Chapter 0327
He didn't randomly text me as he always did. After we made love, he didn't stay up, hold me in his arms to chat about work or strike up any other random conversation. He'd either turn away and go to sleep and get to work.
He didn't laugh as much as he used to anymore and whenever he did, his eyes lacked joy and his laugh was flat. I tried to do everything to get him to talk to me, anything that would stop him from slipping through my fingers but it was like he had built this impenetrable wall around. himself, locking himself away from everyone.
I tried to be understanding. "He's just overwhelmed," I had thought and -believed because I was too.
Marriage wasn't a walk in the pack and things had happened quickly
between. And in between wanting to spend the rest of my life..
with the man I had crazily fallen in love with, I felt overwhelmed and scared but I believed that as long as we had each other, we would survive every storm.
But Aiden didn't think the same, because after a while, he came up with some flimsy excuse and left the country.
At least when we were together, he was subtle in ignoring me but in another country, thousands of miles away from me, he outrightly ignored me.
If I was lucky and he picked up my call, he'd grumble an excuse and afterward end the call. "Let's talk later, Sharon," he'd groan like I was some burden he didn't even want to think about.
Again, I tried to understand even though my hurt hurt everyday like a
was lodged there.
But soon, it started grating on my nerves more and more as each day
passed. And I knew I couldn't keep sitting back and be stupidly patient. If I did, I'd lose him, regardless of the contract. And so, I left my beloved business to someone I trusted and left my comfort zone, my home, to see a man. My man. To see what exactly was wrong. Was he that scared about the idea of marriage?
While I prepared for my trip, I hired a private investigator to keep tabs on him and his previous dealings since he returned to the country. I wasn't happy that I had to monitor him. I hated it, it made me feel guilty and desperate but it had to be done.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .
It was the day I left for the country that Aiden left for Aiden that I got the very first report from the investigator. There was a lengthy write up that I skipped to the photographs that gripped my interest.
It was a picture of my man and a certain woman. She looked pretty ordinary to me and I didn't see what was so special or gripping about
her that Aiden was drawn to.
The woman had a small smile on her face but Aiden looked at her like she was the whole world. The same look he always had on whenever we just bagged an invaluable contract. Yes, that look. Maybe an even enhanced version.
In another picture, it was the woman and a child in the picture. A cute. girl, might I say.
Later, when I read through the summary of the report, I discovered that the woman worked in his company and was his ex. Her name is
Anastasia.
"This is what it is?" I scoffed as I glared at the woman in the picture.
It didn't matter if she had a cute girl or if she was his ex or whatever, no one, absolutely no living being, would come between Aiden and 1.
I knew Aiden loved me. I was sure of that. But what worried me greatly and equally annoyed me was Aiden's vulnerability to sometimes have at
hard time sorting out his feelings. He sometimes got confused by his feelings and usually needed time to set his head straight and go for what he really wanted.
I was what Aiden wanted. I knew it in my guts. And that defined a clear purpose for my going to meet him.
I'm going there to make him see that I am the woman he wanted and needed.
I wasn't about to let another woman arise from only God knows where and confuse him so she had better back off immediately.
I picked up my phone and put a call across to the investigator. "Find out more about Anastasia," I told him. "Dig up her past, present, everything there is to know about her." When he started to grumble that we only discussed the price of one person, I cut him off. "I'd double your pay.
I needed to know who this Anastasia was; a subtle threat or a great one? Either way, a threat was a threat, and this one has to be gotten rid of immediately.