Chereads / Courting Trouble [will be republished] / Chapter 24 - Party Pooped.

Chapter 24 - Party Pooped.

|Party Pooped.|

The next time Malisha saw Ryan was a week later. It was on a saturday and they were in the Phaedra gardens, where her pre wedding party was happening.

He smiled weirdly at her and  walked up the driveway with his sister hanging on his arm or was it the other way round.

Malisha could have sworn that she had gone through the guest list about a hundred times and none of those times had their names had appeared there.

"Is Ryan so desperate as to gate crush my event?" She thought to herself.

Her event,yes, since Domina Carlisle had decided to throw her a pre-wedding tea party, in honour of their weekly afternoon tea appointments.

The idea had come to her while they had been preparing the guest lists and invitation cards for the wedding and Malisha had agreed. She thought that it was brilliant idea, since it would be held during the day, making it possible to involve the children.

"Nelly!Nelly!" Malisha hissed.

"Yes Domina." Nelly replied and Malisha turned to stare at her.

"Not you too!" She groaned and Nelly grinned.

"I'm practising so that I don't fall out of sorts with you later on." Nelly told her boss cheekily.

"Really Nelly?"

Her PA just shrugged her shoulders and grinned at back  her. Malisha shook her head in disbelief, but laughed along, almost forgetting the real reason that caused her to sermon the PA.

"How may I be of assistance then?" Nelly brought her back on track.

"Oh yeah. The guestlist. Do you recall writing a place card for Thorpe?"

"I'm not sure...Let me check." Nelly said already retrieving her tablet and planner. After consulting them for a moment, she turned back to her boss and shook her head.

"No, I don't see it. It's not here. Do you want me to write the place card?"

"No,no no. It's okay. I will handle it." Malisha replied, making a beeline for the two siblings.

"What are you two doing here?"

"You invited us." Ryan drawled out, grinning way too much and his sister elbowed him, albeit discreetly.

"Never mind my brother, sometimes he can be a real pain," she said, glancing back at meaningfully.

"That is true. But you still haven't answered my question. What are you two doing here?"

"Like I said you invited us." Ryan asserted once again. This time Malisha joined his sister in glaring daggers at him.

"What he means to say though is that you invited my husband. He couldn't make it and we came on his behalf. Well, I came on his behalf, this one just tagged along."

Malisha stared meaningfully at Lennita, digesting that piece of information and trying to gauge if she was telling her the truth.

"You're married?"

"Yes. To Ambassador Simmons of Ueteribus." Lennita responded, the edges of her lips tagging up into an almost smile.

"Simmons?"

That rang a bell in her head.

" Fine! Go in and behave yourselves. Especially you Ryan. I don't want to see you anywhere near my son!"

At that that Ryan seemed to sober up and he wiped the grin completely off his face.

"He's...he's here?" He stammered.

"Yes, it is a tea party and there're children. So be on your best behaviour."

After that he didn't say anything more, chosing to immerse himself in his thoughts, even as an usher led them to their table and Malisha went to find Duke.

"Duke!" Malisha whispered furiously driving an elbow to his side in an attempt to get his attention.

"Duke!" She said again not noticing that he had quit his conversation and was now turned to face her.

Her face bore a worried expression as her gaze wandered all over the garden, as though she was looking for something or someone.

"Lisha?"

"Mmmmh?" She answered, still not looking at him.

"Lisha? What is wrong?" He asked, stepping into her line of vision. At that she snapped out of her reverie and finally turned to face him.

"Ryan is here."

"What! How?" Duke asked, completely taken by surprise.

"Apparently, with all the snooping around you have been doing, you failed to notice that he has a sister, who happens to be married to the Ambassador Simmons."  She accused.

"Lisha, are you still mad at me about that?" Duke asked, taken aback by the angry tone of her voice.

"No. I am just upset and I don't get how we could have missed it?"

"Oh, so now it's 'we'?" He asked lightly, earning a playful slap to his arm.

"Ouch! Quit pummeling me woman!"

Malisha grinned before turning back to face the party.

"What do we do now?" She asked him worriedly.

"Come."

The two found Thomas playing in his fort with the other children. A sombre faced Ryan watched them from the sidelines, his gaze never leaving his son.

Finally, he turned around to face them, a ghost of a smile forming on his lips and all of a sudden he started walking towards the children.

"Duke!" Malisha gasped too scared to move.

She turned to face him, but he was already halfway on his way to Thomas. He grabbed a squealing Thomas, who thought that it was a game, until he saw the expression on Duke's face.

"Daddy, what's wrong?"

At the same time Ryan rounded up on them and things went south.

"Daddy?" Ryan asked cynically as he fell into step right beside them.

"Oh my God! Oh my God! Why is this happening to me?" Malisha cried, sending up a quick prayer.

She watched as Duke stopped in his tracks before mumbling something to Ryan, who threw his head back and laughed cynically.

Duke's free hand slowly folded into a fist and Malisha realised what was coming.

She snapped out of her daze and gathered the skirt of her dress, ready to ran and stop the war that was brewing.

"Lisha! Lisha!" She stopped and  turned to face her brother, who was hot on her heels trying to catch up.

"Lisha, I have been watching you. What is wrong?"

She hesitated to face him, too afraid that if she looked away even for a moment, Duke would have finally lifted his hand and slugged Ryan, right there in front of the children.

Mishael saw the conflicted emotions on his sister's face and followed her line of vision, finally comprehending what was happening.

"Come, follow me." He said, gripping her hand in his and pulled her towards the confrontation, just as Ryan declared that he was Thomas' father.

Mishael gripped Ryan by the arm and hauled him out of the garden while he raged and protested, but Malisha's brother was too strong for him.

That handled, Malisha turned back to face the angry Duke holding the equally bewildered Thomas.

She reached out to hold his hand, but he flinched away scowling at her.

"Why did you let him in?" He growled out at her.

"I...I..." Malisha stuttered not knowing what to say. He took that as an admission of guilt and handed her son over to her. He gave her one more disappointed look and walked away in a huff.

"This is bad, really really bad and happening only one week to the wedding!"

Malisha hugged her little boy, sniffing away the tears that were threatening to flow from her eyes. Thomas on the other hand remained quiet and as if sensing his mother's distress, he ocassionally patted her back in a cormforting manner.

Mishael found them, ten minutes later, huddled within Thomas' fort. One look at them and he knew exactly what was wrong.

"Do want me to take you home?"

He asked softly and Malisha nodded back.

He took Thomas from her arms and helped his younger sister to her feet, before encompassing them both in a bear hug.

"Don't worry. Everything is going to be okay pumpkin.Have faith."

He attempts to cormfort her.

"Oh Mishael, it's so hard to see how all these is working out for my good." Malisha wailed.

"I know. But hold on there. Don't give up."

Duke left Malisha feeling very agitated. Ryan had riled him up so much, it was a miracle that he didn't slugged him there and then and in his face for his callous comments.

What Malisha had seen in him, he had no idea and he had let his disappointment show; when he had left her.

As his anger dissipated, it was replaced with something akin to shame knowing that he had let his anger and jealousy take over, once again hurting the woman that he loved.

The door to his library flew open and he groaned.

"Please, not now mother." He pleaded.

"It's not her."

He turned to look at a sombre Mishael, wearing that unreadable expression that he probably wore to battle.

"What is it? I don't remember summoning you." Duke told him.

"No. You didn't."

"Then what do you want?" The Phaedra snapped, his features hardenning.

"I want to say that I appreciate what you did for Thomas and Malisha today," he paused.

"Then why do I sense a but coming?" I ask.

"Because it is. I don't know what you did to her after I left, but let me remind you. I will not let you hurt her like Ryan did."

"Remember your place, Mishael."

Duke warned and Mishael's eyes light up with the same fire he had seen in Malisha eyes before.

"Today, I looked into my sister's eyes. Do you know what I saw there?" Duke shook his head.

"I saw that same look of dispair that she wore on her face, when I found her five years ago."

♧♧♧

For all that Thomas had been through, he was holding up pretty well.

His uncle Mishael brought them home and made sure that they were settled in, before leaving to perform some errands, or so he had said.

Thomas continued to hold on to his mother tightly. He buried his head in her shoulders and remained quiet as she carried him up to his room, only speaking up when she moved to put him in his bed.

"Mamma, that man. He said he was my father."

He told his mother and I

She immediately knew that he was talking about Ryan.

"What do you think of him?" She asked him.

"I don't know. He sounded weird and smelled funny. Daddy said he was drank."

"Oh, is that so?" His mother answered, not knowing what else to say.

"So, is he my father?" Her inquired inquisitively.

"Darling, do you know the meaning of the word father?" She finally asked him, after raking her head for a moment, for an appropriate way to approach the topic.

"Immediate male ancestor? " he tried.

"That's true..." His mother told him and nodded, urging him on.

"It also means a man who exercises paternal care over

a child. A protector or a provider." Thomas added cleverly, giving me her the dictionary description of the word.

His mother was impressed.

"Aaaw... Thomas. When did you get so clever?"

She gushed, pinching his cheeks and ruffling his hair.

"Mum...you are embarassing me." He said giggling.

"Who? Me?I'd never!" His mother said so dramatically, laying her hand over her chest like it was the last thing she would ever do and he bursted out into another fit of giggles.

"Oh Mummy! You're so funny."

He told her recovering from the giggles and Malisha grinned at that.

"So, what do those definations tell you?" She asked him, also sobering up.

"From the defination, Phaedra Duke sounds more like my father though I am not sure about the male ancestor bit."

Thomas told her wisely and she smiled again.

"Well he has been your dad and a very good one at that." Malisha agreed. "But the other man is also your father." 

Her son looked at her with huge eyes about to drop tears and her heart broke for him.

"But I like Phaedra Duke as my father best."

He wailed and Malisha went mute not knowing what to say. How could she tell her little boy that she may have messed up things up and that there would probably be no wedding?

"Mum,you are marrying Phaedra Duke! He has to be my father!"

Thomas continued to tell her.

"Hush...baby." Malisha tried to sooth him. "Everything will be okay." She finally told him echoing Mishael's words and hoping to God that he had been right, if only for Thomas' sake.