Chasing Forever(Chasing Series #4)(22)

"I don't know about you, but I'm famished. There's a café next door that serves strong coffee and a light breakfast," he said in a serious manner. "Chad and Sienna can take over watching the baby."

"Yeah, I suppose I could do with a bit coffee." I got up and walked right next to him, glancing towards the baby inside the glass room.

There was a nurse within the room, writing on her chart as her eyes diverted back and forth from the screen, the baby and her chart. Everything remained the same, I noted, as I concentrated on the tiny baby inside attached with tubes, its barely developed body and its dependency on the machine to keep her alive.

"I'll be right outside the door when you're ready."

Blake wanted to give me a moment, they all did, as I comprehended the situation and the challenge ahead of me. It wasn't a question about my own capacity, if I could or couldn't. It was merely an inevitable decision that I would fight alongside for this little baby's battle of survival, that I would do everything in me to keep on fighting until the very end.

Spinning around, Sienna and Chad were holding each other, mute and still, as they brought each other comfort, just as they'd done last year when both of them had gone through a tough period.

Each and every one of us had our own battles to get through; some harder than others, some much more draining. Sienna and Chad already had gone through with theirs. Now, sadly, it was my turn.





Chapter 19

Toby



Just as he'd stated, Blake was waiting outside the door, browsing through his phone before looking up and giving me a curt nod. Side by side we walked outside the hospital and were greeted by the rays of the early morning sun as we headed towards the café.

Two black coffees. No sugar. Two croissants.

Just like I had said before, we were brothers. We had grown up together liking mostly the same things-the only exception was women. Thank the gods. Well-all but one really.   





 

"Amelia's dead," I said it in a matter of fact tone as I pulled the ends of my croissant and took a bite. It felt and tasted like dust on my tongue, but I ate it anyway. If I wanted to take care of the baby as I had promised to be there for her, I had to keep up my energy. So I had no choice except to swallow the vile tasting food in my mouth, though eating was the last thing I felt like doing.

Blake took a long sip of his scalding hot coffee, as if it was nothing. Sure, he was half Italian and thrived on cappuccinos and espressos, however even Italians had sensitive tongues. Blake's most likely was immune to it-it was an amusing thought, but I had always wondered each and every time we'd had coffee together. Through the years of being friends and working alongside him, the same bloody thought appeared, yet I never really uttered a word about it.

"Doesn't your tongue have any heat sensory system?"

That made him put his cup back down on the barrel-like table, considering me like my question was the strangest thing someone had ever asked him. Well, maybe it was.

It was then I saw him crack his usual, arrogant smirk before it became a full smile. "Why waste time in waiting for it to get cooler? Sometimes it's best to take things the way they are-like they were supposed to be." He shrugged. "Why waste time changing it? Besides, it isn't that bad once you get used to it, like everything in life."

He made sense; I couldn't argue about that. He'd always had a way with things. How he looked at life, full of wisdom and knowledge. I was sure him being on his own since he was ten-years-old after his parents' accident had played a vital role in shaping the man that he was today. He never wasted time, opportunities, priorities or his women. He would jump in and go all out, consequences be damned. I admired him for that, wishing that someday I could be just as cautious and reckless at the same time.

"I took the liberty of tracking down her parents so they could be informed. Apparently, the cell phone signals were lacking, so tracking them down was difficult, but I took care of it. They were informed that their daughter was in an accident, nothing more. And if everything went according to plan, they should be on their way back as we speak."

God, her parents. They would be completely devastated with the news. Amelia had been their world.

"I appreciate it, mate. Thanks."

"I also had someone look into the accident." He paused, weighing my reaction before continuing. "It seems like Amelia committed suicide."

Shaking my head, I didn't want to believe him.

"She apparently didn't wear a seatbelt before driving off a cliff."

He sounded so insensitive, as if he was detached from this disaster that he'd taken part in creating, that I simply blew a gasket. "She wouldn't-that's absurd! She was pregnant for fuck's sake. Where the bloody fuck did you get this inaccurate information? It looks like your sources aren't doing their jobs!"

"I saw the driver himself this morning. Juan Carlos was the one who called me last night, letting me know what had happened after the cops swarmed the house and started interviewing everyone. How did you think I found out?"

I hadn't even thought about it. When it came to Knightly and his vast minions and sources all over the globe, I hadn't been a bit surprised that he was there when I woke this morning.

"What did he say?"

"After leaving your hotel last night, she asked him to drive her to a church that she frequented once or twice a week, attending a mass or doing a confession around seven in the morning." He paused, gauging my face. "She begged her priest for a confession"

"Did you happen to know what she told the priest?"

"He wouldn't disclose anything of use, says that he is a man of God who has vowed not to break confidence with his people. Including the ones who are dead."

It wasn't a doubt any longer because Blake had just confirmed what I'd feared most. There had been inkling, but I had brushed it aside yesterday.

It greatly saddened me to know that she had been aware of was doing before she'd even said goodbye to me the night prior. No wonder she had chosen her farewell words carefully. Those words were forever ingrained in my head-my memory. It would haunt me eternally, knowing that the clues had been there, staring blatantly at me, and yet, I somehow had been too naïve and too much in denial to see her full intentions.

No wonder her demeanor had immediately changed …  she was already plotting the whole time …  even when we had gone to that ultrasound appointment. But if she wanted to end her life, why bother going to the doctors anyway?   





 

She had done it for the baby …

There was a possibility that the baby might survive and she had wanted to cover every angle by letting me be attached to it by some sense of familiarity before she'd progressed and executed her plan of demise.

"She loved you," I murmured. "Until her last breath."

The man across me fell silent.

We had both caused her pain. It was truly beyond unfortunate how she'd decided to end her life. I believed that, given time, she could've found happiness. Perhaps she even would have found another guy that she could fall madly in love with, and Blake Knightly would have just vanished from her heart. Sadly, she hadn't believed in that.

"Amelia loved me in a different way," he broke his silence, frowning at the table with great concentration. "She loved the idea of me-the man in control, the guy sitting at the ahead of the boardroom table, the man in charge."

She had beaten herself emotionally at first then mentally before succumbing to the physical, ending it once and for all. The image of her dead with bruises, cuts and the deep lacerations in her arms

"She suffered living. I hope she's suffering no longer."

"Indeed. I pray that she doesn't," Blake murmured much to himself.

Most women chased him for that very reason. Maybe Amelia's had been the same in a sense, but hers just had gone a little deeper than the rest, Camilla Clayworth and Ivanna aside.

In my own way, I sort of understood her and why she'd chosen the way to end things as she had. I didn't agree with it, however I understood where she had been coming from. When you were suffering from unrequited love, you worked on trying to kill that feeling. You could attempt to bury it for a time, but when something triggered you and it sets off your emotions, there would be no escaping.

Because, when it chose to remain, all you could try to do was hide it, lock it somewhere where no one could feel it other than you. You'd still sense it in every second the time ticked away. You'd feel it when you heard the birds chirping out in the garden, when you sipped your coffee in the morning, or when you drove your car. It was there. In you. Bonding with you, seeping into your system, wounding you until you were interlaced with it and it eventually dictated your ultimate purpose.

I had been suffering along with Amelia. The only difference with me was I had chosen to accept the fact that my love for Lucy could never be buried or tamed. Accepting that unlucky fate that I would never be with her again was the wisest thing I had done. It hurt more than words could ever describe, but loving her was all I had known, therefore I would keep on loving her until there was nothing left of me except flakes and ashes on the ground.

Denial could wreck a person. It obliterated any sense of reasoning, defeating your purpose and goals. It fed off your rejection, your bitterness and anger. It was emotionally cruel and the worst kind of mental torture to go through. Just like what had happened to Amelia, believing things that were made up from her obsession and fascination of the man she'd loved.