Chapter Twelve

-- Alexander --

My heart felt painful as I watched her stand on the stage and address her guests. It felt like a dream. I wanted to pinch myself to wake up. It was a dream, wasn't it?

I felt my insides going into a turmoil. The woman on the stage was unrecognizable. That wasn't the Grizelda I knew. That wasn't the woman I'd gone on dates with and with whom I'd decided to spend the rest of my life. That was someone else. Someone powerful, untouchable.

It was a side of her I'd never seen. Confident, completely at ease, easily fitting into the world of the elite. A world consciously at her fingertips.

Amongst the crowd around me, my ears picked up hushed voices belonging to a group of men in particular. They stood not far from me, so I could hear them clearly.

"Yeah, I never knew James' daughter was this breathtaking. She really is the Grizelda Williams whom I hear is supposed to be some kind of business genius, even though she's always kept out of the spotlight. She makes me want to have a strong urge to kiss her."

My stomach clenched. Grizelda Williams. My Grizelda. I turned slowly, stylishly finding the faces of the men who spoke about her like that. She wasn't mine, anymore, yet I felt the need to punch them in the guts and tell them to keep their distance or I'd end up killing them myself. I felt jealousy eating at me and I couldn't do anything about it.

"Ah, you're right! Looks and brains, the perfect combination I'm looking for in a woman. And just look at her finally stepping into the limelight. Her family's worth billions."

Billions. The word refused to sit well in my head no matter how my mind digested it. Trying to connect it with Grizelda made it sound ridiculous, impossible. I swallowed hard, my mind overwhelmed, racing and struggling to adapt to the foreign flood of information. Grizelda had managed to keep all this from me. From knowing anything about her family. Not even her last name. She had told me it was Harper and I had believed it! How the hell had I not seen through her deceit?

Slowly, I began to fix the pieces in place. The calls she always avoided, the suspicious attempt to divert from conversations that involved meeting with her parents, the family invitations she never seemed interested in paying heed to. They weren't just any family invitations. They were events held by one of the most powerful families in the country!

My heart pounded loudly in my chest. This was the woman I'd been living with for years. Married to. The woman I'd loved, who had been lying to me, making me think she was just a regular woman. One who knew exactly what it meant to be born in poverty. Meanwhile, it was the complete opposite. She had been living in riches all her life.

I felt betrayed, annoyed, irritated. Anger intruded the deepest cores of my system, hot and chaotic. I felt myself neraing the edge of eruption. This same woman had let me wallow in finding a life for us, while the whole time, she'd been sitting on a mountain of wealth and influence, hiding everything I needed to know about her from me. Hiding all of this.

All for what? Why this rubbish?

I had to find out. I needed to see her, to confront her, to demand answers. However, before I could begin my journey towards her, Lucy threw her hands swiftly towards me, initiating a choke hold around my arms and stopping me from moving any further from her. I had forgotten that she was standing next to me all along. I was really about to leave her behind.

"Babe, talk to me. James Williams is joking, isn't he?" Her eyes were wide, making her look like she was two seconds away from fainting. Her hands were shaking. I could feel it. "I mean, it's ridiculous, isn't it? Grizelda can't be his biological daughter. If she were, you would have told me, wouldn't you?" She took a long look at me as if searching for the answers herself. "Tell me it's a joke."

"I don't know, Lucy. I'm about to find out myself." I said, my voice leaving no traces of unseriousness as I peeled her fingers from mine.

My eyes searched for Grizelda until it found her again and I tried not to lose her from my sight as pushed my way through bodies in suits and dresses. I had questions, and she was going to answer every single one of them.

Before I could reach her, a little fellow bumped into me and we both staggered.

"So sorry!" I quickly apologized, but the voice chorused after me.

I looked down and saw a little boy, maybe five or six with his buttocks on the ground. Surprisingly, he had an amused smile on his face.

"Mister, that's not fair! How come you didn't fall on the ground too?"

"Me?" I asked, bending with furrowed eyebrows to pick the boy up.

"Yes, you." He insisted. 

"Because I'm bigger of course." I responded, staring at the boy and feeling something heavily strange about him. He looked familiar, like I'd seen him somewhere before, even though deep down, I was sure I hadn't.

I barely paid attention to kids. Not anymore. Not since I realized that I was incapable of producing one for myself. And not since I had Spencer to pretend he was my biological son. I stopped bothering to admire people's kids as I accepted my fate. There was no need to wish and hope, anymore.

But this boy, maybe I'd seen him at a mall? At a boutique? One of those days I might have gone to pick Spencer up from school? Nothing seemed to trigger the memory. 

His bright eyes, hazel just like mine, sparkled with mischief. His blonde messy curls bouncing as he shifted from one foot to another like he was restless, so full of life and energy. Something about his eyes, his face, his toothy grin, kept my mind spinning. The gnawing thought that something was wrong sent a jolt through me.

Then it clicked! He looked just like me! It was like looking at a younger version of myself and I was taken aback by it. How come? It was insanely true and I nearly couldn't get a grip of myself.

"Why were you heading towards my Mom? I know you were, Mister. I don't think she's ready for marriage, so back off."

"Your Mom?" Confusion spiraled. "I don't think so little boy. I wasn't going to speak with your Mom. I was going to speak with that woman over there." I said, pointing to the direction where Grizelda stood, surrounded by a number of her guests, again. Although they were all women this time.

"Yes!" The boy kept his hand on his waist, nodding his head. "That's my Mom."

"What?" I twisted my neck to be sure we were staring at the same person. "Really?" My eyebrows sprung up, but before I could hear anything more from him, a woman bursted out from nowhere, calling out to him.

"There you are! It's time to go, Leo." She smiled apologetically at me as she took his hand. He didn't seem to resist and he followed her without complaint.

I was bemused, not knowing what to think of the incident. Was it a joke or was the boy not okay in the head? I felt veins popping at my temples due to so much thinking. It was better for me to leave the thought for later or I would regret it. That was enough headache for tonight. All I needed was answers from Grizelda. I shook my head and continued my journey through the crowd until eventually, I reached her side.