“Baby, please,” I begged as I tried to reach out to him, but he looked away, his mind already made up.
“I need some time to think. I need to be alone.” His eyes became blank again, the beautiful midnight blue and the flecks of gold nowhere in sight. They had been replaced by darkness. “I beg of you, cara…”
There was something about his voice when he said cara this time. It was like a broken plea. He wanted to be left alone with his grandfather while he pondered about his past, present, and future, yet he didn’t want to directly hit me with the words of rejection. He was putting me off mildly. Either way, it didn’t comfort me.
In the two years since we had gotten together, Blake had never had this lifeless look in him. Even when he had been angry about my indiscretion with Kyle, he had showed anger and fury—all types of emotions, whether it was good or bad—had rolled off him consistently, but it had never been this. It had never come to this.
As much as I wanted to pester and try to convince him he needed me here, I knew giving him some space might help him recover from the shock he had been dealt just six hours prior.
Standing up, I hovered above his sitting form and cradled his head before planting a kiss on his forehead and another on his lips. “I love you.” I looked him straight in the eye, hoping my words got through to him. As much as I would love to tell him comforting words, I knew nothing would make a difference to him until he knew for certain his granddad was clear from any danger.
Taking a deep breath, I tightened my light wrap around me before striding out of the room. Since Blake drove here and I didn’t want to further pester him about the car, I decided to just get a cab once I was outside the hospital. However, this simple thought became a difficulty the moment I stepped foot on the pavement with reporters, paparazzi, and all the microphones and cell phones shoved at me, paralyzing me momentarily before I shook myself out of shock and started to make my way towards where the bank of cabs were parked on the other side of the building.
As I tried to walk and avoid all of them, a few persistent ones rushed at my heels, desperate to get something out of me.
“Miss Sienna, could you please comment on William Knightly’s condition? There are rumors saying that he’s already at the death’s door?”
“Blake Knightly has a lovechild in Spain and he denied all allegations; did he give you a confession?”
“Your husband is bound to inherit a bigger fortune once his grandfather dies; do you guys have any plans with all that money in your bankroll?”
Each question was a stab to my heart. And as much as I wanted to lash out at them and kick them in the gut, I didn’t pause for a second until I was safely inside the black cab and on my way towards my home. I wasn’t going to lie, one question had stood out above all:
“Blake Knightly has a lovechild in Spain and he denied all allegations; did he give you a confession?”
I admit, I was pissed off because where the flying fuck had that shit come from? Was that question invented because they wanted to get a kick out of my aghast reaction and to cause a rift between Blake and I because it was a critical time for us to need each other, or… Then there was that.
The or.
Or was it because there was a grain of truth in the story, that there was a baby truly hiding somewhere in Spain? After all, Blake had spent a lot of time on the Spanish coast before the casino had opened. And since he’d slept with a lot of women right after we broke up that first time, would it be possible that he forgot to use protection? Or worse, maybe he had forgotten to check if it broke right after they fucked each other brainless.
From the stories I had heard from Toby and Blake, he had been quite the budding stud for those months, fucking anything and everything beautiful on a nightly basis.
Biting my bottom lip, I was frightened to think further because I knew where my train of thought could lead. Besides, there was the matter of bringing this controversial subject up that would most definitely cause an uproar between us. After all that, when everything was said and done, could I stand and support my husband if, in fact, the rumor was true of him fathering a child somewhere?
It felt like I was being stabbed each time I thought of a baby, maybe about two-years-old. A baby that looked exactly like Blake. It was an indirect betrayal, yet I couldn’t fault him for sleeping around right after I broke up with him and turned down his proposal.
My thoughts went on a reprieve once the cab deposited me at our house in Chelsea. After I got past the gate, I pulled out my house keys and let myself in. The vast foyer and the silence greeted me coldly.
Looking around, I hugged my purse to my chest, wondering what I would do once Blake found out, if the rumors were true, that he had fathered a baby. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew he had wanted a baby for so long, and once the shock wore off, I knew in every fiber in me that he would seek out his child and do anything to be with his son or daughter. Would he leave me then and resume his relationship with the child’s mother since I knew he would want everything for his child?
Blake loved unconditionally, and knowing that fact scared me to no end. Because, even though he loved me until Kingdom come, he’d readily give me up to have what he had longed for, for quite some time now.
If that day came, could I give him up, or should I set him free? The question made me feel faint.
My mind was a battle zone. My heart was full of grievance. How could life be so cruel? Hadn’t I suffered enough just to be with him? I had fought as hard as I could since day one, fending off all those aggressive, borderline crazy women, and now, another bomb had been dropped before me. It ticked ominously until it was ready to welcome itself to the world, blasting everything I had worked so hard to get, everything that my heart treasured.
This was my home. Blake Knightly was my home. However, without my man by my side, I would be the same abandoned girl again, drifting about life, unsure of everything and with nothing to look forward to.
Reflecting on what life would be like without Blake was a grim future. Yet, I couldn’t help myself. I thought of all the possibilities because, after the tragedy of my parents, life had been beyond cruel. Therefore, being enabled to picture all these scenarios actually helped with my mental health. I didn’t want to be surprised or shocked. This was my way of preparing for all the wrong things that could happen.
This was how I survived. This was how I lived.
Trying to calm my nerves, I pushed myself to get on my feet and attempt to get ready for school because today I had to go straight to my internship with Stella von Berg’s PR firm. As much as I liked her, that woman was pretty intuitive. Her warm smiles and comforting demeanor would make me spill all the ugliness that was threatening to come out of my mouth, and I wasn’t ready to say it out loud because, once I did, I could never take it back. Because, in the depths of my soul, a major part of me wished to God this was all it was, just a plain, nasty rumor.