A Wrong Surrogate for the CEO-Chapter 127: And yet...
Lisa and Laura remained frozen, too stunned to do anything. They felt Curtis’s departure as his car drove away, and the bodyguards went after their boss without any hesitation.
Kayla, however, was angry. She marched up to Lara with rage in her veins. The strange man saw her first.
He raised his eyebrows at her, but Kayla ignored him as she stood before her friend.
Lara’s eyes widened in shock as she saw Kayla. Her jaw dropped open, as she hastily stood up. The man stood up too, and there was a frown on his face as he looked between Lara and Kayla.
"Excuse me, but who are you?" he asked. Kayla’s anger burned hotter as she glared at him.
"Stay the fuck out of this," she snapped. There was an edge, a bite to her voice that made the man flinch. But instead of him backing off, his eyes narrowed in challenge.
He took a stop forward and was about to say something when Lara placed a hand on his arm, stopping him.
"It’s fine, Marcus. I know her. Please, give us some space," Lara said softly. The man, Marcus, looked down at her.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked. Lara nodded.
Marcus glared at Kayla as he walked away, and Lara turned her full attention to her friend.
Before she could say anything though, Kayla exploded. All the worry and fear and concern in her heart, everything coalesced and turned into fury.
Hot, red and blinding fury. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
"What the hell, Lara? What the fuck is your problem? How could you have just left like that, without a word? You didn’t even take your cell phone! Do you know how worried I was? I haven’t slept in days. Days!"
Lara winced at the pain in her friend’s words. She took a step closer and started to speak.
"I know. I am so sorry..."
Kayla snorted at those words.
"You’re sorry? YOU ARE SORRY? You think what you did is going to be waved away just because you apologized? I get that you lost your memory and you didn’t know what to believe. I understand. But even if you didn’t trust the man who would do anything for you, you could have at least trusted me! But you didn’t! I told you the truth and Lisa told you the truth. We all told you the truth. Everyone couldn’t have lied to you. But instead of facing and confronting it, you ran away. LIKE A FUCKING COWARD!"
Kayla was yelling now, and tears were in her eyes. Lara’s heart ached terribly at her friend’s words.
"Kayla please..."
"You left your kids. You walked out on them, on your husband! You didn’t even look back. Do you know how worried Curtis was? That man is at the verge of losing his mind, his sanity. All because of you. And you know what makes it all worse? It’s the fact that we drove all the way here to find you and you are with ANOTHER MAN?"
Kayla shook her head, her disappointment obvious. "You should have seen the look on Curtis’s face when we saw you guys together. I am so disappointed in you, Lara. So fucking disappointed."
And without waiting for Lara to say another word, Kayla turned around and stormed away.
Lara tried to run after her, but she came face to face with Laura and Lisa.
The hurt on the women’s faces made Lara’s knees weak.
Horror slammed into her as they turned around and left without a word. They had misunderstood. All of them had misunderstood what they saw.
But no one was giving Lara a chance to speak. The betrayal was too sharp for them, too painful.
And as Lara watched them leave, as she watched them drive away, her slowly healing heart shattered into pieces.
What had she done?
~~
Curtis wasn’t mad.
There was no rage in his blood, no anger in his veins. There was no disappointment either, and he wasn’t even sad or anything.
No.
Curtis was hollow.
Like an empty shell that used to house a human, he was... hollow.
He drove back home, his eyes fixated on the road like it was all he could see. His hands were steady as he drove, and his mind was blank.
When he got home, he walked up to the nursery, where he had placed a bodyguard at the door to watch the kids.
The bodyguard saluted Curtis sharply, and Curtis dismissed him with a nod. The bodyguard walked away.
Curtis went into the nursery. His son, Ryan, was still deeply asleep, but Amelia was awake. Awake and playing with the toys scattered around in her crib.
Curtis picked her up. His daughter cooed at him, and her gums flashed in what he hoped was a smile.
Very softly, he leaned down to kiss her forehead, and she made a bubbly sound that sounded like approval.
Curtis still wasn’t thinking about anything. After playing with his daughter for a while, he placed her back into her crib. Then he sat down on a chair placed at the crib side.
As he stared at his kids, something broke in him. All of his emotions rushed back. And Curtis finally let himself think about Lara.
Weeks. For weeks he had been beating himself up for something that wasn’t his fault.
He had given up on sleep, or any form of comfort. All he did was think about her. Worry about her. Gave up his sleep, his peace of mind because of her.
And yet...
Yet...
The image of another man’s arms around her shoulders made his hands curl into fists. Although the gesture had looked simple enough that the man could have been a friend, the fact that she had been in that small town, with a man, made his blood curl.
After all he had gone through for that woman. To think that she had just...
Curtis halted his line of thoughts. No, he would not think of her in that manner.
He would not think of her at all.
