Chapter Twelve

Olivia

A year later…

My stupidity got me knock-up and heart broken, but it only lasts too long for me to bounce back on my feet. But my bundle of joy pulls me back to life. I realize when I nearly lose my daughter that I have to wake up from my delusion. My daughter needs me, and that's when I finally realize that there's use of crying my heart out for nonsense.

Luke makes it obvious that he has nothing to do with me or our daughter. Swallowing my pride, for the sake of my daughter, I contact him. He's apparently drunk, telling me he has no connection with me or my baby. Just when thought that my wound cannot be anymore beat a new, he goes ahead and beat at it far worse.

Austin helps me move forward. He finds us a secure place to settle and keeps us fed. He drops by now and then to inquire if we're holding up or if there's anything else he can do which is a sweetheart of him. He'll have nothing of my reassurance, and so I just let him do what he always does. My daughter's very fond of him in fact.

After a year that goes by, the last person I expect to see is him. I mean, I do see him in entertainment news now and then as well as in magazines but never again in person. I just finish buying milk formula and diaper when a hand grabs me by the elbow. My immediate reaction is to call for help, but one word from him and the fight drains out of me.

He spins me around, making me glimpse for the first time in forever those swirling mists of in between grey and icy blue orbs.

"I need to talk to you."

A dry, humorless laugh escapes my lips. "Now you want to talk?"

He regards me with a long hard look before deciding to throw me over his shoulder like he uses to do in the past, not caring of the little audience that he draws.

I gain a lot of weights after Ophelia, but he carries me as if I weigh the same as before. He deposits me on his black sports car and quickly got around the other side to lock us in. I'm too shocked to come up with an idea to escape. As he drives away, all I can think of is my daughter.

*

Luke turns off my phone, leaving me with no means of communicating from the outside world but his fortress. His opens the door with me beating his back and him spamming me on the buttocks. She jumps in surprise but asks nothing but offer her assistance in any way.

"Have a long vacation, Ms. Delhia until I summon you."

I scowl at his choice of word, glaring at him. Delhia silently slips upstairs and comes back a moment later with a few of her things with that she's out of the door.

He locks the door, making my heart drums like crazy.

I keep looking at my phone in his pocket thinking of a way to get it from him and yet at the same time not wanting to put the spotlight on my daughter. He makes it clear that he's nothing to do with my daughter. Why he's bugging me now, I don't know.

Running his hand through his hair, a habit he never really takes off.

"How do I begin, Olivia?"

Even after all this time, I can't help but shiver at the mention of my name in those sinful lips that whispers dirty promises on my ears after a satiating love making.

I purse my lips tight, refusing to talk.

He sighs, loosening his neck tie and unbuttoning the first three buttons of his dark polo. He rolls the sleeves up as if getting ready for a fight.

"I have a lot to set right, but that won't begin until I have you compliant and all ears."

I should have known that he'll use everything in his power to get what he wants...

*

"I'm sure that Austin's already enlightened you with his poisonous lies." He starts, staring off outside the window, his back to me.

My voice comes out cold, unfeeling. "Don't taint your brother's kindness just because you want to redeem yourself, Hemmington."

He's quiet for a while, and when he starts to speak again, it's as if he never hears me.

"The woman you saw in the picture," his words hang heavy opening my wounds fresh. Just when it's starting to heal he opens it again to salt it. He turns around to put more impact to the blow. "She's my fiancé." A bitter smile crosses his face, not reaching his eyes that swirls with grey at the memory.

"Or I'd like to think before because that same fiancé of mine married my best-friend and got a son along the way. They were happy for a while until he became deep in gambling, alcohol, and women."

I school my face to an emotionless expression, but I'm finding it hard every word he draws.

"Kelly falls into depression and commit suicide."

Finally, my will crumbles, making melt into a hopeless heap of a bawling mess.

But he's too lost in his memory to notice or else he will have come to me and hold me in his arms. That's just how it is even now.

"I'm a little too late just like I always was with my mom. Both of them a similar death. I don't know how broken can I be anymore but so suddenly, their son Isaac barely five years old saves me from my death myself. He stands there innocent, reminding me of myself. Ever since my mom died, I swore to myself not to put anyone in that situation. It's dark in that place and cold."

How am I supposed to hold my grudge to a man I become to hate? How can he change my mind so easily without effort? And what about me? My daughter, who he left, can I forgive him easily for that?

His eyes lose that distant look in them, looking at me now this time. "Time and time again I will play in mind whether I got your phone call that day. I was out of myself, drinking myself to death. After some time, I figure that you called. I debate with myself if I intrude in your life after all the misery I've caused you already. Most of all, I'm so afraid to befall the same fate on you and our daughter. I thought you both are better off without me. It's safer that way..." he hangs his head low, hands shaking.

"Then why did you come back?" is my croaky question, one that's been burning to ask.

He looks up, pain and misery playing in those eyes. "I've been looking everywhere for you both. I lift up rocks and around the world, but I can't track you down. It's until I have Austin followed that I finally found you both."

"How long have you known?"

"A month."

"What took you so long to approach?" I don't know why I'm asking this question trying to give him the chance to give me a good reason.

"Because of fuck it, Olivia. I will make you mine, whether I have to carry you over my shoulder to the altar I will do it."

My temper rise. "You don't have the right to leave and then make yourself welcome out of nowhere, Luke. You lost the chance!"

He doesn't miss a beat. "Once I have everything sort out I will move you and my daughter here, Olivia. I will marry you first and work hard for your forgiveness." He says each word in a slow deliberate manner as if I have a hard time understanding him if he speaks normally.

Fighting him when he's stubborn like this won't get me anywhere.