If Only

C H A P T E R 28

NEWS

RAVEN

"I should have known better taking a gamble in trusting you!" She was very distressed and angry. "I never should have..." With faltering steps, she moved away from me.

"It wasn't me!" I watched her slowly walk away and then suddenly crumple to the ground, "Miranda!" I tried to catch her but I was not able to. She hit the floor like a rag doll.

I gathered her in my arms, it was then I noticed the blood on my hand. It was from her pants. I panicked, screamed for Aaron to get the car. "Get the car out now!"

Running with her safely tucked in my arms, I re-entered the vehicle, sat on the back with her nestled on my lap and barked at Aaron to drive us to the nearest hospital immediately.

I'm so sorry, babe but believe me. I didn't.

It wasn't me. I would never let anything regarding that fraudulent evidence against you out.

Please be alright.

At the emergency, Miranda was quickly wheeled in and checked.

In an hour, Harriette, Aaron and I stood inside her hospital room with the doctor who examined her. Though awake, Miranda refused to look at me as the doctor told us that she was twelve weeks pregnant.

Pregnant!

I was scared more than I have ever been. Miranda bled.

Our baby...

"The risk for miscarriage during the first trimester is always high and given the nature of her conceiving and this being her first pregnancy; it's likely for her to suffer a miscarriage."

"But as for Mrs. Deschanel, the light bleeding has stopped so it was good. However, we'll look into all the factors that caused it. Our concern was her experiencing cramps earlier. Well, that and the fall she took." The doctor took her glasses off and put her clipboard down.

"So far the tests indicate that both baby and mother are doing ok. But we have to keep her here just to be sure the pains she's been feeling aren't symptoms of an impending miscarriage."

We almost lost our baby.

When the doctor left, I grabbed Miranda's hand. "I'm so sorry." I wiped the stray hairs from her pale face and pushed them behind her ear.

"Sorry is overrated and don't sound sincere coming from you." She took her hand away and placed it on her stomach.

"Mi–" I tried to reach for her again but her hands were fisted over the sheets. They were shaking.

"Leave. I don't want you anywhere near me." I was causing her distress so I moved away from her bed but I never left.

"I kept my part of the deal to the letter but you broke yours." Her eyes were closed as she said the words. "I'll never let you take anything from me again. Get. Out. All of you! Leave me!"

Harriette pushed me as we filtered out of Miranda's room but I didn't take another step away from the door. I'm not leaving her at such a crucial time.

"What deal she was talking about, Raven?"

The soft-spoken woman Harriette was gone and replaced by an equally confused and angry one. She pinned me and her husband with a look of disgust she has never used on me before.

I deserved it.

I proceeded to tell her about how I threatened and forced Miranda into marrying me or I'll expose proofs of her manufacturing evidence for Stouffer's trial and about knowing her being Evelyn's sister, her sister's unfaithfulness. How I took revenge on the dead sister through Miranda and also about the visits to the fertility clinic.

"I was so... my mind was clouded when I went on to make her undergo the procedure. I then forgot about the follow up check-up after the insemination was done."

"Later on, the doctor told me the pregnancy test turned out negative. I just thought that the procedure failed. But I never made her go back there again... I didn't know that she has fallen pregnant with my baby..."

"You knew about this?" Harriette asked her husband if he was in on it. Aaron nodded and Harriette slapped her husband. "You didn't stop her?"

"Harriette, honey..." He was scared at the look his wife was giving him.

"I don't know who you are but I'm sure you're not the man I married." She pushed him away and stalked back to me. "What happened to you, Raven? I don't even recognize you anymore."

"Whatever your reasons were, no amount of apologies are going to fix this." She held up a hand to silence me. "This is absolutely unforgivable! An innocent life... What happens to the baby after this? Miranda? What's next on the list, Raven?"

"Will you be satisfied if you killed her? Would that finally be enough?"

"No!" I don't want that. "I would never..."

"I won't be surprised if you ended up doing it." She was right because I almost did. I endangered Miranda's life far too many times.

Miranda's phone rang again. Harriette held on to it when she fell. She looked at the phone debating whether she should answer or not. "You're not going to have another chance to hurt her."

Harriette turned her back on us and answered the phone. "This is Harriette, I don't know if you still remember me... Yes... yes, that was me."

"Miranda's in the hospital right now..."

At the mention of my wife's name, I felt scared of losing her more. Harriette has told the caller which hospital we were in and the room Miranda was.

"I don't know where to begin... I couldn't be sorry enough for all that's happened... I can't tell you much. Miranda might be mad at me for telling you this... I know... but she needs you."

Whoever was on the other line might end up taking her from me.

"I'll keep her company until you arrive... Yes, I understand... don't worry about it... On behalf of my family, I apologize." Harriette tucked the phone away and told us to leave.

"You better not be here when Miranda's friend arrives."

"I'm not going anywhere." My wife and baby are here. Nothing and no one would make me leave them.

"Take her, Aaron." Her husband did not want to anger her anymore so he did as she asked. But I'm not having it.

"Within minutes, security men under the Vasquez family are gonna storm these halls."

Vasquez?

The hotelier mogul?

"They would have strict instructions of not having anyone near Miranda. Not you or, maybe, not even me." She said. "They won't take kindly to anyone who poses a threat. You're the biggest threat to Miranda right now. That's how I see you and they'll see you as."

"I don't care." They could throw me out bleeding or broken but I'm not going without a fight. "She is my wife and this is where I stay."

"You never had the right to call her your wife. She was never yours." Harriette said with conviction. "No courts would honor a marriage that was perfected through threats and intimidation."

One of the grounds for the dissolution of a marriage: "You obtained her consent through force."

The truth of her words brought me to my knees. "No, they can't take her... Don't let them take her from me."

"You never had her. What's there for them to take?"

I did. She belonged to me.

How could it not be when I could practically feel her slipping through my fingers?