Maxwell was having another rough day at work. It was the day after Angelina's birthday and though it was Boxing day, he didn't stay behind to unwrap the Christmas gifts as he complained of work overload. However, upon reaching the company, trying as hard as he may, he just couldn't concentrate on his work at all. He just found himself thinking, should he? Should he make that leap of faith?These past few days, he has been seeing different sides of Angelina. Different sides that make her all the more attractive and totally irresistible to him.It was as if she was a woman covered in many layers and as gradually each one of them is uncovered, he gets to see a glimpse of the real woman hidden deep inside. He found himself pondering whether he indeed had been too hasty in passing a judgement over her. Because he found it hard to believe that someone who could do all that she has been doing for not just him and Isabella but everyone else she comes in contact with, can truly be just preten
By the time Angelina returned home from delivering both Alicia and Jeremy's Christmas gifts, it was already late in the afternoon and so she headed straight to the kitchen to prepare a late lunch.Once everything was done, she packed some lunch for Maxwell as usual but as she called Gregory in order to come and take it to him at the office, he told her that the boss wasn't at the company and had given him the day off as well. Finding that strange as he had earlier mentioned that he had a lot of work to do at the office, she tried all his numbers but to no avail as he wasn't responding.With an uneasy feeling at the pit of her stomach, she called Isabella who has been sleeping all this while. They then took their lunch together even though the uneasiness didn't allow Angelina to eat sufficiently. After clearing the dishes, she made her way upstairs in order to freshen up.However, upon reaching the second floor, a thought suddenly came to her mind. What if he's actually in his study, d
Angelina stopped dead in her tracks. And with her hand still on the door knob, she turned her head to look at the teary-eyed Isabella who then closed the distance between them by running to her and hugging her tightly from behind. "D--don't go, M--Maa--ma! P-lease!"Overwhelmed with both the negative feelings Maxwell evoked in her and the joy of hearing Isabella calling her 'Maama' as well as speaking a full though short sentence for the very first time, Angelina broke into emotion-laden sobs as she turned around in Isabella's arms and wrapped her arms around her as well. Even though this came at the most inopportune time, she was quite happy and relieved that it had finally happened.After that incident that led to Isabella having a cardiac arrest, according to Lucy, she kept having recurrent nightmares. And sometimes during the daytime, she would just isolate herself, sitting quietly in one corner, lost in her own gloomy world. The wheels in Angelina's head had begun turning
Throughout that day, Maxwell didn't come out of his study. He remained locked inside the room, doing goodness knows what. As for Isabella, after shedding the inevitable tears that fell from her eyes after Angelina's departure, she wiped them out with a firm resolution. She wasn't going to allow her Dada to realize that Angelina's departure had greatly affected her. That's because she knows he might use that as an excuse to force Angelina to return to the mansion. And she just couldn't do that to her devastated Maama. She really didn't deserve what Maxwell did to her and forcing her to return and live under the same roof as the man who had humiliated her would be quite unfair to her. As such, lsabella masked her feelings and went about her normal activities.When it was time for dinner, Isabella warmed some leftovers which she found in the fridge, served herself and placed Maxwell's portion outside the locked door of his study. She then texted him, telling him about it before leaving
Jeremy quickly stepped forward and gently pried Alicia's hands away from Maxwell's collar while coaxing her, "No, no, no darling, that's not the right way to handle any situation. Let's calm down and talk this over like adults, okay?"Alicia opened her mouth to speak but Maxwell beat her to it. "No Logan. Let her do whatever she wants to do to vent her anger. As long as she will tell me about my wife's whereabouts after that."Alicia opened her mouth to speak once again but this time around, it was her fiance who stopped her from speaking. He gently dragged her away from Maxwell's side and made her sit down on one of the wooden boxes containing her stuff. Then in a gentle tone, he addressed her. "Please darling, just sit down here and let me handle this, okay? You're not in the right frame of mind for this."Alicia huffed before glaring at Maxwell. However, she remained sitting, wordlessly obeying her fiance. Seeing that, Jeremy heaved a sigh of relief before turning to
Jeremy tried to coax her for the umpteenth time. "It's okay sweetheart. What has happened has already happened and now all we have to do is think of a solution, okay?"Turning to Maxwell, he spoke to him in an understanding tone. "You were jealous."Maxwell abruptly looked at him. It was a statement and not a question. He just stared at Jeremy with an unreadable expression on his face without uttering a word. But Alicia wasn't so quiet. "Huh? What are you talking about? He humiliated my friend and you're talking about jealousy? What he did was pure humiliation at its peak so don't sugar-coat it!"Jeremy shook his head with a half-smile on his face. "No sweetheart. You're not a man so you won't understand how these things are. Believe me, his actions are justified and if I was in his shoes, I might have even done worse. He had once seen me deliberately flirting with Angelina just so as to rile both of them up. And when he came here and found me with a woman who had s
That was just the beginning of Maxwell's misery because try as hard as they may, finding Angelina proved to be abortive. All their sleepless nights, hard work, commitment and doggedness were in vain as gradually, the days slipped into weeks and still, there wasn't even the slightest clue on Angelina's whereabouts.Even tracking her phone number was futile because the last place it was traced to was Maxwell's mansion, on the same fateful day that she disappeared. And when Mr. Smith failed to get any lead on her whereabouts, Maxwell hired five more private investigators located in different parts of the country and tasked them all to find his missing wife. Not just that, he hired two more in the United States of America, just in case she might have already returned back home. After about two weeks of fruitless search, a frantic Maxwell became sorely tempted to report the matter to the police but Alicia, who knows Angelina like the back of her hand, stopped him. According to her, since
It was late in the night and as they have been doing every single night for the past month and a half, the two ladies kept chatting back and forth between each other. And these ladies are none other than Isabella and her dearest Maama; Angelina!Right from the first night she left the mansion, Angelina had been communicating with Isabella via the new number that the latter had gotten for her which no one else except the two of them knows about. They chose to be having their daily chats at around ten pm in the night because that's the perfect, secretive time since Lucy is fast asleep and Maxwell had already done his nightly routine of checking up on Isabella and returned to the west wing.Tonight, Angelina had a worried look on her face as she typed a message to Isabella which read, 'But Bella, don't you think we've taken this too far? Let us not punish so many people for the mistake of just one. I'm really worried about Alicia and Jeremy. I heard that she has been missing her lec