Chapter 23

“Minerva, dear…” It is Minerva’s first time hearing Damon Gray’s voice in a stern manner.

 “I think you should concentrate on eating first. I have invited a specialist to arrange an appointment with you, especially you are nearing the delivery of yours and Darwin’s baby.” Damon glanced at Darwin, whose face is visibly irritated by Gyzell's presence. He peered at Minerva again. Finally, Damon gazed at Lushan, with a stinging set of words. “We have to discuss something, Lushan Angeles.”

            “Of course, uncle,” he replied. Minerva avoided Lushan’s eyes and wiped her mouth. Drinking a glass of apple juice, Minerva couldn’t fathom why Jocelyn’s grin is so wide. It looked real, but it also felt like a mocking smile towards her.

            ‘What is with Jocelyn this time? Why is she smiling?’ she thought, brows furrowing. But she kept her head low to avoid the stare of Darwin’s stepmother.

            “Darwin, dear…” Gyzell’s high-pitched and girly voice is here to make Minerva’s ears bleed again. “My birthday is tomorrow and you promised me to celebrate alone yesterday. Aunt Jocelyn even booked a private island from her close acquaintance for our celebration, right Auntie?”

            “That’s right, Gyzell!” Jocelyn’s beam was unfeigned. But it didn’t stop Minerva from understanding what was happening.

            “You don’t have patients these days, Lushie?” she whispered to her former bestfriend beside her.

            “I’m on vacation, Minerva.” Lushan's sudden shift of voice made Minerva more curious, especially when Lushan Angeles replied to her without looking her in the eye.

            Since highschool, Lushan always talks facing Minerva. According to him, he can’t get enough staring at Minerva’s sapphire blue eyes that remind him of his late mother. Lushan even stated that he could stare at her eyes for eternity if only time allowed him to.

            Something’s off, she could sense it. Her sense of emotions are at its peak especially because she’s pregnant.

            ‘Is Jocelyn and Gyzell plotting something?’ Minerva pondered, eyes at her own plate and pretended to not care of Gyzell’s bragging moments during the entire course of breakfast. ‘Poor Lushan, he’s been dragged into this mess because of me.’

            Minerva was a bit startled when Lushan suddenly leaned into his ears and whispered, “Can we talk for a moment after breakfast, Minnie?”

            Staring at him, though feeling shy, she was perplexed and…curious. So, she had no choice but to agree. 

“Yes. Yes, I will Lushan.” Minerva declared it in a loud, clear voice that made Gyzell—as well as everyone—halt and look at them.

***

“What is it that you want to discuss, Lushan?”

            Minerva’s voice radiates anger, embarrassment, and irritation. “You’ve plotted against me, haven't you?! Along with your whore of a sister and your jealous bitch of an aunt!”

            “Calm down, Minerva.” Lushan comforted, patting her back as they leaned into the ledge of the windy veranda. The weather is nice and cool, not so warm but not so cold either. The sun is out, so are the gray clouds.

            “Calm down,” he reiterated. “I’ll explain everything to you but-—”

            “But what Lushan?” She couldn't get hold of herself so she hoisted his chin with one hand and shoved him to the flat, cream-colored pillar of the veranda. “What is it that you’re hiding?”

            “I—”

            “Say it!” Minerva demanded. Her nose is flaring, eyes burning with rage.

            “I only agreed with it because I wanted to see you!”

            Time seems to miraculously halt Minerva. Even she herself suddenly ceased feeling the rapid beating of her heart. She looked up and saw Lushan’s teary face, full of sorrows and disdain. 

He was longing for her. He did this unimaginable whatsoever shit of a task that was given to him by those two snakes just to behold her face, hear her voice, smell her scent…and drown into her glorious sapphire blue eyes.

            “What do they plan for me?” She tried to hide her shaking, but her voice showed it otherwise.

            “Jocelyn sees you as a threat to the Gray family, especially when both of the father and son were so fond of you.”

            Minerva finally let go of him. “I see…” She saw the desperation in Lushan’s face. Though handsome, Lushan was pretty much like her—not good at hiding emotions. 

Minerva wonders why her heart never beat for him, even in a heartbeat. “What of your sister? Gyzell is—”

            “She’s my half-sister,” he confessed. “She only had a one-night stand with Darwin. But she never loved him. She only wants his money as she knows that her ill mother will never leave her anything. And there is nothing more she feared than wearing tattered clothes, dining in the cheapest diners, and soaking herself in poverty.”

            “That’s why she wanted my Darwin.” An emotion of sadness flashed on his face as soon as she claimed that Darwin is indeed hers. But Minerva pretended she didn’t see it.  “In short, she doesn’t want to be amongst the class of poverty.”

            “No.”

            Minerva’s brows arched. “No?”

            Lushan shook his head. “No. She doesn’t want to go back to poverty.”

            An “oh” came out from her mouth. “That’s why she’s trying so hard to maintain her social status—being a so-called elite.”

            Lushan gave her a breathy laugh. “You’re so smart, Minnie.”

            Their eyes met again no matter how many times she tried to avoid it. Lushan brought his hands onto her cheeks.

            His touch is warm and radiates warmth. Minerva closed her eyes, letting Lushan feel her skin through his friendly-but-not-so-friendly touch. He stroked his thumb against the smoothness of her rosy cheeks. Minerva swear that she felt some sort of happiness that she can’t explain. It wasn’t romantic, but it wasn’t friendly either. It was more of a—

            ‘A brother’s touch…’ she mused. He was the brother she never had, the sort of family that she longed to have since her father parted into the realm of paradise.

            Minerva bit her lips. For Lushan, it was sexy. For Minerva, it was her way of suppressing her emotions towards Lushan. She doesn’t want to hurt the person that she had long seen as a one true friend, a brother.

            Hemera, her baby, kicked. And she smiled.

            Lushan’s thumb traveled its way until it reached her lips. He just kept on brushing and stroking her thumb into her lips.

            “I loved you, Minerva.”

            Instead of joy, those words instead brought a painful stab in her heart as if she was hurt more every time she heard those words coming from his lips.

            “I know,” she whispered softly that only the wind could hear.

            And in the corner of her eyes, while she was carried away by Lushan’s touch, she saw him—the man that she’ll gladly sell her soul to the devil just to not let him see her and Lushan in this particular moment.