Chapter 12%
I opened the door to my room, and before I knew it. Elena ran in and almost ran into me. Her face was filled with panic, but a smile remained on her lips!
“Elena, you startled me!” I exclaimed X
I’m sorry for having disturbed you, but Mr. Vincent is already here.
On reflex, my heart beat a little faster.
My smile widened unconsciously. Then I silently tiptoed down the stairs. After a week of hearing no news except from the guards, and from my bracelet, he was home at last.
But halfway down the stairs, my smile dried up.
Vincent had just entered the mansion, but he was not alone.
He was a man pushing a wheelchair, a young woman. There was no hair on her head, her face was so pale. Beside her stood a boy, four years old, who held on tightly to Vincent’s hand.
The boy glanced about him with eager, inquisitive eyes.
My body snapped rigid and I clutched the stair railing. I couldn’t move. Valerie’s words in the mall suddenly echoed back to her,
“Wait for Vincent to get home, and youll see who he’s really looking for. ”
At that instant, Vincent was silent. He did not move, his glance had for an instant rested upon me, and then had wandered back to the woman in the invalid–chairs
Vincent, who did you bring?” I asked softly, almost whispering
For a second, his eyes rested on me. But there was something different. He was cold again, a stranger.
“TII tell you later, Scarlett,” he said flatly. “I have to fend for Jessica and John. They must be tired.”
So I simply nodded slowly, trying to make sense of things even as my heart started to clench.8 Her eyes met mine, and she smiled faintly
I smiled back at that, but not without a bit of venom behind it.
I retraced the corridor of the mansion that morning, Walking by Vincent’s room I overheard a voice. His door wasn’t shut all the way, and there was a crack, and I could see into it. It was his father.
“Why did you come home with that woman?” Mr. Charles demanded while raising his voice.
I held my breath. My body froze in place.
“Don’t misunderstand, Dad, Vincent replied.
1 only brought Jessica over to get her treatment. She has brain cancer. And when she left, Jessica said, she was pregnant. She said, the child is mine.”
A stone seemed to be
pressing on my chest all at once.
I leaned back against the wall like my knees ceased to hold me up, I found it hard to contain the surge of emotion that welled up suddenly in me.
Inside the room, Mr. Charles called out once more.
“Are you crazy? What if Scarlett gets to hear all this? And what about your marriage?”
“I am going to marry Scarlett anyway, Dad. And I will explain it to her, slowly.”
There was a pause. Then came the voice of Mr. Charles, low but not less keen.
“You can’t have faith in a snake of a woman like her. She has betrayed you before. And now you’re bringing your future wife here to be with her, in this mansion?”
Mr. Charles exhaled harshly.
“Get Jessica away from this or you won’t have anything at all, Vincent. And I don’t want to see her here anymore.
Mr. Charles looked across and into Vincent’s eyes. After that, he left the room.
Not long after, Vincent followed out of his room.
I stood up and put my ear to the wall and gripped my hands on my stomach, using the wall as a support and steadying myself so I wouldn’t shake and give myself away, and to keep from bursting out with questions and curses.
I was walking toward the dining room. I was nearly there when I heard a cheerful little voice behind the wall!
“Daddy!“X
I turned.
The suspected son of Vincent, a boy named John, His lille form shot forward and then launched up into Vincent’s arms, whom easily maneuvered him onto his hip.
A servant pushed Jessica’s wheelchair a few paces behind them.
Jessica was looking at the lovely summer scene. A smile that had no right to ache me, but I winced, anyway.
John pulled away from Vincent’s embrace, his eyes gleaming X
“Mom! Come here quickly
Those words felt harder to me than they should have
I froze in place. I felt as if my heart fell to the floor and broke into a thousand pieces.
My hand instinctively grabbed my clothes sleave to brace myself. I bent lower, trying to breathe in, but my chest was stuffed up and it
was impossible to daw a breath.
in another few steps I would be in the dining room. But I also knew I wouldn’t be able to sit there and watch them come and gather
around that same tableX
My legs started to tremble as I took a step backwards.
dn’t want to run their special moment as a mini–family. I went back to my room and locked myself 17
