Chapter 5

“Mr. Norwig,” Jasmine's voice jerked him out of his thoughts and he glared at her where she stood at his door.

“What is it?”

By now, she had gotten quite used to his snapping. He'd been doing it for the past two days now and he got even more irritated when she asked what was wrong. 

“Ms. Juliana sent a feedback for the report we worked on last weekend about …”

That was all he was capable of hearing. His gaze turned distant as he yanked at his hair from the root. 

He was definitely going crazy. 

It had been two days, two goddamn days of radio silence. He looked at his phone in his palm again and dialed her number from memory. He didn't even give the announcer time to talk before he threw the stupid thing on the floor.

Where was Mia? If she had disappeared on him again, he was going to find her. And when he found her, he'd lock her up so tight that she'd need his permission to go to the freakin bathroom. 

“Mr. …”

He shoved upright from his seat. “I'm going home. Cancel my remaining appointments for today.”

She scowled at him. “With all due respect Sir, these people are getting impatient. They think you're blowing them off and are thinking of investing in another company.”

I leaned forward, my palm on the table and glared at her. “Then cancel it, I don't want to meet with them either if they cannot exercise an iota of patience.”

Patience, he nearly snorted. Did he really have the right to judge? 

He sighed, changing his aggressive posture. “Fine, give them a VIP ticket to the museum and tell them it's an apology for me. I'll meet with them tomorrow.”

“Thank you Sir,” she said with a smile, rushing out the door.

He had to smile. Jasmine hadn't started as his secretary. She actually hadn't started as his anything. She'd just been this bright eyed girl eager for an opportunity to prove her worth so she could get the funds to feed and educate herself. 

He'd given in and employed her after she caught a mistake in a contract application that had fallen out of his bag, and she had steadily risen with me.

He tried to call Mia again on my phone, but it was no longer on the table. He sighed in frustration when he saw it a foot from the door. It was the second phone he was throwing in as many days, and now he couldn't reach her until he got it fixed. 

When he’d seen her face that day when he was on a video call with Jessica, he'd never dreamed she'd leave the house. Sure, she could still have been angry that he'd practically forced her out of her comfort zone, he'd never dreamed she'd leave.

When I realized she really couldn't remember me, I was mad. It was part of the reason why I became cold. If she couldn't remember me when I was being nice, maybe her memory would juggle up the times we almost killed each other in our shared foster home. 

And maybe it had worked. At 16, Mia had been notorious for running away. It was one of the reasons why my trainer had gotten interested in teaching her how to code and hack. 

She'd taken to it really well and a few months after that, we'd gone from enemies to competitors, to friends. And we'd remained friends until she eventually left a day after my 18th birthday. 

He opened up his system. He was done with stopping himself because it was morally questionable. If the careless woman wanted to run away from home and didn't want him to find her next time, she'd send a text at least. 

Getting her current location was just a matter of glancing through the cameras that had caught her movement that day. He tensed when she got in a taxi, and the vehicle headed in the direction of the hospital.

Was she injured and was trying to tell him something that day? He slammed the screen shot and packed his bag roughly. 

“Good night sir,” Jasmine said cheerfully and he glared back. What was making her so happy?

He rebuffed every attempt of conversation - he was going to need to do a lot of damage control when he finally got Mia to where she belonged - at his side. He raced to the hospital, beyond relieved when traffic was light.

He was opening the door before long and he dashed into the hospital reception. 

“Mia Roseford, where is she?” he asked urgently. 

They looked at him strangely, but one of them looked through the charts on the table. 

“Sorry, Sir. There's no patient that goes by that name here.”

He ran out and looked at the name of the hospital again. He was sure she had entered there, so he went back. “Maybe she has been discharged then. Check if she checked in yesterday.”

The woman obediently glanced through, shaking her head before he could even think about what it would have meant. 

“Fuck,” he cried, slamming his palm on the counter. 

A male nurse approached the others, looking at him warily. “Is there a way I can help you sir?”

“He's looking for Mia Roseford.” Someone answered for him and he looked up in rekindled hope. 

The man took the book and then looked back up. “Did you say Mia Roseford, petite, green hair, a shade of brown hair?” 

He nodded eagerly. “Where is she?”

“Oh,” he said with a smile. “She was here yesterday, but she wasn't the patient. She came to see her ward.”

“Her ward?” He asked, confused, and the man looked at him. They shared a look and Lucas tensed as the man’s eyes dropped to his finger. His glaringly obviously naked finger. 

“I'm sorry but we can't say more. Who are you to her anyway?”

“Don't you only have to protect your patient’s identity? When did it move to their guardians and visitors?”

The man, his nametag said Luke narrowed his eyes. “We don't give personal information out, especially when we detect suspicion.”

“Sus… Fine, I'm her husband.” The gazes of the nurses all went to his finger and he fought the urge to hide or rub the empty space. 

“Her husband?” Someone asked.

“Yes.”

“Can you prove it?”

He sighed and reached for his phone. He was sure he had a picture of the marriage certificate. He closed his eyes as he remembered. His phone needed repairs.

He looked back at them with a small smile. He was feeling more at ease now that he knew that Mia wasn't in danger. There was no doubt she was running though. 

“Okay, I don't know why it's hard to believe, but we really are married.”

“Should I call her out to confirm.” Luke, he was certain the man was staking his claim earlier, asked gesturing back in the direction of the rooms.

He held his hands. “No, don't worry. Let me go get the proof.”

Then he walked back out to his car, a finger squeezing his ring finger. How could he have forgotten about a ring? The court wedding had one available that they'd had to borrow to say their vows and he'd planned to get it the following day. 

At least she was safe. He'd go back home for now. He needed to find out when she got a ward. Had she left because she was pregnant and she didn't want him to know? He knew it couldn't have been his because they'd never gone past necking and kissing. 

It didn't matter. He had found her and she'd said she wasn't in a relationship, so he was keeping her.