Enraptured

Chapter 11

Pushing through a dreadful 20 mins of stomach-churning drive, I eventually reached her place on the upper side of Manhatten in Washington Heights. It might've been a bit of an intrusion of privacy, but I had fished her address out of the  HR system to bring her back.

Her home was a quaint little townhouse squeezed between two large buildings. There were all sorts of green vines and plants spilling out of her windows and growing up along the exterior of her house, giving it a bit of a down-to-earth feel despite being awfully close to the Bronx.

I parked the car in front of her driveway, trying to think of a good way to tell her husband what had happened at work and preparing myself for what will most likely be a resignation letter from Ms. Caddel next week such that I probably wouldn't ever see her again after today.

My stomach dropped at the thought.

Was this really it?

I glanced over at her peacefully sleeping body. Despite everything that had happened today, she still looked ethereal to me.

Even though I knew her husband was probably sitting in the house right in front of me, I couldn't help yearning for her, wishing that I wouldn't have to see her off so soon.

My fingers mindlessly thumbed the ends of her hair as the heavy thought weighed on my mind.

Letting it slip out of my fingers, I released a heavy sigh as I climbed out of the car and rounded it to the passenger's side. No matter how much I wished for it, I couldn't kept her to myself for she was never mine to begin with.

Opening the door, I carefully lifted Ms. Caddel's unconscious body out of the car, making sure not to wake her. I walked up to the door and pressed the doorbell, making a little chime ring through the house.

I waited for a few minutes without any responses or sounds of any incoming footsteps. Was no one home yet?

Right as I was about to ring it again, a pair of bright violet eyes popped out in the lower window next to the door. It was a little boy with dark black hair and eyes that looked so familiar, but he disappeared from the window just as fast as he appeared.

Fuck... Not only is she married, but she also had a child...

Before I could dwell on it any further, I heard the distinct tone of a dialing phone and a little voice saying, "Hello, Mr. Police. There's a strange man holding my unconscious mom outside our house. Can you—"

My eyes widened at his words. I hurriedly called out, "Wait, wait! I'm not a strange man. Please don't call the police. I work with your mother. I'm Demetrius Andino Nikolaos. Maybe she's told you about how she recently started working on a project for my company."

There was a pause before I heard a familiar click as he hung up the phone. Then, his head popped up in the lower window again with a hardened expression as he looked at me up and down.

"Yes... I do know of Mr. Nikolaos. He's the asshole making Ms. Belle work late recently."

I bit my tongue, trying to hold myself back from snapping at a little kid. He barely even looked 7 years old, yet he was cursing me like any other fully grown adult.

"Well, something happened at work, and your mother passed out from... over-exhaustion... Uh, can you please just find your dad? She was asking for him before she fainted."

He replied in a deadly icy tone, "I don't have a dad."

My eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. "But she was asking for Theo earlier..."

His eyes darted over the unconscious woman in my arms before looking back at me and narrowing his eyes at me. He let out a little sigh before retreating back from the window and letting the curtain fall back in place.