Chapter 17 - Anton
My blood is boiling so badly that I couldn’t even sit in the car with her for the drive home. There is a twisting, bitter sense of betrayal aching inside me, and looking at her hurts.
So, all this time she was planning to escape after all. All this time…was it all fake? Was everything an act to earn my trust until she could grab the opportunity to get hold of her friend and plan an escape?
I drive right behind them with my eyes piercing into the back of the car.
My heart is aching. It’s shattering, because for me these past weeks have been realer than anything in my life ever was.
She is real to me. Her laughter. Her smile. Everything about her was so genuine.
And I fucking fell for all of it! Manipulation. Lies. Depict. She betrayed me!
I assume that the girls have already told Josiah where I live. It won’t be long before he’s hammering down my door, but at least I have his wife as collateral. I have my high trump card. He won’t make a single move if he thinks she’s in danger.
I will use her to negotiate with him.
We park inside the gates of the mansion, and I watch the guards escort the girls into the house. My heart is still in pain when I climb out of my car to follow them.
Izabel and Kayla are arguing with the guards when I get inside.
“Shut up!” I yell, and everyone turns to me in shock.
“Anton, please, you have to listen to me,” Izabel says immediately.
“I will never trust a single word that comes out of your mouth ever again, you deceitful little pixie,” I snap.
“No, it’s not like that, let me explain what happened,” Izabel begs.
“Let my friend go, you monster!” Kayla screams at me, lunging towards me with hatred in her eyes. The guard grabs her arms and holds her in place as I turn back to Izabel.
“Did you really think you could actually pull this off? And everything that happened over the past weeks…what was that? A game?” I snarl.
Kayla starts screaming at me again.
Izabel’s face distorts in stress as she yells to be heard over her friend. “How can you even say that? This whole mess isn’t what you think it is!”
“Of course it is! It’s exactly what I think it is!” I yell at her, my fists clenched at my side.
She breaks down.
Kayla is still fighting the guard to reach me when Izabel bursts into tears.
Instantly, my heart shatters in a different way. I never want to see her crying or hurt in any way, and seeing her crumble like this has me rushing to pull her into my arms.
I wrap both arms around her and hold her tight against my chest as I stroke the back of her head. “Hey, wait, don’t cry. I’m sorry for yelling at you.”
She buries her face against me, talking non-stop, but I can’t hear her words muffled against my jacket. I pull her away and hold her chin, gently lifting her head up to look at me. “I can’t hear you, Pixie,” I sigh.
“I went to the mall to get a pregnancy test. I was only sneaking around because I was so scared to tell you I thought I was maybe pregnant, and then I had to find a way to get the test, and maybe it wasn’t something to worry about, but I had to do the test to find out.
And I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure.
But then I did it and…” she's still crying, and the words are falling from her in a stream of shock and panic and frustration.
“Pixie, are you pregnant?” I interrupt her.
She swallows hard, looking at me through eyes glittering with tears and tinted red from crying. She nods.
“I am,” she whispers softly.
My brain flip-flops in confusion. I glance at her friend, who is suddenly quiet, then back at her. “But you were with Kayla?” I stammer.
“It was all a crazy accident. I had no idea she was there. I didn’t plan to meet her there.
I never planned to escape, Anton. I promise you.
Can’t you see that? Why would you even think that I would do that after…
after everything….” More tears choke her words off, and I reach my hand up to her face to gently brush the tears away with the pad of my thumb.
She’s pregnant! The thought snaps into place in my mind as though I didn’t actually register it properly the first time.
My beautiful little pixie is pregnant.
Izabel, my wife, is pregnant.
And she should not be under this kind of stress!
“Pixie! I can’t believe it!” I stammer, pulling her into my arms to hug her again. “I’m…I’m so sorry, you need to sit down. You need a glass of water? Or some tea? I can make you some tea?” I say, lifting her in my arms and carrying her to the sofa.
I set her down and sit next to her, stroking her face and down the side of her body.
She looks up at me and takes a deep breath, her nose scrunched as she tries to pull herself together again.
“I’m so sorry I yelled at you,” I whisper.
“It’s…it’s okay. I just didn’t want you to think…”
“It’s okay, I don’t. It’s totally okay, are you okay?” I blurt out.
She nods, a soft giggle slipping from her lips. She’s relieved. She leans into me and I pull her into my lap to hold her again. I can’t believe this is actually happening.
She’s pregnant with my baby.
Literally nothing else on the planet, in the entire universe, matters at this point.
Josiah could storm through that door, and I wouldn’t care as long as she was safe.
His wife is standing over there watching us, and I realize I don’t even care that I have leverage against my longest standing enemy.
I literally don’t care about any of it.
It’s only her. Izabel, folding in my arms, clinging to me, filling up my heart.
She is all that matters.
Izabel leans back and smiles tightly. “I need to wash my face, then we have to figure out what to do,” she says.
I nod, letting her slip off my lap.
She whispers to Kayla, “It’s okay, I’ll be quick,” but Kayla isn’t even looking at her friend. She’s looking at me.
“Can we speak privately?” Kayla asks.
I groan inwardly and nod. “You may go,” I tell the guards standing around her.
Then I stand with my feet planted heavily on the ground and my arms folded across my chest, waiting for her threats and yelling to start all over again.
To my absolute shock, Kayla walks into the living room area and sits down on the sofa. She sighs and dusts her hands over her pants and looks up at me. “You can sit too, if you like. You look very tense.”
I narrow my eyes, wondering what game she’s playing, but I sit.
“I don’t know what has been going on between you and my best friend,” she says, her eyes piercing into me, “But what I can see, clear as day, is that you care deeply for her. Whatever happened, she’s changed you.
I don’t think you’re the same man that you were a few months ago, and…
all I really want at the end of the day is for my friend to be happy. ”
“Okay…” I mumble, unsure where this is going and very surprised she is speaking so calmly to me.
“I have a proposition for you,” she says boldly.
“I’m listening,” I nod.
“Let me go back to my husband. But also, I need you to agree to let Izabel come to dinner with Josiah and me. She needs to speak directly to Josiah,” she says.
My heart clenches. This is just some kind of trick to get Izabel away from me.
Obviously, she plans to snatch Izabel onto a plane the moment she leaves this house and take her back to Josiah’s mansion. Even if Izabel told Josiah she was happy here, he is too arrogant to listen. I can’t let her out of my sight like that. I would be worried to death the entire time.
I’m about to protest when Kayla carries on talking.
“I don’t know the details yet. I guess I will speak to Josiah when I get back to him, but I think the sooner we can do this, the better.
Are you able to bring her to dinner tonight?
Would you be comfortable eating dinner with Josiah without all of the guards around? I want it to be as calm as possible.”
Me, eat dinner with Josiah? Does she intend for me to be at dinner as well?
“Josiah will not be pleased if I just roll up for dinner with him,” I say testily.
Kayla scoffs and shakes her head. “I will keep Josiah calm. I can get him to agree to a truce in order to have dinner. Even if you two can’t work things out, at least then we’ve tried, but it’s the best way that I can think to get everyone in the same room to talk it out.
If you come alone, Josiah might not believe you.
If Izabel comes alone, gosh, I don’t know—he might just try and take her away.
He knows how worried I’ve been about her.
But if you two come together and I have a chance to talk to Josiah beforehand, I think this can work. ”
“Why would you do this for me?” I ask, a little skeptical, but really wanting to believe this can work. Because this isn’t about Josiah and me anymore. This is about my baby. And the woman that I want to protect.
“I’m not really doing it for you, Anton. No offense. But that is my best friend in there, and I will tear the world down for her.”
Kayla stares at me with strength in her eyes that reminds me of Izabel. I can see why they’re friends. They have the same fierceness.
“I understand. And I feel the same way about her.”
“So, you’ll agree to dinner?” she asks.
“I don’t know if it's that straightforward. Your husband and I have been enemies for a very long time,” I tell her.
“I know. Trust me, I know. But it has to end somewhere. So why not here? Why does it have to end in some big battle of the egos with guns blazing and bullets flying? Why can’t it instead end over dinner?”
I clench and unclench my jaw.
“Okay,” I finally let out the breath I was holding. “Okay, arrange the dinner. Let’s make this happen.”
“Be at the Starlight restaurant at seven tonight,” she says, standing up.
“We’ll be there, Kayla. And…thank you.”
I walk her to the door and gesture for one of my guards to come over.
“Please make sure that Kayla gets to wherever she wants to go. And give her back her purse and her phone.”
“Yes, sir,” the guard says, gesturing for Kayla to follow him to the car.