AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Love you.”
***
After another crying session and a second quick, cool shower, my mind feels a little clearer, and I lie on the huge hotel bed staring at my Snap.
Mom’s right. I don’t care what Vahadr thinks or even what he wants. I worked hard for this scholarship, really freaking hard, and I’m not about to let anyone take that away from me. Not anyone. I’m doing this for my family, and I will always do everything I can for them.
I flick open my messages and begin tapping out a text. Whether he reads it or not is his problem.
Vahadr,
I am not leaving this planet. Thank you for the opportunity to work for you, for all that I didn’t want it or ask for it you horrible, paranoid jerk of a man. You talk to me about blackmail but you LITERALLY threatened and blackmailed me into working for you! So it’s okay when you do it, you hypocrite? I seriously can’t even understand how one person could be
I stop typing, take a deep breath, and hit backspace.
Vahadr,
I am not leaving this planet. Thank you for the opportunity to work for you, but I will not be canceling my studies.
I consider adding ‘have a nice life,’ but it feels petty, so I bite my lip and click send as is, before throwing the device across the bed so I don’t touch it anymore.
Five minutes later, I’m typing to him again.
P.S.
How’s Asili? Is he doing okay? Has he realized I’m gone yet? I miss you both so much already and it’s barely been a day, I don’t know how I’ll continue like this. I wish I told you what I knew sooner but I was scared of your reaction, scared to have that conversation with you when you seemed so
I stop again, delete the whole thing, and flop face-first into the many plush pillows without sending another word.
***
It’s well into the afternoon now and all I’ve done is washed what I now realize are the only clothes I own, and ordered lunch, three separate snacks and two desserts, while I sit by the window and look into available housing at the university campus.
Vahadr still hasn’t responded to my message.
I wish I could get in contact with Elena. I really want to ask if she knew they’d used her eggs instead of Nkina’s—although I have a strong feeling that she doesn’t know, despite all her drama about me finding ‘her son’. The Elena I know is too…well, too possessive to have an actual child somewhere and not demand to see him or be with him. Hell, if I so much as took a pair of shoes from her she’d track me across the entire galaxy to get them back, let alone an actual child of hers. She’s too family oriented not to care.
And if she knew Asili was her son… The amount of drama she would blow up around the situation would be apocalyptic.
But I guess I don’t have to figure out what to do about it anymore, since Vahadr has apparently decided that I no longer exist and I’ll probably never see Asili again—
The thought instantly freezes me up, and I sit staring at my laptop screen breathlessly for a moment.
My little Asili, with his cheeky grin and boundless energy—my nephew…
I feel an absolute surge of emotion as that thought hits me square in the chest, and just as I slam my creaky old laptop shut, my Snap begins to vibrate.
I look down at the screen and see Vahadr’s number calling through.
Good. He’s about to find out that nobody comes between Analina Martin and her family.
But it only takes a split second for all words to die on my lips, as I answer the call and the image of Vahadr flicks to life before me.
Something is wrong.
Something is horribly wrong.
His silver hair is a mess and falling into wild blue eyes. His shirt is unbuttoned three down from the neck, and he’s pacing up and down his office, up and down with a dangerous, prowling gait.
