by Mara Lynne
“Anyway,” he continues, “Your lab results are clear despite how unhealthy your lifestyle is. And I can’t see any problem on your radiological tests, so it’s safe to say that you’re perfectly normal.”
“There must be some interpretation…”
Eric cuts in right away. “Just follow the health regimen I made for you, okay?” he says, pointing his finger on the piece of paper Damien just carelessly folded into half.
Apparently, he has no interests on seriously following all of it. Seventy percent of what is written in there is done only by people in a ticking time bomb. It’s not like he is going to die soon. It is not going to change things for him.
“I heard about Candice,” Eric starts as he puts down his pen to the holder. “The last time I saw her, she was with your brother. Oddly, you and Hunter enjoy swapping girlfriends. The universe must be frowning upon you now.”
Hail the universe for lamenting with him. He will give up everything he has just to have Angel back. Candice is purely an accident. She was his refuge in times of grave depression, but nothing more than that. The temporary bliss and relief she willfully offered him was much appreciated.
“She’s pregnant for how long?”
“Ten weeks she said,” Damien answers. That night holds so little importance that he barely remembers what exactly happened except for the few things, like how he drowned himself to oblivion and how Candice saved him from the murder he could have committed against himself. The bar was filled with unnecessary noise, but it was clear in his mind that Angel left him for his brother. And though he longed to hear her explanation—there must be a reason for it—his pride was too immense that he made a vow to himself to never bow to anyone, Angel to be specific. And yet, Angel already did; he was just too proud and high to admit. His heart that was once softened immediately turned back to hard stone after all that.
Pride is never a virtue, and that was the sole thing that caused him his misery.
For God’s sake, she wanted to fix them. She begged for him to listen to her. She cried for him to give her another chance, and what did he do? Nothing. He let her slip through his fingers. He believed he was too hurt. He believed he was the victim, and victims should never be too kind to the people who wronged them. He thought it was rational for a heart that was bleeding.
Yes, he knew she was hurting, but he was too—more than one can imagine. Yet today, he sorely regrets his awful pride, his misjudgment, his utter lack of sensitivity. And now, she’s gone. She belongs to someone else.
As he allowed himself to be taken over by grief and unfair opinion against Angel, his lust for a woman’s warmth and touch heightened as Candice openly showed care. It was not a wonderful night he spent with her. He thought Candice’s magic, which she was famous of, could wipe off the pain inflicted upon him and the wondrous feeling of being loved by a wonderful woman. But that never happened.
All night, it was Candice making love to him, but in his mind—in his dreams—he could only see Angel, think of her and even feel her.
All that transpired two months ago, when he made the most stupid choice of the lot.
“She had her prenatal check up this morning with her doctor at the second floor,” Damien tells Eric. “Is it possible to identify the gender of the baby at ten weeks?”
“You’re too eager, Damien,” Eric replies. “I’m afraid you are only going to see a fetus—a vague figure and shape at that—at this stage of her pregnancy. Usually, baby genders are best identified at the twelfth to fourteenth week of gestation.”
So, no baby boy yet for him.
“How did Angel react when she knew about Candice?” Eric inquires.
She was very good in hiding her feelings, Damien thought. But this morning, it was different. Her tears told him a different story.
Not all hope is gone.
***
Damien sets off to the Etheridge Corporation, the main office in New York.
Satellite offices are built in all major cities in the US for wider coverage. The business revolves around manufacturing car parts and selling them to top car companies. They are also starting to venture into aviation parts. However, the major money maker for the Etheridges is not manufacturing steel parts but its massive and important role in the international banking and finance industry. They lend money to banks all over the world and act as keeper of gold deposits and different nations’ gold bullion. This family business has been with them since the sixteenth century and was expanded into a finance empire by the succeeding Etheridges. For the twenty-first century, Damien believes that the arduous task of preserving his family’s glory depends on him.
“You are ten minutes late!” An angry Mary greets him at the door of the function hall where the stockholders and investors are meeting after they have been called by James for Damien’s formal introduction. “Didn’t I tell you to get rid of this tie?” she says, referring to the silver printed tie Mary never forgets to insult.
“Seriously, Mom, it’s not the best time to condemn me for wearing your least favorite tie.” He lets out an annoyed sigh. She could have commented on the pair of black socks he is wearing if she were given the opportunity to check his feet.
Everything occurred so quickly. As he was just about to leave the hospital, Mary called and told him to prepare himself. He is about to meet his future. Theatrically reacting to this, Mary did not fail to emphasize the immediate need to be in New York before three in the afternoon. Even though he was free for the rest of the day, Damien does not think he is ready for this. He thought he was, but as he walks down the corridor toward the room filled with criticizing businessmen, he does think he overstretched himself.
“Now, I want you to be perfectly calm,” Mary whispers as she fixes Damien’s coat and hair when her own fingers are trembling, and her eyes are moving from one direction to another. She seems to be the one in need of calming down.
The noise in the hall room. Speeches of disagreement and even unwilling submissions die down when Damien and Mary enter. James is already seated right next to Mr. Harrison who eyes Damien as though he is an unwanted piece of dreadful meat.
“Late on his first day,” one gentleman who Damien does not recognize murmurs. “Not a great way to start his tenure.”
The glares directed at him caused his senses to heighten and turn ultra sensitive to anything he hears.
James shows him the chair beside him, and Damien takes it, brushing off the doubtful sneers cast upon him.
“Do I really need to be here?”
James lowers his glare at his son and murmurs angrily, “If you are to manage the company, you must start with this one.”
But Damien does not think watching these old geezers bicker with each other is worth his time.
“I don’t think I’m needed here. Can I start after I received my training from Hunter?” With the way people are looking at him, he feels the hair on his skin stiffen. It’s as if they are very prepared to flog him alive.
His father continues to talk about increasing the job rate of employees in the smaller departments as they have observed a rapid increase in turnovers. There’s few to none disapproval to it, so Damien expects by the next pay out that employees will have a feast after work. Then they talk about a lot of things that half of Damien’s brain could even process. They sound so foreign to him. What does he know about the ongoing establishment of a testing area for flying vehicles in Texas? What more about a European company that is planning to buy twenty-five million USD worth of stocks in the company?
“I will send Garreth to England next week to investigate further on this.”
Harrison raises his hand. “Might I suggest one thing?” he tells James. The rest of the investors are put to silence, eager to hear him out. “Why don’t Damien go there instead of Garreth? I think it’s going to be a fulfilling experience for him. He could meet a lot of people, and we could see how his interpersonal skills work to our advantage.”
James and Mary shift their
concerned look to Damien. The majority of the investors seem to agree, nodding their heads.
“I think it’s a good idea!” Damien exclaims confidently, sarcasm dripping out of it. Damien abhors the idea, and all he wishes is for his father to turn it down.
“James?” Harrison waits for the man’s answer who is obviously not a hundred percent sure. It is going to risk his son’s reputation. He has yet to prove his abilities, and here the voice of the people wants to test him.
What for? To see him fail?
Chapter 12 – In Search of the Little Boys
“Daisies are very lovely. Very summery!” Victoria says joyfully as she scans the pages of a flower magazine.
The afternoon in Victoria’s country house in Mount Verde, a small, isolated town on the northwest borders of New Jersey, is warm and very homey. Planning for the wedding, from the motif to the invitations, appears to be a taxing work for Angel. Well, she’s marrying Hunter Stone, so she should not expect a small country wedding with only the church choir, the priest, and their families present. The view in the balcony is breathtaking. Victoria’s house, elegant but a little out-dated, sits atop a hill where one can see nothing but greens and browns, offering an exotic scenery of thick forests and the calmness of living far away from the chaotic city.
“I am thinking of an outdoor wedding. Wedding by the beach would be perfect, but we must find a really good beach—a really unique one at that. Or you could get married in Canada with the Niagara Falls as the view. That will be fantastic!” Victoria adds after a while.
“That sounds awesome… dreamy,” she responds. She’s never been to Canada, and from what she has heard from friends, the Niagara Falls on the Canada side is more spectacular and striking as compared to the New York side. “But I have always wanted to get married in a church.”
“Of course. Of course. It’s all up to you, Angel.”
Victoria could never understand the importance of a church wedding to some women. Venues don’t really care as long as you wed for love, but for Angel, it is a dream to have a church wedding, and she wants that dream to be fulfilled. Victoria was never married as far as Angel knows. But was she at one point in her life? Something Angel missed to learn?
“Did your fitting with Hugo go well? Have you found the dress?”
“Yes. Hugo knows what I want,” she answers.
Victoria sighs, and an obvious sign of melancholy shows on her face.
“You know, I have always dreamed of marriage… to prepare my own wedding, to march along the aisle of the church while my groom waits for me at the altar,” she says. “Forgive me for being too nosy and hands-on to this. It’s just that I have never experienced being the bride. So I was so exhilarated when I knew that my son’s marrying. Finally, I will get to see Hunter settle with the person he loves, something that was deprived from me. Marriage isn’t just for me; I can tell.”
“Why didn’t you marry, Victoria?” Angel realizes her forwardness too late.
Victoria sees no violation of her privacy, though. She adores the girl so dearly that entrusting her with her life story is not a big deal for her.
“When I was your age, I was a very romantic person. I believe in first love, and I still do,” Victoria states as her eyes sparkle with the memories of her beautiful past. “Do you remember your first love, Angel?”
Yes, she does.
“It is not my son, is it?”
She shakes her head.
“It’s okay. As they say, your first love is just a taste of what real and true love is. I believe Hunter is your true love.”
Angel can only blush.
Victoria continues. “My first love was Hunter’s father. We were childhood sweethearts. We went to the same school until college. I thought the thing we had was forever; I guess it was what he thought as well. We were in love like young people nowadays do, but his parents betrothed him to this fine English lady whose connection to aristocracy is unquestionable. His parents deemed it an advantage for their family and their wealth. James did not love Mary; I knew that. He would always tell me that I am the only woman he will love. There came a point that we became so desperate. Just to be together, we thought of eloping, something you can read from Byron’s books. But his parents did all they can to separate us. When my parents knew about our foolishness, they sent me away to a place James will never find me.”
“Where did you go?”
“I never left…” Her voice was as gentle as the whispers of the wind against their skin. “They made James believe I went to Morocco on my own accord to marry a long time friend, but I never left America. I was in my grandmother’s place in Washington all that time, preparing myself to take over the family business. And then they were married. For two years, they were childless. Mary had problems conceiving. I heard she had cysts in the uterus that time, and she frequented the hospital to have them removed. Childless for two years of their marriage. If James married me, I could have given him a child right away.”
“Did you see each other again after two years?”
She nods. Her face is now a picture of peace and delight. Victoria must have remembered something because the glow on her face is overpowering.
“Oh, yes! We were in our early thirties. I was single, and he, well, childless and with a wife fixated to the company of her socialite friends. We met again at a business convention in Manhattan. The desire was overwhelming, and so was lust and love. He told me he still loved me, so I gave myself to him because I felt the same way. He was the only man I loved. And that’s how Hunter was made real. But it was just one night. The next day, he had to leave immediately because his wife had an accident. I don’t know what accident it was, but they say it was very bad that Mary was never herself again.”
Well, that must be some severe fall that it changed Mary for the worse.
“Five years later, she became pregnant of Damien. By the time Damien was born, Hunter was four years old, and he did not know who his father was. I kept Hunter a secret from James,” she says. “I thought it was the best thing to do, but I was wrong.”
Angel could see genuine regret from Victoria. Something must have happened to change her decision of keeping Hunter’s parenthood unknown.
With her fingers, she wipes away the small tears sitting on the edge of her eyes. She lets out a laugh. “James got so mad at me for hiding things from him. Hunter was five years old when I told him who his father is. I told James the day before I broke the truth to my son, on the day before his fifth birthday. My conscience kept on bugging me. My nights were always haunted by distress and worry, and so to free myself from them, I instantly thought of coming clean to James. He was very mad, demanding from me the right to care for Hunter. I did not let him because Hunter is my child. He’s his, but I knew I will die if I allow him to take my son away from me. Mary highly disapproves of the child. She went hysterical when she found out about my son. If the rumors are true, she was briefly admitted to an asylum for a nervous breakdown.”
No wonder Mary is always paranoid and melodramatic.
“Why couldn’t James give Hunter his name?” That is the golden question. It’s the reason she was pretending to be Hunter’s girlfriend. It’s the Etheridge family name he wanted in the first place.
“Because Mary disapproves of it. She was ill, and James could not compromise her health, so he did not force the idea,” Victoria replies. “I know James would have wanted Hunter to bear his name, but Mary weighed more for him, I guess. With this, a realization struck me. He had learned to love Mary and had broken his vow of eternal love for me.” Angel notices Victoria rubbing a silver ring on her finger. It does not appear to be a wedding band of some sort. “That was the end of us, but we remained friends—for Hunter.”
She knows Hunter bears resentment for his father for not giving him the care, attention, and love he needs. She was the key to acquire those. Now, Angel understands the biggest fault Hunter has. It’s neither his egotistic tendencies or coldness, but ju
st the lack of a father-figure that was really all-out for him. There was nobody to look up to. Yes, he got his mother, but would she be enough? Perhaps for others, yes. But maybe not for Hunter.
“Nonetheless, James is not to be blamed. I think he did his job as a father to Hunter despite the restrictions. He welcomed him to his home, visited him a couple of times a year, and offered assistance in his upbringing. He even introduced him to his family as his son though I could still remember how her mother flew in rage upon learning of another child from another woman. It was a catastrophe at first. But they know me, and they used to adore me as the cute little girl in the neighborhood. I don’t think they despised me. Just the act we committed, I guess. The Hamiltons were angry that they threatened to file a divorce, but Mary did not like the idea. She was after all very much in love with James,” Victoria says as she closes the magazine pages and walks toward the marble railings, drifting her eyes to the breathtaking scenery nature could offer her through her window. Angel follows.
“I could only thank him for letting the kids develop a bond. When Damien came into Hunter’s life, things got a little better. Hunter was happier that he found a friend, a brother, and a confidant. They always spent their summers together until it was time for Hunter to go to college. He left for Oxford in England. From time to time, he would return and hang out with Damien and his friends.”
Does Victoria know about Hunter and Damien’s outlandish misdemeanors, the crimes they committed for friendship?
“Oh, those boys…” She shakes her head as though she knows, turning to face her. “I wonder if you know who you’re marrying.”
Oh definitely, Victoria! she wants to say.
Instead, she subdued her answer. She wanted to know more. “Your son, Hunter Stone. The man who gets what he wants. Persistent, and sometimes really annoying.”
The woman sighs. “I know why he chose to keep from you important things. He does not want you to leave him, but there’s more about him, Angel.”