History

Chapter 36 - ...Is To Hold The World In Your Hands

Lydia awoke to the feeling of someone snuggling against her. Looking down she saw Gabriella's mane of long, dark hair sprawling out around them, Lydia smiled thinking that the young girl must have joined her in the makeshift bed on the floor during the night.
It left her with a warm feeling to know that her daughter still wanted cuddles . Yesterday had been a long day for the whole family and Lydia was grateful that she was waking up today to her daughter safe and sound.

As Gabriella began to stir, Lydia reached around for her phone, her fingers feeling around the soft carpet, when she couldn't feel the device she leaned up to lift the pillow, thinking that maybe it had slipped under there, but it was gone. Lydia began to panic a little, she was sure she'd left it beside her last night before she had fallen asleep.

"Is everything ok?" asked Gabriella as she sat up and yawned.  "I was sure I left my phone here last night" replied Lydia.
"It must be here somewhere" said the young girl. Getting up she pulled back the blankets and began to help her mother search for the device but with no luck, it was gone.
"Maybe you only thought you brought it up here and its really downstairs, I do that all the time" suggested Gabriella, Lydia nodded, "Maybe" she mumbled as she began to panic a little more. She knew she had taken the device to bed with her last night after the call with Cristiano, but she wondered how could it have gone missing.

"I'm going to head downstairs for breakfast, are you coming?" asked Gabriella, "I'm just going to brush my teeth then I'll be down" replied Lydia as they both left the room. After watching her daughter head downstairs, Lydia ran into her bedroom and frantically began searching for her phone, rifling through drawers and under the bed, before running into her dressing room to check there, it was nowhere to be found.

Trying not to panic, Lydia took a moment to collect her thoughts, maybe somehow she had gotten up during the night and taken it downstairs and been too tired to remember, after all yesterday was a long and stressful day. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she headed down to the kitchen, she could hear Gabriella singing along to the radio and the smell of bread toasting wafted through the house.

As she reached the bottom step, Lydia noticed Sam sitting on a chair in the corner of the lounge, his eyes almost burning a hole through her body. As her eyes connected with his, he raised a finger commanding her to come forward into the room. His steely gaze told her she should do as he asked.

Walking into the room Lydia could feel the coldness of his demeanour, making her want to run for the hills. "Shut the door" he said, his tone flat but demanding. Lydia done as he asked, turning around to close the door behind her, but when she turned back to face him, nothing could have prepared her for what happened next . 

There was Sam, leaning forward in the chair, holding up her phone, "Looking for something were we?" he asked and Lydia's heart raced at 100mph. Her eyes widened, panicking she tried hard to remember just what was on her phone. Normally she deleted all messages from Cristiano, but in the chaos of the last few days she had completely forgotten. Trying to act calm and confident so as not to give anything away, she moved forward to take the phone, but Sam pulled it back out of reach.

"Ah ah, not so fast" said Sam as he stared right at her. 
Lydia took a step back. "What's going on Sam, just give me the phone" she replied.
"Do you have something to hide?" he asked.
 Lydia shook her head, "Of course not".
"Then why the urgency for your phone?" asked Sam.
Lydia shrugged her shoulders in an attempt to act casual, "There's no urgency".
"Well let's see, shall we" he replied holding the phone up once more, this time he pressed the button to light up the screen. "So there's no urgency to reply to this text then" he added, pointing to the message from Cristiano displayed on the screen.

Lydia froze, her mind going blank, what could she possibly say now to get out of this situation. It was clear the message was from a man as the words 'Cris' lit up boldly on the screen, no amount of lying was going to cover it now since the message read, 'Can't wait to see you and hold you in my arms, Love you my Princess'.