He turned to look at her, his eyes cold and unfamiliar. And then he simply turned back.
All at once, I was mortified and afraid. I jerked back and looked for my clothes quickly.
“Kai? What’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer straight away. In fact, we simply sat there as I put on my clothes. It was five minutes before he sighed heavily.
All along, my heart hammered against my chest.
“There is something I need to tell you.” His voice was cool and clinical, lacking the warmth he usually held for her.
“Alright,” I prompted when he became quiet again.
“It seems I am engaged.”
It took me a couple of minutes to register the words. And when I did, I found myself wondering if they meant something else than what I heard.
“Her name is Elora,” he finally said, his back still to me as he spoke. “Her father is a political figure from my father’s side. I am not sure if you have heard about him.” He mentioned the man’s name,
He
Welcome to hell. Hold on for a bit, will you? Don't forget to smash that vote button for the algorithm. Let's crawl to the top!
The sun poured in through the windows of my bedroom. The rays landed on my body and warmed me. What a poor substitute they were for his arms and the warmth I had felt when I spent time with him. I held the blanket tighter around me, burying my head under it and praying silently that morning hadn’t arrived. That it wasn’t time to face another day. If the nights were long and I could sleep more, I would be blessed with feeling nothing. Maybe I could go back to being the old Lily, the lost who had never lost so miserably in her life. The alarm blared and I sat up straight away. A strange sensation started at the pit of my stomach. It gradually made its way up from my gut, into my chest, and then my throat. All at once, the contents of my stomach threatened to come up the way it went in. I covered my mouth and jumped out of my bed and prayed that I made it to the bathroom. I heaved and every last bit of my food left me. After a couple of minutes, I finally held m
The unknown number called my cellphone a couple of days later. The tired voice of Kai evaded my ears. I felt a bubble of expectation bloom inside my heart. “Lily, are you okay?” he asked when I didn’t respond. “Yes,” I said in a low voice. “Why did you call?” He was silent for a moment. “Am I not allowed to call you anymore?” I shook my head before belatedly realizing that he couldn’t see my gesture. “No. I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.” I wanted to ask about the woman he was supposed to marry. But I didn’t. “Absolutely not. I am sorry I couldn’t get back to you on time. Lucas told me you called,” he said softly. “I just finished talking to my family and called you immediately.” I shuddered. “Oh.” “Can we meet? We really need to meet,” he insisted. I hummed. “We need to talk about things, Kai,” I told him firmly. I had to tell him. And telling him over the phone was downright degrading. “I understand. I
He, then, proceeded to push past me into my apartment. I watched with mild horror as the President looked around my room with a small but smug smile on his lips. “I have to say… If Kai really knows you and wanted to meet you, why didn’t he just come over to your place? Why hide you so tightly and sneak you into his room? It seems he doesn’t put in much effort to meet you. What do you think is the reason for that?” he questioned. The seed of doubt had been placed in my mind long ago, and this just made it fester. I willed myself to not let it overtake my rationality. I pushed down the humiliation that seeped through me at his barbed dig. “Please, Mr. President. I need to speak to your son. As you said, it’s a matter of urgency.” His father huffed. “Urgency,” he repeated coolly. “May I ask what is so urgent?” My jaw ticked with frustration. “As I said, it is personal.” “Personal,” his tone was biting. It made the word sound like an obsce
I had no choice whatsoever. I was going to give up on the man I loved so that I could raise his baby and keep my family safe. Maybe, one day when his dad wasn’t the president with enough power to make me disappear, and if he had it in his heart to forgive me…We would be together? No, that was not possible.Kai would never forgive me for what I was about to do. And it wasn’t like I had a choice in this matter.The best I could hope for was that he would want to play some part in the child’s life.It has been a couple of days since I stood him up and I had received a few calls from him since. The first one was the night of our supposed meeting. From a blocked number. Similar to his previous calls. I just stared at the phone, my hand shaking as it hovered over my cell. I knew that if I answered, he would hear that there was something wrong with my voice. And he would convince me to tell him everything. So, I let him call and call un
It was the morning of my first sonogram. I nervously looked up at the ceiling as I lay on the cold exam table. My dad and my friend Brittany bounced in their seats. I rubbed my stomach absentmindedly. It had only just started to show and a smile crawled into my lips as I felt a faint flutter.Brittany chuckled at that. “Oh, I saw that. That right there is a football player.” She rubbed her own stomach. She, herself, was pregnant and we had bonded over it.“Brit!” my dad chuckled. “We don’t know if it is a boy or a girl.”We laughed until the doctor walked in and greeted us.“Well, Lily, are you ready to see your baby?”She turned on the ultrasound machine and shot out a cold jelly over my stomach. She rolled the device over my belly with gentle pressure.My heart thumped rapidly as I took in the black and white screen and expected to struggle. But it wasn’t. She could see it clearly
The next day I was in bed, revising the second draft of my new book when an acute kick knocked the wind out of me. I gasped sharply and looked down at my stomach, which was uncovered because my tank top kept riding up over it. A sharp peak protruded from my left side, rising up like a hill. There was a strange tightness that accompanied it. It was a different kick from any I had felt so far, and my baby's foot or arm or whatever body part it simply remained protruding.Dad came out of the bathroom and I chuckled as I pointed to it. “Look at that, dad.”He narrowed his eyes curiously and smiled. “What in the world is that?”“One of the limbs. It feels strange.”A couple of weeks later, Brit and I had returned home from a walk and we were both sitting across the sofa, talking, when I felt it again.I whined and Brit looked over.“What the hell?” she exclaimed.“It’s these stran
When my water broke one morning, I was home alone. Dad had gone out to the next town for the farmer’s market, sure that I needed organic products freshly picked from the farm to have a smart baby. Brit and Ken were at work. And I had no one else who I really spoke to during my pregnancy.The due date was three weeks later and I was the one least expecting it. Terrified, I called them.Dad was as calm as ever. “Right. Hold that baby in for a few hours, Lilith.”I snorted in response.“I’m serious,” he said. “It is going to take me time to get there. Did you call the others?”“No,” I said immediately.“Do you want to call them? Brit and Ken should be at work…”“I am not making any more calls,” I growled.“Got it. I will call everyone. You take care until I get there.”.Dad got us to the hospital in ten minutes and
“Mommy, mommy. You have to be there. It’s the President!” I whipped my head around so fast that I thought I would fall off the stool at the kitchen tabletop. “Who?” I asked quickly, shocked at those words. “The President. They told us we have to call him Mr. President if he talks to us. He’s coming to judge us on our environmental science projects.” “Environment,” I enunciated softly for Kaiden. “Mm. Environment. Brittany helped me and Brie while you were working, and she told the teacher that you’d be able to be there today to see who wins.” Kaiden was almost jumping up and down with excitement. “Right. So, it’s the President?” I clarified. How did I not know the President was coming to Kaiden’s school? My heart hammered in my chest as I tried not to think about the last time I had met a President. It had been nine years ago. I swallowed back the tears as memories flashed through my mind. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there. What t
KAI POV:I woke to the sound of vomiting— really loud vomiting. Eyes still closed, I reached over for my wife.My hand skimmed warm, soft sheets… before coming up empty.“Lilith?”More loud gagging erupted from the bathroom and it hit me that Lilith was, in all likelihood, the one in there puking."Shit," I muttered, raking a hand down my face. "Lilith!"I lunged out of bed and sprinted to the bathroom, where sure enough, I found my wife leaning over the toilet and expelling what seemed to be everything including her vital organs.Not knowing what else to do, I curled my hands around her shoulders, which rose and fell with each continuous heave. She stopped for about ten seconds, and I breathed a sigh of relief.Right before she started up again.“I am calling the doctor,” I admonished.Lilith grabbed my arm in a death grip, nails digging into my tendons."Wait," she man
The trees surrounding the dock were decked out in thousands of white, glowing lights that twinkled brightly and turned the night sky from pitch black to soft grey. The white tent set up on the small beach nearby was decorated with dozens of white and red flowers in large crystal vases.Outside, the winter wind blew cold but inside, the fireplace-shaped space heaters and the absolute happiness of the event kept all of us warm.Kai and I were anything but a traditional couple, and while I wished my mother could've been at my side today, I knew that she was watching from above, and so it was Kaiden and Dad who walked with me.My Kaiden looked like a prince in white in his suit. Dad wore a matching tuxedo. It was simple, yet on these two people whom I loved, it looked perfect.As for me… Well, the tent was set up beautifully, my dress was lovely, but it was the man waiting, whom I couldn't take my eyes off. He wore an immaculately fitting dark tux that
[WARNING: MORE SNU SNU UP AHEAD. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.]LILITH POV:My eyes opened to the sun rising over skyscrapers, sparkling with dozens of silver lines of jewels, up and down as far as the eye could see. For a second, I was a bit disoriented, frowning at the bright, orange circle as it makes its ascent into the sky.The clock on the nightstand indicated that it was six a.m. I lay there for about ten minutes, watching each digit move up slowly, forcing my heart rate to remain steady, my shoulders to rise and fall in measured rhythm. He was sleeping, holding me spooned into him while his lips grazed my hair and soft breaths tickled the nape of my neck. His hands clutched my waist tightly, even in his slumber. I could feel his morning hard-on pressed up against my ass, rocking rhythmically against me every few seconds.Slowly but surely, the night came back to her. It had been spent in a surreal state.We had drifted in and out of the periphery
[WARNING: SNU SNU UP AHEAD. SKIP IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH ABOUT IT.]With the renovations complete, we moved into the condo soon after. The following three nights were a lesson in how to get your son to sleep in his own bed.After the first night, Kaiden managed to keep himself in his own bed - for most of the night. It wasn't until the early hours of the morning, Lilith informed me, that Kaiden tip-toed into her bedroom, snuggling in next to her.The following night, my mother helped Kaiden get ready for bed and told him stories until he fell asleep. It seemed to do the trick because Kaiden stayed in his bed the entire night. With just Lilith and I popping in to bid him goodbye, he seemed happy.Unfortunately, by the next night, he was back to sneaking into Lilith’s bedroom in the early hour.That week, the government’s case against my father continued to build, the current President’s popularity continued to plummet, and with every
That night, Lilith and I put Kaiden to bed and then half-closed the door before walking out. In the end, we were out in front of the pool, staring at the sky as I spoke about the project I was currently working on.It was rare to look at the stars without the interference from skyscrapers and street lamps. The sound of the pool filled the background.“And that one there is the Cassiopeia,” I informed Lilith, pointing out some of the constellations I remembered from when I was a kid and in the astronomy club. “See? You can recognize it… The one to the south of it is Andromeda, and the one to the east is Perseus. According to mythology, Cassiopeia bragged that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the sea nymphs, so as punishment her daughter was to be sacrificed to a sea monster. But Perseus, the demigod saved her from that fate and then claimed her as his.”I felt Lilith’s eyes on me, so I turned to her.She l
KAI POV:When I was younger, my mom used to sing this song. It was a story about a beggar who fell in love with a princess but turned out to be a prince. She got so into it that it was fun.At times, my father would join in too, hard to ignore.“Do you understand the song?” He had asked me once.I had shrugged. “It’s about two people falling in love.”He smirked, laughing at me. “It is about more than that. It’s about a boy who grew up struggling and turned out to be a great man. He grew up and upheld his legacy and his responsibility to the people and his family.”I blinked in confusion. Mom was holding Eric in her lap as she chuckled. “Kevin, he is too small. Don’t turn everything into a lesson for him. Let him have fun!”Father mumbled something about teaching me when I was impressionable but mom scoffed. I didn’t heart the rest of their conversation, but I alm
We had a movie playing for a few hours and it was coming to an end when my phone started to ring. I glanced over at Kai and Kaiden and found them engrossed in the movie. I pulled away, angling away from Kai so that I could reach my pocket. As soon as I saw the Chief Editor’s name flash on the screen, my heart dropped to my feet. I felt slight panic even though I knew I had done nothing wrong. Still, as I answered, I glanced at Kai. He appeared to be still paying attention to the screen. But when I stood up, his eyes immediately moved to mine.“I will be right back,” I mouthed, quickly walking to the kitchen, feeling his eyes still on me.The Chief Editor and I shared some small talk before I heard the grin in his voice.“I just wanted to let you know how the sale of your book is going.”From what the news was reporting, the book had sold even more than the expected sales projected by the publishing house. In just the first da
Late one night, Kai and I sat side by side in the living room. Everyone else in the house was asleep. The television was on in the background with the news playing. "…for the past couple of weeks, the country has been reeling over the announcement that businessman Kai Rivera recently discovered the existence of his son. The child's mother is Lilith Hill, the best-selling author. Apparently, the two met while Mr. Rivera was on vacation, and they had a love affair that resulted in the child. Different versions have arisen as to how Ms. Hill broke the news to Mr. Rivera, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the businessman's own father, former President Kevin Rivera, was somehow involved in a cover-up that kept his son from knowing of his son. “In addition, the current Presidential Administration has been on the defensive for the past couple of weeks, after Kai Rivera’s lightly veiled accusations. It's been a tough few weeks for his team, with rumors of a culture
[Warning: Mild smutty content up ahead. Read at your own risk.]“Part of the security team told me and before you get upset, don’t worry. They don’t report your every move to me. I simply wondered and they responded.”His tone raised my hackles. This wasn’t the Kai I knew. This was the masked man people saw on the television.“So, what happened?” he repeated.“He wanted to meet me and ask if I wanted to publish the book I wrote shortly after leaving you.”He nodded. For the first time, I couldn’t read his expression and it was bothering me.“What do you think about that?” I asked after a couple of minutes of no response.“I don’t think it’s a smart business move. It would worsen the crap the tabloids are saying and your branding would be ruined.” Not that there was a semblance of it left in the first place.“It would make money