowed, my voice and composure finally crumbling as my eyes brimmed with tears.