The Love Triangle (BWWM Romance) (35 page)

***

James did not hear the door downstairs open in the larger apartment and it was only when he heard yelling that he went into the kitchen. He heard his brother-in-law crying as he was on the phone with the EMTs. “He gave her hemlock. I heard him tell her when she tried to call. She is on the ground unresponsive. Where is he? I don’t know. I will kill him when I find him, please just get here now!”

Charles hung up and he cradled his wife and unborn child in his arms. Everything that he loved and cared about was in that room and he knew that he would lose it, if he lost her. After all of his years of playing the field and breaking hearts, Charles wondered if it was his bad karma that was bringing this on.

His eyes raised and he saw James out of the corner of his eye. He had a bag in his hand and he was running towards the stairs. Charles had a strong urge to get up and go after him, but he knew that he had to be with Dahlia at that moment. Her breathing was becoming more and more shallow. He was convinced that at some point that she stopped breathing all together.

James was stopped at the driveway with a wave of cops coming in and he was in the back of a police car when Charles let the EMTs take care of her. They knew what it was, but the dosage was still in question and if they could save her was still in question as well. She had to be okay, he told himself. She just had to be.

Chapter 12

Dahlia woke up to bright lights overhead and blurry vision. She couldn’t understand where the beeping sound was coming from or where she was for several minutes. Her neck hurt and it felt like her whole body had been hit by a Mack truck. What in the world had happened to her and where was she?

The where and the beeping mystery were figured out when she turned her head and saw the machine measuring her heart rate. She had to be in the hospital, but she still couldn’t remember why in the world she was there. Closing her eyes, she racked her brain, trying to remember what she did last. The meeting with her brother came to mind and then like a wave, all of the information that he had said to her as she lay on his floor gasping came back to her. James had done this to her!

She sat up suddenly, her head spinning with the sudden movement. She groaned, grabbing her head as she looked around the room. Charles’ face came into view and he was up and coming towards her. “My love, you're up! Oh how I have waited for you to awaken.”

“James.” The word came out as a croak, her throat dry. Charles seemed to know what she needed and pressed a straw to her lips.

“Here, baby, drink. Don’t worry about anything else.”

She tried to listen to the soothing sound of his voice, but it was impossible not to worry. Where was James? “I need to go. James is still out there and he did this to me!”

He pushed her back down gently and she looked at him as if he was somehow part of the conspiracy. “Relax Dahlia. He's in jail already. He cannot hurt you anymore and I made sure that the bond was high enough that there is no way he is going to get out.”

“How?”

“I heard everything he said to you on your phone. When I picked up, I could hear you two arguing and then there was a loud crash, that I assume was when you hit the floor. Doctors saw there was a bit of a cut on your head from the fall, but that you would be okay.”

“My head and stomach are killing me. Are you sure I'm going to be okay?”

“I promise. Just rest and we will talk more later. I am just happy you woke up. The doctors were not sure if you would, to be honest.”

“Well it didn’t take long. I'm here now my love. Our little family is back together.”

“Dahlia, you have been here over a week, love. It seemed like an eternity. Please don’t ever scare me like that again.” He was purposely avoiding the comment about their little family. He felt a knot growing in his throat and he tried to swallow it down, but it was hard to. All he really wanted to do was cry himself, his reddened eyes threatened to pour with the pain that he felt far too acutely to ever not have. It was the kind of soul-crushing pain that would never go away, as long as they lived. All of his hopes were dashed from one person’s actions. Charles didn’t know if they would ever have their little family again.

“What's wrong Charles? I can see it written all over your face.”

“Later, my love. We will talk about everything else later. You are up and that's all that matters. I don’t know what I would ever do without you.”

“Well you don’t have to worry about it because I don’t plan to go anywhere soon.”

He crawled into the bed with her after the doctors came back in and checked her vitals. Charles tried to think of a way that he could tell her about the baby, but it never seemed to be the right time. When was the right time to dash her dreams?

They lay together for some time until Dahlia was back to sleep. He stared down at her and smiled to himself. He had never been so afraid in his life and now she was okay. It was all that mattered to him, but he knew that she was not going to take the news well. The fact that the doctors doubted that she will ever be able to have kids again, just seemed to be the final nail in the coffin for their little family. His mind had gone to the inheritance, but he couldn’t care less. Charles just wanted her to be okay. Beyond that, he really just didn’t care.

Leaving to get something to eat, Charles made a few phone calls and tried to take care of things on Dahlia’s end for the merger. It was set to complete and it had to be done soon. The announcement had already been made, so it needed to be done before the end of the year. If not, they would be going into the new year with much of the same problems as the last, as well as not being allowed to consolidate both companies fully. It would cost tens of thousands of extra dollars just in tax fees, if the merger didn’t happen. He knew that his wife would want that taken care of, no matter what.

***

It was about an hour later when he went back into the room and as he was walking up, he saw the doctor. He had a harried look on his face and he knew that something had not gone well. Charles almost stopped him for a heads up, but the man didn’t make eye contact. Charles’ heart sank. He knew what Dahlia had just found out. He kicked himself for not being the one to tell her, but he still wasn’t even sure how that was supposed to happen. Now, she had been told by a stranger and for that, he was sorry. He hoped for her sake that they had left off the ‘never able to have kids again’ part. It would just be too much for her to take at one time.

“Charles, get in here. I can see you through the glass.”

He had been waiting outside. Taking a deep breath, he realized that the time was now, so he moved forward. Her eyes were puffy and red, it was clear she had been crying. The look of pain on her face, made his own eyes start to water threateningly. “I’m sorry, love.”

Charles moved to her and they clung to each other for some time. Both had to grieve the loss of their unborn child, though Dahlia took longer. Charles had made peace with it several days before. There was no other choice but to go on, though he knew she would need time, just as he had.

“Did you hear what else they said? That I will most likely never be able to conceive again. This is horrible, Charles. I feel empty without him inside me.”

He didn’t know what to say. He could only offer a shoulder to cry on. Charles had never done well with tragedy, but for her, he would do his best. They sat like that for some time until she was depleted and started to slump against him. Lying back, he pulled her with him and they both fell asleep for a while. Charles woke up with the lunch tray being brought in and he woke Dahlia up to eat. She had been out for so long it was just good to see her up and around. The hospital wanted to hold her for another day or two for observations, but then she would be ready to go home.

It wasn’t until the couple was home that she asked about work. Dahlia realized how little work meant to her in the grand scheme of things. She had always thought that if she worked hard and got to a place where she was comfortable then the husband and kids would come later. The fact that she had the best husband was obvious, but the idea of never having children was too much for her to bear and she found herself depressed.

A few days later, she moved out of the dark room and realized that it didn’t have to be the end. Charles had stuck with her all that time and without him, she didn’t know what she would have done. He was the only reason she was still there. Even in her dreams, he would call to her when she had been sick. It was his need that had made her hold on. One of the side effects of the poisoning was an unbelievable tiredness that had stuck with her. There were many things that Dahlia wanted to do, but she had hardly any energy to do it.

“Do you want to talk about the merger?”

Dahlia shrugged. He had been hinting at it for a couple of days, but she knew that he didn’t want to rush her about it. The problem was that it did need to be handled. She needed to make an appearance at work, hold a few meetings and talk to Alfred about implications of what had recently happened. “Sure. What’s going on?”

“Well Traverse is trying to get you retired off the board and someone else put in. He says that the company cannot afford to wait for you to get well.”

Waving her hand, she wasn’t worried. “I'm going in tomorrow. It will be finished then. He always was vying for my position, though I'm thinking about giving it up anyways.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, life is short and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life at the company. It was my father’s dream and many lives depend on it, but it isn’t mine.”

Charles was speechless, his blue eyes searching hers for some reason for the change of heart. He had never heard her talk about stepping down and he knew that she had been thinking about something mighty hard lately. He was afraid that it was her marriage to him, but it was refreshing to hear that it was completely unrelated. Charles couldn’t help but think that there was no way she could just walk away, but hiring someone to manage her side would leave them a lot more free time and he was always ready for more of that.

“I support anything you want to do. You also have to go down to the police station and make a statement. They pretty much have everything they need, but they at least want a statement.”

“Oh, I will give them a statement. I will testify if I need to. My own brother just left me there to die. He murdered our child. I have no love for him anymore and I hope they send him away for a very long time.”

Charles only nodded. He couldn’t agree more, but it was her family. His heart went out to his wife, who was all alone. All of her family was dead or tried to kill her. It was hard for him to take and it wasn’t even him. He didn’t know how she could move on from that, but since she was out of bed and the shades were pulled back, Charles was going to take this as a sign on her road to recovery. The legal side of everything could be figured out later.

Chapter 13

The next day, Dahlia awoke and Charles was already gone for the day. He had left her a note, telling her he would be home for lunch. The man was too sweet to her, she thought to herself. If it wasn’t for Charles, she didn’t know how she would have gotten through everything. He was her rock and though she knew he was hurting from what had happened, he was still there for her, day in and day out.

Dahlia got dressed slowly. Usually she would be throwing on clothing and dashing out the door, but lately, she didn’t find herself pressed to rush for everything. She was still trying to work it all out and at the moment, she was okay. She did her makeup and re-braided the small braids into a bigger one that ran down her back. Her eyes were still dark underneath them from the lack of sleep after leaving the hospital. The doctors said it would take some time before she would be back to normal, but Dahlia wanted to know what normal was. If it was how she felt before, it would never happen. She knew that. She could never go back to the woman she was a few weeks before, James had made sure of that.

She had three things on her agenda. To talk to the police, to go to her company and see what was going on, and lastly, talk to Alfred and see what he thought she should do. Her father wanted her to have a child on the way in a year, but if that wasn’t possible, was this marriage all for nothing?

Her first stop was to the police station. She had a desire to see her brother in jail and before she talked to the police officers, she went to visit him in jail. It was dirty and cold when they finally let her through and there he was, the brother that had hated her as soon as he knew she existed. She was the one that had taken away his father’s love or something like that. It was whatever was in his twisted mind that made him that way. Dahlia was sick of trying to find a reason for the way he was. She was just going to have to accept that things were different.

She sat down across from him, a sheet of glass the only thing standing in her way. His dark eyes were black and he didn’t seem too happy to see her.

“Sorry, James, did you think I was someone else? Someone that actually cared what you had to say? Someone to help you out of this?” Dahlia smiled, the same cold smile that he had given her as she passed out on his ground. It was the cold stare of someone who just didn’t care anymore.