(Blake's POV)
"Jesus!" Samantha exclaimed when she saw me standing in front of my wall aquarium.
I have been standing here for a while now, with my arms crossed as I stared blankly at the glass. I got up early today since I couldn't sleep well, did several laps in the swimming pool, got dressed, and still I felt empty.
"Difficult project?" she asks, knowing I am in this kind of behavior whenever I am in my deep thoughts. "What happened to you?" she asks again when I did not answer.
She opened the fridge to get water, then turned to me as she opens the bottle.
"You're early," I said, not facing her, but from the glass I see her leaning on the refrigerator after she closed it, and right now she was looking at me intently.
"I felt guilty leaving you early yesterday," she said, although there was a hint of joke there.
Samantha is a family, my cousin, and my best friend. She has stayed as my personal secretary for a long t
(Tara's POV) It is still early, just 7:35 p.m. I am sitting in my working area we set up a year ago, and while I wait for 8 p.m. I did some final touches in my drawing after I added a different color on top of it. I glance at Stella again. She has been like this after we ate dinner. We usually eat dinner at seven because of my work. After checking her smartphone, Stella paced in the living room. She would wring her hands, then she would chew on her cuticle and shake her head. "For goodness sake, Stella, what is it?" I ask, placing my drawing pad on the table. She is always like this whenever she is anxious. She stopped walking, and looked at me, but then her phone rang. She placed her index finger on her lips and answered the call. "Hi, Sam!" she greeted, making me flicker my eyes in her direction. "Yes," she said, sitting down on the sofa and writing down something on the notepad. "Okay," she said again, glancing at me.
(Tara's POV)How can life be so easy to others and to some difficult?I rolled my neck from side to side when I felt my eyelids closing involuntarily. One last class, then I could crawl back to my bed. I have three minutes before my next, finally, last class."Don't look at the sofa! Don't look at the sofa!" I have been telling that to myself every time I was on my five-minute break. Even the furry carpet was calling me and telling me how wonderful it is to lie on my back for a while.These were the times when I wish I should have just asked for Stella's help but thinking of everything she had done to us for the past five years, it would be too much to accept her offer.The 'ding' sound from my chatbox startled me."I'm sorry Ms. Tara, I can't attend your class today. I'll just see you tomorrow,"I gasped and waved my hands in the air."Thank you, God!" I cried, heaving a sigh of relief. My eyes we
(Blake’s POV)A week in Singapore seems to be forever. Despite my busy schedule, I could not say no to Sean, who begged me on visiting Universal Studio in my free time. I almost strangled his mother for making fun of me that we must go, teasing me that I might see Tara there.Since the day I met Tara, I could not take her out of my mind. Her beautiful heart-shaped face haunts me at night. It is torture waking up in the middle of the night wishing to kiss her plump lips and holding her in my arms, making love to her.“You feel that way because you met someone who was not interested in you, Blake.” Samantha goaded while her eyes were on Sean as he run around the theme park, running after the flying small bubbles. “Stop stating the obvious, Sam.” She didn’t have to tell that to my face. My eyes were also on my nephew. This is one of the reasons why Samantha chose to stay with me despi
(Blake’s POV)I was on the phone with one of the board members when the glass door opened. Samantha comes in with several folders in her hands, usually for my approval or review. She carefully stacks them on my table, arranging them according to their priority. Before she left, she placed the brown envelope at the top of all the others. My eyes flicker on the envelope. A number and a note were written on a pink sticky note. She went out quietly after replacing my empty water bottle with a new one. I get the envelope and take a look at the drawing again.Tara was indeed good at remembering everything. The details of her drawing were complete and precise. She could perceive the place’s reality using crayons, so I can’t imagine if she had good materials. She remembered the visual information from one object to another. Tara is not just talented. She is gifted!‘Last class, 9:00 a.m.’ Samantha scribbled he
(Tara’s POV)Did I just send him a kiss?My eyes bugged out, realizing I just did. My cellphone slipped my hand, falling into the shaggy carpet, and I let a scream, a loud one, as I covered my face with my hands.Stella came running to me as soon as she heard my scream.“Goodness! What happened?” She asked, her eyes worried as she held my wrist to check on me. “Did you hurt yourself?”When I shake my head, she releases me and picks up my phone.I fanned myself with my hands. “I sent a message by mistake.” I groaned.“I thought something had happened to you,” She heaved a sigh of relief and gave my phone back to me.I slump to the sofa and look at her. “You’re early,” I said.She shakes her head. “No, you’re early,” she sits down and takes her laptop out of her bag. She places it on the center table, and after
(Tara’s POV)11:56 p.m.My eyelids are closing already. I blink twice before standing up and rewarding myself with a good yawn. These are when I do not need to worry about the next day because I hit my target, and I can reward myself with long hours of sleep.I get my cellphone and walk like a zombie going to my bedroom. I have no strength to draw, but I take my notebook and gaze at Blake’s face. Sometimes, it sucks to have a photographic memory, but at times like this, I appreciate it. It makes me forget how awful and unfair life is.Perhaps Blake is a sleep stealer because I don’t feel sleepy anymore when I look at his face. I open my drawer and take the pencil. I flip the pages and start sketching. I was too engaged in my drawing that I realized who I was drawing when I finished constructing the lines and startrealizedefine the head shape.John.I press my lips and look heavenward, hoping it would stop m
(Blakes’s POV)Samantha pushes the glass door. She was laughing at me as I tried to do my necktie. “Come here, handsome guy, let me strangle you,” she says. We stop just by the door while she fixes the knot of my necktie.“You know I hate wearing this. Remind me again, why do I have to wear this today, Sam?”Before she could answer, we jerked to the voice we heard.“S-sam?”My forehead furrowed. I turn my head to the familiar sound, the voice that I have been longing to hear since I woke up this morning. My mouth half-opens when I see Tara standing in front of us, her pale face tells me she has finally learned the truth that I am not Sam. Usually, I could think of millions of excuses, but not today.“Tara?” Samantha recovers quickly from that shocking moment. She flickers her eyes to me, and seeing my face, she assumes she is right. She taps my necktie and walks to her. &
(Blakes’s POV)I shake my head and take a deep breath. Did I just dream of holding and kissing Tara? My heart is thumping hard inside my chest as I walk closer to her. She is like a child trying to get cookies in a jar, but the mom placed it at the top of the cabinet.She gasped when I leaned closer to her. I can’t believe it was the same potent feeling as I had imagined. The moment I smell her sweet strawberry scent, the desire in me awakens, but as I put my hand on her hips and reach for the jar, she froze.I release her and move to the table to place the jar. We are standing facing each other with a table in between us.“Thanks,” She says, her face red. “Sorry about that. I could not decide what to eat, but Stella and I like Caramel bar so much,”I smile, opening the jar and pushing it gently to her.She takes one bar, but she does not leave her eyes on me as she bites on the bread. I g
(Tara's POV)It was a bizarre dream, but I could not remember where I was, except I was walking endlessly on the bridge with Clarice when I heard Bree calling me. When I stopped walking, Clarice seemed to understand. She smiled at me and nodded. I must have walked far because it took me time to reach the end, but I heard them talking about me every day. I listened to Bree as she read stories and sang to me. Whenever I heard Blake’s voice calling me to wake up, telling me how much he loves me, I would run.This morning, Bree woke me up with her song, but I couldn’t open my eyes. When I could finally open my eyelids, it was the god-like face of my fiance that my eyes first laid on. I feasted my eyes on him and thought of the day I saw him at the office with Sadie. It hurt me, but my heart was telling me how much he loved me, and that was enough for me to give us another chance. I closed my eyes again and fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of Blake and Bree on the island. Their loud chats
(Blake's POV)It has been a week, but Tara remained unconscious. Jerome would use the term sleeping whenever Bree is around. He is always careful of his words, especially when my daughter’s almond-shaped eyes turn round at words she hardly understands.Fear still crept into my heart of losing her, and the only consolation I have that she would wake up one of these days is that her ventilator support was already taken away. She could breathe without the support of the machine, but when I asked him why she was not waking up, he explained many medical reasons. My heart has one explanation, though. Tara was giving up on me, and what scares me is hearing the words coming from her that she didn’t want me in her life.I watched Bree as she reads her book to her Mom. Her voice has become my alarm sound in the morning. She would sing to her and read her a story. After Stella or Gianna fed her breakfast,
(Blake's POV)For how long I was staring blankly at nowhere, I did not know. My heart was aching much that all I wanted was to be with Tara, but I went out of her room because I felt dying, seeing Tara in her bed, still unconscious, and the beeping of the heart monitoring machine was driving me nuts.I lost the entire day with Tara when I woke up in one of the hospital rooms. I yelled at every nurse who came, hating they put me to sleep. What if Tara woke up and asked for me? No doctor, not even Jerome, could calm me down. Then Nana Shea came into my room, surprising me.“Blake,” She called my name, and I saw myself like I was a little child again. I cried and held onto her when she came to me.“Get a grip, Blake! Tara and Bree need you right now,” Nana Shea said, wiping my tears. “Unless you calm down, they won’t allow you to see Tara. You don’t want to scare Bre
(Blake's POV)Before my eyes could open, the corners of my mouth lifted already. As she snuggled closer to me and held on to me tighter, I felt to be the luckiest man in the world. I kissed her forehead before getting up from the bed slowly. I watched Tara, and with her uneven breathing, I now felt guilty for tiring her out last night. I kissed her shoulder and moved out from the bed slowly, letting her rest.Humming La Vie En Rose, I went down and started picking up our clothes I tossed anywhere last night. Bree will be coming home soon, and I didn’t want to explain why our dresses, especially the underwear were everywhere around the house.When I heard Bree and Jem entering the house, I still had our clothes in my hands, and I had to put the clothes on the couch because Bree ran to me excitedly. I crouched down and opened my arms to her.“Daddy!” She beamed and kissed my cheeks.
(Tara's POV)Slowly, my eyelids opened, and the morning sunshine greeted me. I rolled to my bed and realized I was alone, but my lips curved a sensual smile as I remembered what happened last night.“Show me that good sex you’re saying a while ago, Kitten,” He whispered in a raspy voice as we entered the elevator. His lips curved a playful smile as he pinned me to the wall and kissed me passionately.I never thought that those simple words would turn him on.I grabbed the sheets of my bedcovers, biting my bottom lip now as I recalled how I kissed him with lust and love. I was too angry with Sadie that another side of me came out of my body and soul.“You’re mine, Blake!” I uttered, kissing him and biting his earlobe as I whispered those words. “Every part of you is mine!” I said as I took off his tuxedo and opened the buttons of his dress suit.
(Tara's POV)Being rich must be tiring, I said to myself as I looked around. The beautiful gown I was wearing today, including the shoes and accessories, could feed a family, or maybe an entire community for a week already.The pledges of the guests tonight were overwhelming, and surely the institution benefitting it would be thrilled. They have already exceeded the needed fund of the group for the charity they were supporting. Before I met Blake, all these were only part of my imagination existing only in movies and novels we used to read. Being here made me realize that two worlds were created—one for the rich and one for the poor. Yet one thing is needed to survive in both worlds. You have to be strong.“Shall we dance?” Blake asked, extending his hand to me.I smiled, feeling the relief of finally having Blake with me. He had been busy talking with many people tonight.
(Tara's POV)I stopped by the door, admiring Blake in his black tuxedo. He was too gorgeous that I wished to be selfish tonight, not wanting other women to look at him. “Just to remind you, Blake, this is a charity event, not your wedding yet,” Samantha grinned as she reminded him while fixing his bow tie. Samantha looked beautiful in her red gown with elaborative lace embroidery from top to bottom. Men would surely ogle at her as her long gown was designed with a high-cut halter neck and sheer side panels, but she kept on telling me I must be ready because cameras would be on me today, eyes of every guest would be fixed on me because of curiosity.She tapped his chest and turned him around to see me. She giggled when Blake opened his mouth, but no words came out.I shrugged, smiling sheepishly as I walked to him. “Samantha made me wear this,” I said, blushing.
(Tara's POV)Blake kissed me with a mix of anger and love, but he stopped when I started touching him. It was as if he was burned with my touch, and when he saw me panting after that breathless kiss, his face went pale. His eyes suddenly were in a panic that he got up immediately and helped me sit.“Are you okay?” His eyes were round, and I could recognize the panic and fear overwhelming him.My eyes narrowed, and I looked at him. “I’m okay,” I said, still panting from the kiss.“Can you breathe?” He asked, now pacing in front of me, which he didn’t know stresses me now.“You’re overreacting, Blake,” I uttered as I took my clothes and started getting dressed.He shook his head. “I told you, we won’t do anything until I talked to your doctor until we have you thoroughly check and-”I stood up, now feeli
(Tara's POV)Samantha had brought me a long list of wedding planners she knew, and all I had to do was select the best one. We were about to go back to the office to talk about the charity event we would be attending when Blake startled us as he stormed inside and went straight to the bedroom.“What happened?” Samantha asked, standing up.I shook my head, leaving the magazines and papers on the center table, and we went upstairs.The door was opened wide, and as we stepped inside the bedroom, I could hear movements in the bathroom. My heartbeat was getting crazy at first, but I felt it stopping when we heard Blake screaming in anger.When he came out of the bathroom, his face was red, his eyes were flaring in anger, and he was breathing heavily as he threw everything in his hand. My eyes widened, and my body quivered as I recognized the things he threw in front of me. I gasped when I sa