A Baby for the Billionaire

39

KEREM

Upon landing in New York, I tell everyone of my decision that Juliet will stay with us, at least while we are in the United States. She agrees and immediately swaps roles with Thammy and stays with Ali. For our part, together with Neville, we departed in our direction to continue according to the guidelines on the agenda.

I still can't get the feeling of physical contact between her and me out of my mind. I don't know if I should worry anymore, I'm not sure what to think. The only thing I can be sure of is that her hand on my chest barely lifted some of the horrible oppression I was feeling, as if some hands were strangling me.

It is one hundred percent real.

It no longer hurts so much when swallowing or breathing, so I suspect that its closeness could be a remedy against that feeling that, as a child, I could only compare to death and that doctors sometimes classified as "panic attacks" and other "anxiety attacks." They have awakened demons that I must learn to tame.

They have woken up at the worst moment of my life and it depends only on me to learn to cope or exorcize them once and for all.

I know that several of them are surprised by my determination. I have asked Juliet to take as much time as necessary to think it over. For now she has only gone to work with her things and Neville has not said a word about it since then. I don't need it either. I feel like this man knows me better than I do about my silences and my reasons for keeping a poker face at all times, even when we both know that softening my heart with Juliet can be a sign of something positive that I myself have no choice of.

As we stand in the reserved meeting room at Orpheas rooftop cafe, I stop him in the middle of his long speech about making arrangements with our business and the chances that my current judicial bodies might see him in trouble. The deal with Massera is worrying, but not enough because Juliet is not the main criterion, and Juliet is free of blame for now. She did nothing, I take full responsibility.

"..and regarding Accounting, it will be necessary to pay attention that the numbers go through government audit to avoid that the income is again falsified as it happened with the previous professional in charge, who passed without laundering the total amount of..."

"Neville Wait, I ask. I need to talk about something with you."

"About an accountant?"

"Nope. About Zara."

He blinks, puzzled, as if I just pulled her out of her grave and sits her around the table where we are now.

Well, it's more or less like that.

It is the possibility of evoking it. As if he could see her again in one of her elegant off-the-shoulder, backless gold dresses, with her favorite diamond necklace and long earrings that sparkled in any glimmer of light. She was always a fan of diamonds. That surprised me because she was not a person who loved luxury or eccentricities, but diamonds stole her heart from the first minute she met them in her adolescence and when she put on earrings that managed to highlight her neck.

Then, learning more about it, she learned that sapphire earrings looked even better with a bare clavicle and perfumed neck, with her hair up and a matching sapphire necklace. She also liked blue, so the sapphire was always a kind of charm for her.

And more so when the earrings were surrounded by a layer of gold that matched the gold of her dress.

This is how I imagine her now, sitting, as if I could see her. As if she had the ability to hear us from wherever she might be. Her eyes are outlined, but this one has run. She never wears shoddy makeup, far from it, but this time I can only imagine her like this. Pale.

With traces of crying.

With her hair without her best arrangement.

With her ruined dress.

With her broken earrings.

Shattered.

As it was left in that crashed plane.

I take a deep breath when Neville asks without preamble,

"What do you need to ask about her?"

"Did you see or suspect anything of what she had with Ian? Or with some other man? With whoever. You only have to tell me. I will understand any of your motives if you decided to keep it a secret, but I need you to be honest and tell me the truth about it."

"S-sir, I..."

"Please, Neville."

"I admit that on two occasions there were two matters that made me suspicious and I never said a word about it because you know that I never invaded the privacy or intimacy of the family. Much less in his partner."

"What occasions, Neville?"

"The award... When she got that award... I saw an advert in a fashion magazine she used to buy announcing a general award that wasn't made in Toronto. It was in Vancouver. But she had a stay in Toronto that time."

"She told me he had an office there."

"Office she rented."

"Because in that city there was a good market and employees for their work."

"And you were aware that she had changed her date."

"I was aware that it was on another date and for other reasons, not at the main ceremony. But apparently it was all a hoax."

His mouth forms in a thin line.

Then I insist "What else, Neville? Say it."

He shakes his head.

He is doubting if he should tell me.

I climb in his direction with my elbows on the papers on the table and my nails digging into my palms.

"Neville, please. Out of respect for my father and respect for my family name, say what you have to say.

"Sir...it's just that she...after that trip to Paris they had two years ago..."

"Yes?"

"She had nights out. I tried to mention it lightly in private with you, but it didn't matter."

"Y...?"

"You had to get out. Everyone could do what they wanted and I had no right or power to interfere in the privacy of the couple."

"You saw her with someone," I venture, biting down on each word.

"Nope. I didn't see her with any man, maybe once with friends, but the rest of the time she came and went alone in her car that was left in Istanbul."

"Then?"

"After that..."

"It was Ian."

"I don't know with whom he went out."

"Say it. After that?"

"Well... Little Ali arrived."

Tic.

Tick

​​Tick.

tac.

The seconds pass.

And they seem to rumble in my chest.

Inside my heart.

Micro bursts that herald something even bigger.

"Neville, what the hell are you hinting at?"

"S-sir, I don't..."

"Geez, Neville. Geez, really? Do you really think that? Do you think Ali can't really be my...my son...?!"