Chapter 2

2

When Jasmine stirred back to her senses, she found herself on a hospital bed. The back of her left hand was covered with an IV needle. She tried to move when a man's emotionless voice shook her to the core.

"Don't move! You just had a miscarriage."

The words skipped her heartbeats. Her breathing came to a halt as her throat closed up. Jasmine wanted to cry but her tears had dried up.

She sat rigidly like a model used in art studios for painting. Her mouth was sealed tight and her cheeks drained of color. Although the disclosure of the miscarriage weighed down on her, she didn't feel a single ounce of remorse. 

Miscarriage. For some women, 'miscarriage' was a word filled with trauma and pain. 

Women who couldn't get pregnant even after trying a hundred times, doing a hundred things, prayed for a miracle to happen to get pregnant. To such women, the mere mention of 'miscarriage' would bring overwhelming anxiety and trauma. 

But then there were some women who didn't want to do anything with a child, who didn't want to start a family let alone think about it, and yet they found one growing inside them after a night or two of unprotected sêx. 

As for Jasmine, it was like a last minute blow. 

She was married for three years. Her husband was loyal and desperate for a baby. Albeit, her life wasn't a fairytale. She couldn't conceive no matter how hard she tried. For three long years she did everything she could but to no avail. 

And when she finally did conceive, the baby died before she could make a connection with it. Before she could feel attached to it. 

Jasmine took a deep breath. Miscarriage. The word played in her mind like a broken record. She had a miscarriage moments after she caught her husband cheating. Moments after she had determined to cope with her current life situation alone. 

She raised her right hand to touch her belly and realized her forearm was plastered. As she stared at it with a pale look, a shadow fell on her. She had forgotten that she was not alone. There was someone in the ward with her and the voice that broke the news of her miscarriage to her belonged to a man. 

Now that man was towering over her while she attempted to not drown in the storm of emotions raging within her. 

"I want to be left alone." Jasmine spoke in a dull tone. 

Whoever it was that saved her after the collision with the car absolutely deserved her gratitude. But currently she was not in the mind to offer anything other than emptiness. Jasmine promised to make it up to the man, but right now, she needed time for herself. Time to get her mind, body and soul together and become one again, because right now everything was scattered, including her breaths. 

Minutes passed but the man didn't move. He remained standing hovering over her tired frame. Jasmine was calm, hoping that the men would leave. Perhaps, it was just a wave of sympathy he was feeling towards her that compelled him to stay.

After all, it was commonly believed that a woman who had a miscarriage shouldn't be left alone. Else she would dwell in her thoughts. And then one thought would lead to another, and eventually it would become so suffocating to come to terms with the truth that her baby is no more, and then she might just take the wrong step.

Jasmine inwardly broke into an escalating bark of laughter. She wasn't from the weak ones. She was a woman. Definitely. But she was not weak.

'I never wanted the baby to die. But it is better this way. I don't think I would've been able to answer his questions regarding his father's whereabouts or why we were abandoned by him.' She mused while caressing her belly.

'What could I have said? That his father left him and his mother so he could continue with his sinful affair with his young stepmother.'

Jasmine's lips puckered. She wanted to think out loud. Talk to herself. She had an urge to scream and act violently with passing time as it took root in her mind that every reason to want to keep living was snatched out of her hands. Her chest was growing heavy like a huge bucket of wet clothes.

Much to her disappointment and dismay, the man would not budge. It was as if he had turned into a statue.

When his presence metamorphosed into being corrosive and intolerable, she snapped her head up to bark at the man. However, her words got caught in her throat, stunned by the sight in front of her.

Her jaw dropped and heart fluttered in her chest like a bird wanting freedom from its cage. Damn! He couldn't be a man. Erm, not really a man but a fantasy man of every woman on earth. 

He stood at a delicious 6'4 height with broad shoulders. Jasmine's eyes traveled upwards from the shining obsidian metal of the belt at his front up to his chest. Her head painfully craned up, still she couldn't help but observe. He was wearing a white shirt without the coat, the crisp and creaseless fabric unfastened at the color. 

She stared at his tanned visible skin. His neck was thick and strong, any woman would want to wrap her arms around and clung to him. The shirt was stretched rigid against the expanse of his broad chest. As she further went up, her mouth became drier. His squared jaw was littered with dust of scruff, making him look even sexier. 

He appeared like one of those totally hot and brooding models who walked the ramp. This man was rather more savage and fierce. 

Jasmine further studied his hot but indifferently straight mouth. Those lips made indecent promises that Jasmine couldn't contemplate why she was getting. She hadn't even seen him before this. 

But she would go straight to hell if she lied that she didn't want to! To make her feel worse over the trauma she was dealing with, his eyes were dark and hooded, and full of dark and dirty secrets, calling her to unveil and access them. 

She hated herself for checking her saviour out. Yet again, she would go to the deeper recesses of hell if she denied that he wasn't attractive. Truth be told, he was very attractive. 

Her own husband— correction, soon-to-be-ex-husband— couldn't even come to stand beside him for a comparison. Vince didn't even come in the same frame as this attractive man. 

"Done ogling!" The exclamation rippled over her skin like goosebumps. 

Jasmine's hazel eyes met with his punishing dark ones. She subtly frowned, wondering why he was looking at her like she was his guilty. 

"I..." 

"Spare me the fictional drama, okay. Just tell me your price." He articulated ruthlessly, making Jasmine's heart slam down in her chest. 

What he said next left Jasmine frozen in a mixture of shock and misery. 

Tbc...