* * *
It's a lie.
It's a lie.
It's all a complete lie.
"It couldn't be anything but that!" David tried desperately to console himself—a stifling and useless effort.
"Dad, you're back!" A chippy silver-headed boy with lovely violet eyes ran excitedly in his father's direction, followed by a weary maid who tailed, fatigued, behind him. "Young Master! Young Master, your bath is going to get cold," she cried from exhaustion. But he paid her no heed.
"Dad!" the boy pursed the elusive man with renewed vigor. "Dad! Dad!" Yet, too absorbed in his ghastly, aloof self, David gave no reaction; the lean man mindlessly strutted past the boy on several occasions with growing strides, getting the best of the little one's.
"Is dad mad at me?"
While David stayed away from home, his son lived with ruminations that it could all be his fault, even though the Marquis's erratic behavior was unexclusive to his occupational absences. David spared no effort in being any less present towards his own blood-related family, because time and again, he would disappear for months on end without sending a word of "hi," "hello," or even just letting people know that he was still alive and breathing.
Where he went, nobody ever knew. But it was worth noting that his latest episode was awfully longer than his usual disappearances; breaking a previous record of 6 months by a whole year.
"Y-Young Master!" The panting maid finally caught up. "Young Master, your bath—It's going to turn—"
"Not now, Mary!" The pubescent sterned, continuing to chase after his father.
The precarious situation carried on for the next while.
David frantically scanning hall after hall, opening and slamming door after door, in pursuit of his own father. Along with these moments of tensity, he would also hear a desperate "Dad" in the distance. Or at other times, whimpers, like, "Dad, are you mad at me?" or "Dad, I'm sorry!" which exacerbated his blood pressure to unprecedented numerics.
David didn't need this right now—especially when accounting for the derisive stares from unlooking house workers, making him appear like a heartless monster with the boy's every plea.
It also didn't help that the boy was adopted for all the wrong reasons either.
"KADEN!" He bellowed the name like a mad man, eyes, bloodshot from suppressed rage, and his chest moving up and down in ragged, incoherent breathing patterns. "STOP THAT! STOP THAT THIS INSTANT!"
Then rolled in peevy murmurs from amongst the insubordinate onlookers.
"Poor Kaden," one aged maid lamented.
"He hasn't been home in a year so naturally the boy was simply excited to see a fatherly figure. Is that such a crime?" another shared an audacious input.
"Why did he even come back if he was going to act like his usual, rude self? Didn't his self-declared prodigal nature satisfy his urge to hurt people around him already? So selfish! Look how he just barged in here like he owned the place."
"Do you think he'll send Kaden back this time?" A valet questioned.
"Kin will always be kin. Anyone else won't do. That's just how the Marquis family operates."
"Where's your grandpa?" Shadow curtly asked, getting eye-level with the frightened child. He decided to shut out the trifling comments of the arrogant housekeepers and refocus his thoughts on amending his ill behavior. Taking deep breaths in and out, his tense nerves eventually schooled absolute placidity, which within itself was beginning to feel like a failing calming mechanism that showed results moments too late.
Honesty has always been the best policy—irrespective of the sort of person—so in being true and genuine to himself, David knew his anger could not simply be dismembered into one source, and that it was rampantly showing in domineering actions and deep-felt failure of overcoming whatever lecherous emotions attached to Amy Rose... emotions that were far from being reciprocated. But by ignoring these warning signs, coupled with the unpleasant news he had gotten this morning, he felt himself hardening from anger instantaneously... just like her. The only difference—which made him far worst in the grand stage of comparisons—was he was directing rage at an unsuspecting, innocent child and he was better than that. He was above such reckless displays of destructive temerity.
"I-I... I don't know," Kaden stammered nervously. "I think that... maybe—"
"I'm sorry I yelled at you, Kaden." Before the emotion dared to recede from the spotlight any further, breaking out of character, David took out his hand to stroke the boy's hair, baffling the crowd of housekeepers, via their audial, uniform roars of discombobulation. He had never ever shown the boy any sort of affection since dropping him off and parting for New York, so this called for a universal celebration.
"Daddy is just really frustrated today. You didn't deserve that. At all."
"Oh."
"'Oh'?" He cocked his head. The reaction was too bland. Too vague. Did kids usually say "Oh" when an overbearing parent sputtered such endearing words—so sweet, yet so unreal—as suffice to a lecture?
"Does that mean you didn't come home for me then?" Kaden followed up, confounding David further.
"No. No, I didn't."
The boy's face fell grim... then chippy... then uncaring. "Grandpa went out just now—10 minutes ago or so—with Grandma. I probably shouldn't have listened in on their conversation buuuuut—"
"What do you want now? Did Grandpa starve you of a PS-4000 or something?"
"I wanna live in New York with you!"
"I keep telling you, and I will keep telling you: You cannot."
"Then I definitely can't tell you anything either!" Kaden retorted, puffing his cheeks in a pouty rage.
"Mary!" David commanded.
"Yes sir?" She practically shrieked.
"Do you have whereabouts on my parents—"
"FINE! FINE!" Kaden cut in, swinging his short, little hands in the air. "I want the latest E-phone X100 first!"
"I can work with that," David smiled. But do not confuse it with affection. He had smiled because his prey caved into his will. He was getting what he wanted once again. "So, where did they go?"
"They went to a nighttime wedding or something at a place called 'L'hotel de la vie. Or was it a cruise ship? 'Le bateau de croisiere de la vie'?"
"Thank you," David shot up from his kneeling position and set out to leave. "Oh," he stopped. "You're french is getting better."
A compliment gone flat because Kaden rolled his eyes at it.
Hard.
"I live in Monaco, Dad. For all my life, actually! I may be adopted but I wasn't from outside the country! Hell—we've been speaking it this whole time!"
"Right," David murmured turning red, unsure if it were because of the—upon current examination— belittling remark, or the fact he had forgotten where his adopted son came from.
"It flew over your head, didn't it?"
"I'll be expecting you to be fluent in English when I return next time."
"I already speak that too." Kaden bragged. "Courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa!"
"Okay..." David admitted defeat again, via his knotted brows, then, "Italien it is," he said, about turning to leave.
"Posso fare anche questo!" (I can do that too!) Kaden yelled.
"Chinese !" David replied out the door.
"You're evil!" Kaden yelled back. But less lively-er than he had envisioned, it had materialized.
"Young master..." Mary approached wearily. "Your bath."
"You're very evil..." he muttered the phrase once again. "AND I DON'T WANT TO BATH ANYMORE!"
His tantrum made ears bleed, taking surrounding housekeepers by surprise. Instead of trying to coax the child out of his unhealthy fit, they simply cleared a path for the mini hurricane to run and shut himself off in the nearest room. Because just like his father, despite separation in blood, he wasn't a force to be reckoned with when he was in such a foul mood.
* * *
"No way! No way! No way! No way!" I screamed in the face of Delancy Dupont, I screamed while exiting the office building, I screamed while entering a taxi, and screamed especially loud when we pulled up to Louis' workplace.
"Of course 'No way!' Why would they even be 'a way?'" Rouge beside me sterned. "The cocky bitch was probably pulling your leg!"
"Louis wouldn't do such a thing to you, Ruby!" Elena consoled. "I've known him since we were in diapers! He's not like that!"
"Yeah, stay positive." Blaze on my left agreed.
But it wouldn't matter what any of them were spouting if the whole thing turned out to be true in the first place. As we approached the office building, I more or less ran down to the receptionist like a hysteric bull charging at a red flag to give an ear-splitting:
"LOUIS! WHERE IS LOUIS?"
"Eh, you'll have to excuse her," Blaze jumped in as my mouth on my behalf because I was too mad and incapable of making any full, rational, logical sentences in such a state of mind! Everything was spinning around and it seemed to never stop. My heart began to slow to possibly stop at any moment. But despite that, I wasn't phased one bit! I wanted to meet Louis! I had to know the truth above anything else! I just had to!
"LOUIS!"
"Would you cut that out! Get yourself together for crying out loud," Rouge implored me.
"Could we please speak to a Louis Marquis who works here?"
"Sure... Sure, I'll call for him right away. Please have a seat."
"Thank you," Blaze replied.
"Everything's going to be okay, Ruby. Calm down," Elena coaxed me into a seat gently. I didn't want to imagine the dread of confinement to one spot as she did because I was not feeling like staying still.
"And if it isn't, she had better not continue this shitty-ass attitude because it's very off-putting for someone who calls herself an adult!"
"ROUGE!" Blaze and Elena roared.
"I—" she stammered on her words. "She's just too loud! Everyone's looking at us... is what I meant to say."
And it was true.
I didn't really take notice of it, but many eyes had been ogling us for a while from every corner of the room.
"And why should she be crying over this whole situation when the guy doesn't even deserve her in the first place? Let's be real girls, he's probably been two-timing all along."
"Louis isn't like that!" Elena disagreed.
"And if he is?" Rouge scrutinized. "Nobody knows anyone a hundred percent, Elena."
"Allow me to be the first then!" she reparteed. "He's been my childhood friend and thanks to him I met you amazing people! He's too kind to be so cruel and I can't believe you just said that about him!" Elena turned more eyes to our chaotic outbursts. She was beginning to turn every shade of red from anger, betrayal, and all sorts of mixed feelings.
She had more faith in him than me; his own fiance.
"Whatever the matter is," Blaze interrupted, "It's between Ruby and Louis. Not us. All we can do is lend our support, so save your feeble arguments for later."
They silenced.
She was always good at that—shutting you down easy with a single sentence.
"Is... is he coming?" I whimpered but wasn't trying to. I had to get myself together because if everything was indeed as Delancy Dupont said, I did not want to be seen as the crazy ex or the one who took the most damage from all this mess. That version of Louis I've never known, and hope to God isn't real, didn't deserve to see such a satisfying sight.
Rouge was right. This wasn't it at all. I needed to get myself together.
And Eleana was also right. I had to have more faith than this in my own Fiance.
"Yes, darling, he is." Blaze stroked my head lovingly. "I just spoke to the receptionist and she said she would give his office a call right away—"
"RUBY!"
My ears followed the panting voice.
"Oh my gosh, Ruby!" He came running towards me and shrouded me in an invasive, sweaty hug.
"Ruby..., God, Ruby," He kept saying and hugging me tighter and tighter, digging into my skin.
I did the same.
"It isn't true! Tell me it isn't true—that the whole thing was just a huge lie!"
"Yes. Yes, it is," he replied running his hands through my hair and caressing my face.
My heart relaxed at the thought, eliciting a giggle. "Well, now I just feel dumb."
"Don't be." He looked into me square in the eyes with all amount of seriousness; like he was giving me all the right in the world to be mad at him and he would take the blame and understand without an ounce of opposition.
I loved him for that. "I love you. I love you so, so much."
"Me too."