Chapter Four

Toby.

Three Months Later

I sat alone in my apartment, brooding in silence.

I should have felt some sense of peace now that my company was no longer under threat. The leak had stopped and the danger was over.

Yet knowing why offered me no comfort.

My gaze lingered on the stack of documents spread across my desk while the evening news played mindlessly in the background.

My stopover in New York was only temporary, tomorrow, I would be flying to London to meet my brother Theron for the groundbreaking ceremony of our newest luxury hotel.

A hotel that would never have existed if Naila had succeeded.

A bitter laugh almost escaped me, me the CEO of Anetakis International.

I had been manipulated and betrayed made a fool of by the one woman I had allowed myself to trust.

Because of her, my brothers and I had lost two major architectural designs to our closest competitor before I had uncovered what I believed was her betrayal.

I should have handed her over to the authorities but instead I had been too stunned, too shocked, too angry and betrayed by her. 

Even now, I hadn't gotten rid of the things she had left behind. Her clothes were still hanging in my closet and her books still sat on the shelf.

A bottle of her favorite perfume remained on the vanity in the bathroom.

I had convinced myself I was leaving everything untouched because I expected her to come back for it but if I was honest a small part of me had wanted her to come back.

I wanted one more chance to look her in the eye and ask the question that had haunted me for three months.

Why?

Why would you betray me?

My jaw tightened at the thought of even seeing her. 

On my next trip home, I would throw everything away. It was time to erase every trace of her from my life.

Then I heard her name and at first, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me because I had been thinking about her constantly.

But then I heard it again.

"Naila Jameson"

My head snapped toward the television as a news reporter stood outside a local hospital.

For several seconds, the blood roared so loudly in my ears that I couldn't make out what he was saying.

The screen suddenly changed as footage rolled of paramedics carrying a woman on a stretcher out of a rundown apartment building and I immediately shot to my feet.

My heart stopped.

"Naila"

I grabbed the remote with trembling fingers and turned up the volume as my mind struggled to process what I was hearing.

Kidnapped, rescued, held captive.

The details were still unclear.

Authorities hadn't released information about who had taken her or why.

Only that she had endured months in captivity before finally being found.

My pulse hammered violently. Instinctively, I waited for my own name to be mentioned but It never came.

Why would it?

Our relationship had always been a secret.

That had been my choice.

Privacy wasn't a luxury in my world, it was a necessity and after what I had believed she had done to me, I had been grateful no one knew about us.

At least the world hadn't seen how completely she had humiliated me.

Then the camera zoomed in and my chest tightened painfully.

She looked exactly as she had the night I had thrown her out, except she was now pale and fragile, she looked terrified with the same haunted eyes, the same vulnerability I had forced myself to ignore.

Then the reporter said something that made the ground disappear beneath my feet.

"Both mother and child are listed in stable condition. Doctors say the months spent in captivity do not appear to have harmed the pregnancy."

Pregnancy, the word echoed inside my head.

The reporter continued speaking, estimating that she was now around four or five months pregnant and I heard nothing else.

My entire body went numb.

"Oh my goodness"

The whispered prayer escaped before I even realized I had spoken.

Pregnant.

Naila had been pregnant that night when I threw her out.

Everything was starting to make sense now, she had tried to talk to me and she had begged me to listen, she wanted to tell me something and my stomach twisted violently.

Was the baby mine?

I didn't waste another second.

I grabbed my phone and hurried toward the elevator.

By the time I reached the lobby, my driver had already pulled the car around.

I climbed into the back seat before the car had even come to a complete stop.

As we pulled away from the building, I flipped open my phone and called the hospital where Naila was admitted. I needed to see her.