Chapter 1: An Opportunity Knocking At My Door

Naomi West

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“Naomi West? Please sign here.” The postal delivery officer loans me his pen.

I’m still on a call, so I don’t bother asking him questions. Even though I’m not expecting a parcel, I still take it. After all, it’s too small to be a bomb.

I shut the door after the man and turn back around into my home. I flip over the parcel in curiosity to see who is the sender. To my utter confusion, there is no return address or the sender’s name on it.

An anonymous parcel? Fine, not a bomb, but it definitely has something to do with drugs.

“Mommy! Mommy!” Ben’s tantrum draws my focus from the phone call and the parcel.

I hurriedly place the parcel at a height where my little demon can’t reach. I search the drawing room to catch him running towards me like a thief escaping cops.

Behind him, Marcus jogs into the hall with Ben’s backpack and bottle. I understand at once why the little demon is running away from him.

Ben quickly hides behind my legs and holds onto them before I can utter anything.

“Mommy, I don’t wanna go... I’m not feeling nice. My tummy hurts.” Ben hugs my legs as he pleads with puppy eyes. He’s so cute that I can’t bear to scold him, but Myra, my editor, is on the line.

“Myra, can I call you back in a minute?” I bring my phone away and give my undivided attention to my five-year-old son.

It’s as clear as a sunny day that he’s feigning a stomach ache. Good thing I have just the right remedy for his pain.

Crouching down to his level, I take his arms. For a fraction of second, I gaze into his electric blue eyes and, like an instinct, an image of another man enters my head.

I shrug it off.

“It’s fine. You don’t have to go.”

Ben’s facial features smoothen without delay. A smile takes place upon his previous frown.

“How about some pizza and McDonald’s for lunch?” I say next. Marcus knows where I’m going with this, so he doesn’t interrupt me.

“Yay!” Ben squeals in joy.

“Oh, little demon...” I say, ruffling through his jet-black hair, and Ben looks confused by my empathetic tone.

“I wasn’t talking about you. Your tummy hurts, remember? You’re gonna have boiled broccoli and spinach juice with lots of peas.”

I can almost see him holding himself back from retching. This boy has been fighting a war with broccoli and spinach ever since his diet involved solid food.

Ben stares up at me with teary eyes and trembling lips. I guess I’m being too harsh.

“Let me tell you what. If you behave like a good boy and go to school now, we’ll have ice cream for dessert. Deal?” I hold out my hand for him to shake.

To my utter bafflement, he takes my hand and kisses my knuckles while playfully bowing. The little demon shies away straight after that and runs out the door. Marcus goes with him to drop him off at the kindergarten.

The memory of a man with electric blue eyes and jet-black hair knocks at the door of my mind. He used to kiss my knuckles to seal a deal as well.

Not wanting to dwell on the past, I take out my phone and dial Myra.

“Hey, yeah, it was just my son. Sorry for that.”

“No problem, Naomi. I was just asking if you’d come to Vancouver for the book signing. It’d be great to interact with the readers. In addition, you can also sign that contract with the Skylight Novels I told you about.”

Myra’s offer is surely tempting. Signing a contract with Skylight Novels will help my career to grow massively, and they also have a publishing branch for physical books. Not to mention that I’d be able to slack off on the advertisement responsibilities. They are exhausting... but...

“I’m not so sure how I feel about that. I don’t want to go back to that city.”

“That’s surprising. I thought you and Marcus were coming together, but I guess it’s just him then.”

I don’t register her words for a minute.

“What do you mean? Marcus is coming to Vancouver?” I ask her, wishing silently that I'd misheard her the first time.

“I suppose he hasn’t informed you yet. DreamBooks forwarded Marcus’s application to us because we’re recruiting at the moment. Skylight Novels offered him a job as an editor, but since he'll have to move here, he said he needed time to consider it.”

My mouth hangs open in the air. Her words list in my head one after the other until I can make sense of them.

Out of all the rubbish that left his mouth in a day, how come he forgot to mention such an important fact?

The doorknob twists open, and my eyes snap to the liar standing by the door of my house. My glare zooms in on his face, trying to look past that perfect facade.

“Myra, I’ll let you know my answer later.” I hang up without waiting for her response.

The entire room feels stuffed, and the tension weighs down on us. My attention is on Marcus, and he is well aware of that.

“What?” He gives me that innocent I-don’t-know-what-you’re-thinking shrug, but I’m not falling for any of it.

“Twelve years of friendship, five years of almost living together and raising a kid, and you still hide things from me?”

My eyes widen from disbelief and a momentary flush appears on his cheeks from realization.

“I’m not asking to check your emails or social media or something, but you could’ve updated me on being offered a job by such a prestigious literary company.”

Disappointment rings in my voice—its unshaken presence apparent, like the tick-tock of a clock in a silenced room.

“I didn’t tell you because I don’t plan on accepting.” He speaks in a nonchalant tone. Heading straight for the kitchen, he takes out a drink from the fridge and gulps it in one go.

His nonchalant behaviour towards the offered job both troubles and stuns me. And I burst out.

“For years, you wanted to find a stable job and settle down. Now that the opportunity is finally knocking at your door, are you really that dumb to let it go?”

By this point, I’m trying my best to not pluck my hair out one by one from vexation.

“Well, I changed my mind.”

“Why, might I ask?” My voice is fuming, but his next words match the intensity of my own.

“Because you wouldn’t go and I don’t want to leave you.”

We stare at each other, eyes wide open and mouths agape from shock and pain at his confession. I know he means well, but his words are a kick to my gut. A sobering realization.

“I told you this many times, Ben and I are lucky to have you. We are. But that doesn’t mean we’d hold you back for our sake. Your priority should be your career...not us.”

It pains me to say these words after all the help and support Marcus has given me in the last five years, ever since the day we ran away together. He didn’t leave me when we found out that I was pregnant with Ben a month after our escape.

He was there during the pregnancy hormones and delivery. He treats Ben like his own. Even though I’ve paid him back all the money I owed him, it’s indeed difficult to pay back all the love and gratitude.

No amount of money can pay that kind of debt.

However, if leaving us can help his future, then I’m more than ready to let him go.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not getting rid of me,” Marcus declares in a tone that leaves no further place for discussion.

I think about it. Marcus has already sacrificed a lot for us. I can’t let him give up on a bright future too, just for our sake.

“What if...I go with you as well?” I inquire slowly, searching his face for disapproval.

“No, don’t. Not just for me.” He denies it immediately.

But I won’t give up now.

“It’s not just for you. Myra has been bugging me to do an interactive event with the readers, and if things don’t go downhill, who knows? I could even end up signing a contract with Skylight Novels.”

Marcus doesn’t look satisfied. Doubts and queries hover in his mind. He thinks I’m doing it impulsively, on the spur of the moment. Although to be brutally honest, I’ve thought about going back more than twice. It’d be great for our career and Ben wouldn’t lose a father figure.

I walk up to Marcus and take his hands in mine.

“And Ben would be delighted to see a change of scenery. He’d be happy as long as he has his family.”

I peck him on the cheek and wait patiently for his approval. A minute and two go by before he lets out a sigh and nods.

“But what if he finds out about Ben?” Marcus asks gravely, and I shake my head. I hate even the prospect of Denzel finding out about Ben.

“He won’t. I’ll make sure of that.” I say, gritting my teeth. There’s no way I’ll let that heartless robot take away my son.

“You really have figured it out. Then I have no problem with it.”

We both stretch a smile before I send him off to email the Skylight Novels that he’ll be joining them soon.

I text Myra that I’ll be coming back for the book signing event. And I’m looking forward to signing a contract with her company

Going back home isn’t the hardest part. The hardest part is avoiding clashing with a rock that would be standing there in the face of a furious Denzel Flynn. According to my memory, he cherished destroying people who had crossed him the last time I was with him.

I hope he’s changed his ways.