AMB~she~OUS

THIRTY NINE

"It's empty." I pointed out the second we entered the resort's exclusive sky lounge.

"I asked for privacy." Nick responded from behind me, he had been dragging his feet the whole way here. His body was nothing short of rigid and his whole demeanor showed how this whole situation displeased him.

"Can you actually do that?"

"I'm already in the process of acquiring this resort, they didn't have much of a choice."

So he hadn't been bluffing about buying this property. I wondered how many more properties were in his name that people didn't know about. At this rate, he would become his own biggest competition.

"Shall we take a seat and order?"

The blank look on his face was almost painful to watch, it was a complete 360 from the playful one I had gotten used to.

I felt a tinge of guilt for pushing him to talk about something that obviously brought him a great deal of distress.

However, there wasn't going to be another chance like this.

"I'm not hungry, I'd rather get to why we are here." I didn't want to drag the night further, it felt better that way.

"Always so impatient, Katherine. Won't I even get to know how you spent your last day?" A chuckle accompanied his words, it was the first hint of a smile that I had gotten from him the whole day.

"I was at the spa the whole day." I frowned at his attempt to stall.

"My mother." Nick suddenly blurted out.

"What?"

"That's the reason." He said plainly.

I had my suspicions but really couldn't find the basis. Craig and Daphne had seemed like a pretty much happy power couple. There wasn't a single flaw in their happy couple image but even I knew big companies and powerful people paid thousands to the media to keep their images as clean as possible.

"What-what happened?"

"He drove her to her death that's what happened." Nick spoke with nothing but spite in his voice.

I immediately began racking my brain to see if I remembered the dozens of articles I had come across about Daphne Daniels' death. The words cardiac arrest had come up in each and every one. Had that been a lie?

"I don't understand." I honestly voiced out.

"Of course, you don't, the whole thing was covered as a normal cardiac arrest and not suicide." Nick sneered.

It took a second for my brain to completely register his words and even then I found it hard to believe him.

"You don't believe me?" It wasn't a question, the look on my face had given me away.

"I wonder which part you don't believe. That my mother's death was a suicide or that your husband was the one that drove her there and then paid the media to cover it up?"

Both, I wanted to say. Instead, I settled on another question.

"Craig, what did he...?" I didn't need to finish the question, he knew what I was dying to know.

"My mother found out that my father was having an affair with a younger woman. She...she didn't take it well." His face fell as he said the last phrase.

"Oh?" I breathed, my mouth suddenly parched. It felt like such an insufficient word to say in that moment but what else could I have said?

I swallowed my words of skepticism, it would have been laughable for me to voice them out. I mean, here I was, Craig's much younger wife even though the circumstances of our marriage and his past affairs were clearly different.

"Do you know how many times I found my mother breaking down in some corner in the house? 'He's leaving me for someone younger' she would keep murmuring to herself, every day she would lose a bit of her sanity and there was nothing I could do about it..." He let out a shaky breath and my heart sank.

Part of me was starting to regret pushing for this conversation. I should have let it go when I saw how distraught he was about it. Suddenly, I   understood his dislike for me when he first arrived at the company. I was like a constant reminder of what made his mother suicidal.

"...what was even more heartbreaking was how she pulled herself together and put on the facade of a happy wife each time my father walked in. She became two people with distinct personalities, a loving wife and mother in front of my father and the world and a suicidal mess behind four walls."

"Did you...did she ever seek help?" It was a lame question because if she had she wouldn't have died but I couldn't quietly when I was the one who forced the can of worms open.

"She wouldn't let me get her help, I think she was afraid of my father finding out. My mother didn't want him to know that she knew about his affair, she made me swear that I wouldn't confront him. I wish I had before she swallowed down a whole bottle of pills."

I didn't think my heart could sink any further but it did when I saw a stray tear run down Nick's cheek. He had laid himself open and shown his vulnerability to me, finally, most of the puzzle pieces were coming together.

Nick had made it clear that he didn't want some other woman to run the company his mother had worked so hard to build and now I understood him. I would've wanted the same had I been in his shoes.

I was beginning to feel like a horrible person for wanting to run him out of D&D for my own personal gain. Looking back at it now, he hadn't done a single despicable to me, I on the hand had put together plot after plot to get rid of him. I had done what was typical of a gold-digging evil stepmother.

An unknown feeling settled in my stomach just thinking about every little thing I had planned to use against him. I should have just taken his offer then and there, that would've been the right thing to do but I couldn't.

Was this what it felt like to be stuck between a rock and a hard place?

"What are you thinking? You are being awfully quiet for someone who was extremely curious." Nick teased trying to lighten the suffocating tension in the room. I ought to have been the one to do that but I felt too ashamed to speak.

"I think I'm craving some corn dogs I saw down the street last night. Let's go get some." I spoke abruptly.

"You made your dislike for street food very clear last night and I don't know if you have noticed but it's snowing outside, you hate wet weather."

I did but he didn't.

"All the more reason to go out there, when am I going to get another chance to do everything I hate in Switzerland?"

Nick laughed, a genuine laugh.

"Do I get to hold your hand?"

"What?"

He stood up and extended his hand to me, a small smile creeping up his lips.

"I mean when will I get another chance to do everything I like in Switzerland?"

He was being sly but I could let him get away with it for just tonight. I had a lot of things I needed to work out once I returned home.

I would worry about everything I had learned tonight then.

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