Chapter 19: Chapter 19

The sisters sat talking at the dining table when Hart made his appearance. Myra fell silent the moment Hart stepped into the apartment. She just remembered what Jake told her. There was one way he could offer her help, but it might be uncomfortable. For the sake of her father’s businesses, she knew she had to decide soon.

Her mind returned to that lone moment with Jake at her father’s empty office three hours ago.

“I don’t know, Jake. I don’t know if I can do this,” she said.

“It’ll just be an act. Maybe one or two years, then after that, we can be on our own ways.”

“I’m not sure, Jake,” she tried to evade him, but Jake inched closer and grabbed her wrist.

“Is it because you still have feelings for me, Myra?”

His words made her speechless. She just stared at him with her eyes full of uncertainty. He gazed back at her without letting go of her hand. She didn’t squirm. Her heart was in turmoil, but it rooted her to the spot.

Myra felt the warmth of Jake’s face against hers. It conflicted her mind.

She was with Hart now. But her heart was beating hard for Jake. If he kissed her right now, she couldn’t find the strength to reject him. She knew she was letting Hart down, but she couldn’t help herself. Her feelings for Jake were resurfacing. It was beyond her control.

“No,” she finally answered. “I’ve moved on, Jake. And you have Yuna. She has your child, that’s more important.”

Jake stepped backwards, letting go of her hand. He furrowed his brow at the mention of Yuna. It felt complicated how everything turned out how they were. Yuna’s matter was another long story and he couldn’t finish explaining to Myra in a short while. But he would not marry Yuna, after all.

If he hadn’t been so insecure and jealous back in Bali then, he would have had Myra.

….

Myra fidgeted with her plastic chopsticks. After she was so close to a kiss with Jake, she found it hard to erase that moment from her mind. She talked and talked with Sierra to relieve her unease, but when Hart entered the dining room, she found it arduous to face him.

Hart himself seemed to be deep in thought, but he didn’t say a word. He just joined them at the dining table and accompanied them to the meal. Sierra had invited him and Teos to dine together, but Teos would come later as he had a last-minute job to do.

“Myra.”

She almost jolted from her chair in shock when Hart pronounced her name. Seeing how flustered she was, he stroked her shoulders.

“Tonight, I’ll accompany you, okay?”

Myra nodded weakly. She had no reason to deny him, despite her guilty conscience. But evading him forever wasn’t the answer. With the straightforward personality she had, Myra wondered if it was an option for her to clear her doubts with him and set things straight. If he couldn’t accept what had happened, she couldn’t stop him if he left.

But the question was, how should she tell him she had almost kissed Jake and had likely forgotten who she had slept with the other night?

“Hart, I think we should talk.”

They were alone in her bedroom, ignoring the loud creaking noises and moans from Sierra’s bedroom. Myra and Hart lay on opposite sides of the bed, facing the painted ceiling.

How should she start?

Hart was the first to break the ensuing silence.

“Today, I think I saw someone who looked like Milla on the streets.”

Hart’s statement set her aghast. “Isn’t she dead? I mean, she passed away years ago.”

“The police confirmed it. But even if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be in V City. Still, it was surprising to see someone who looked like her so much.”

Hart sighed. In these two months and a few weeks, he thought Milla had come back in another body. Myra didn’t understand his beliefs. Rebirth was not something she fathomed, other than what she saw in movies. Just because they had similar actions, it didn’t equate to the fact she was Milla at all. Milla and Myra were two distinct people, if he had spent more time trying to understand her.

This small belief of his had led to him taking her hand in his and his empty promises to her. Now that Jake was contending with Hart for Myra and he was her first love and childhood friend, in addition, a CEO. How could he even compare with Jake?

“Hart, so what do you think?”

He looked into her eyes and thought about the possibilities that they could be even together until the end. She was a wealthy heiress, and who was he?

But he just swallowed back his words and smiled. “It’s a blessing indeed for me to have met you, Myra. You complete me.”

“Uh, Hart…”

She didn’t know how to answer him. She stared listlessly into the distance, pondering about what she should do about her dilemma.

“Let’s speak tomorrow, Myra.” He crept over to Myra, stroking her long tresses before cupping her cheeks. Myra closed her eyes as she sensed his hot lips on hers.

Hart reached for her buttons, undoing them one at a time as he peeled her dress from her body. She knew what was about to happen next, but instead of relaxing, Jake’s face appeared in her mind. Her body stiffened, and she hurriedly pushed him away.

“Hart, I can’t do this. Not now,” she told him abruptly. Not when she had Jake in her mind. She couldn’t be intimate with Hart while thinking of someone else. It wasn’t right.

Hart also came to his senses. In his mind, he too was thinking about someone else, the woman who had smiled so brightly at him while crossing the road. He still wanted to know what was wrong with Myra.

“I.. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the cramps. I get them well before my period starts,” she lied. She had an irregular cycle, resulting often in missed periods. It relieved Hart that she had suspected nothing more. They had been intimate for months, yet she hadn’t found out about his infertility. She kept the fact she took emergency contraception well hidden from him.

It was an embarrassing thing for him to tell her. Only Milla knew of his problem. She had sought many physicians well-versed in traditional Chinese medicine to help him, until taking herbs became his regime, but to no avail. Her efforts convinced him she wanted to help him conceive an heir, but out of the blue, she disappeared for months until he found her lifeless body. Even then, he refused to believe she was dead for a long time. That question remained in his head for a very long time.

Milla was a robust woman. How could she have just fallen into the hands of robbers?

“Let’s go to sleep, Myra.”

He lay back on his side of the bed, but none of them went to sleep. Each brooded about their own problems. Myra didn’t have the mood to think about anything other than her father. He was too weak to even fly home, according to Jake’s father. Her heart had crumbled upon hearing this from Jake. Strokes were far too unpredictable.

She didn’t say a word, but rolled to the other side, facing the curtained windows. Her back faced Hart, tears wetting the blanket as she twisted and turned in the night.

For the first time in the two months they had been together, she felt they were strangers sharing the same bed. She didn’t feel like saying a word to Hart, neither were her problems his obligation. At that moment, she felt that she was falling further away from Hart, who was supposedly her boyfriend.

Hart closed his eyes and contemplated the features of the girl he had seen earlier in the street.

How could two people be so similar? The sound of Milla’s sweet laughter flashed in his mind. While the girl resembled her in looks, they hadn’t shared the same actions or way of dressing.

He started to recall the moment where he found her lifeless body. The night had been dark, and her face scarred beyond recognition, but he was sure it was her. Nobody dressed like Milla. She did wear the ring he had given her, so there was no coincidence. The police confirmed her identity afterwards.

Unless, it was a miracle and she had survived, or the records were falsified. He didn’t know if his father had got implicated in this, or there was foul play involved. It wasn’t difficult for his father to pull some strings to make him believe something that wasn’t true. But what was the point in him doing this? By forcing away the woman he loved and creating lies that she was dead, would he have gone back to him and became his dutiful son?

Yet, if Milla was still alive, why hadn’t she attempted to contact him in secret?