Chapter 23: Chapter 23

“Dad?”

The aged man looked at Myra weakly. Slumped in a wheelchair, her father looked the oldest he had ever been in the last decade. No words came from his mouth, no matter how hard he tried.

Myra didn’t remember the last time she had seen him face to face. Because of living in different areas, she would often send him text messages to remind him to take his vitamins and prescriptions, but most of the time, Alfred sent instructions through his right-hand man, Will. She now wondered if he had been sick. At her father’s orders, Will had a close eye on her movements.

Then it all stopped.

Myra had suspected nothing when she went to Bali. She thought it was the effect Sierra’s mother had on her father and Sierra, the younger daughter herself. She didn’t question her father, never demanded where she was going or how long they were away. Because he was already sick!

It crushed her heart to know what a failure she had been. All for herself, just for the ‘freedom’ she always wanted.

How long had her father been staying with Uncle Marc? Why didn’t Jake tell her that her father was with them?

“Myra, your father needs to rest,” Jake’s voice sounded near her ear.

“I… I haven’t spoken to him yet.” She muttered as Jake pulled her away from the main hall, ushering her down a flight of steps. It was a new mansion. She had never set foot in this place before.

Jake opened the door to a room, taking her inside. She let him, unsure what she should say. Too many thoughts were swimming in her mind right now.

“Myra,” he spoke again, his voice appearing more sympathetic than sensual. “We got Uncle Alfred here because we weren’t sure how you or your family would react. In fact, he has been here for some months.”

“Jake.” Myra put her hand on her head, exhaling.

Then the room fell silent. Jake took her hand and warmed it with his, before helping her to sit on a nearby sofa. She leaned back, allowing herself to fall into the soft material.

After some fifteen minutes of silence, Myra found herself able to talk again.

“Jake, I don’t know what to think right now. I feel my heart is heavy,” she said, with her eyes focused on the fluffy rug on the floor of his room. “I feel like, while I was having fun in Bali and taking a break away from my father controlling me, yet I didn’t know a thing. About his stroke, how it happened, when it happened.”

“Myra, he had stroke symptoms way before this. He just didn’t want to tell you. He wrote my father a letter.

“He didn’t tell you when he left, as he didn’t want you to worry. He made it all seem like an argument with his fiancee, but he had everything planned.”

Everything planned? What did Jake mean? What did her father plan for them all?

Jake leaned over her and dried her tears with his sleeve.

“Myra, be strong. You need strength to take care of yourself and your family. We will be here to help you too.”

“I don’t know how I can tackle all this. Everything just happened in a sudden,” she burst into tears. Jake offered her his shoulder.

“It will be alright. Many stroke survivors recover, although it may take a long time. Just let him stay here with us. I promise you, he is in excellent hands,” Jake assured her.

“He’s my father. I should take care of him myself.”

“Myra, when we get married, you will stay here as well,” Jake pronounced.

Was he serious about this marriage thing? Myra stared at him questionably. There were no signs that he was joking. In fact, he seemed quite persistent.

“It’s your father’s wish that he wants to stay with my father, stated in his letter,” Jake explained. “If you don’t believe me, do look for yourself.”

She heard the faint beep of her cell phone. Jake had sent her a long photograph of the letter. She recognised her father’s own handwriting, marked with his personal seal at the end of the letter. All his life, he trusted Marc Yu the most. By no doubt, he had made such a request.

Myra stared at the second last line of the letter again. Her father had brought up the matter of their betrothal. Even when she was only twenty-one. Did her father think she was ready for such a big event in her life?

“Myra, you need to take a rest.”

Jake’s voice penetrated her ears, depriving her of her confused thoughts. She nodded weakly, then felt his strong arms lifting her up and carrying her some distance away. She felt so tired, after this long day. Her energy faded away, allowing her to drift into a long slumber.

When she woke up, not knowing what the time was, she was lying in Jake’s arms. It felt a little awkward they were both lying in bed, although they were fully clothed. She blushed as she broke free and stared in the other direction, away from Jake.

“Sorry, I dozed off,” she said in her most apologetic tone.

“No problem,” Jake’s answer came, calm as a cucumber. “Feel free to do it as many times as you want.”

She quickly aligned her thoughts. He meant sleeping in his arms; she corrected herself.

“I, um…”

The patter of water droplets outside the window distracted her. She pulled herself off Jake’s bed and headed towards the window, lifting the curtains.

Rain. She had missed it for a very long time.

Jake caged her in a surprise embrace, holding her tightly to him. She didn’t fight his embrace, permitting him to bring her back to the bed earlier.

“Just lie down and close your eyes for a moment, Myra. You need to be in your best mood when you head down for dinner later.”

“Why? Because my father is there?”

Jake shook his head. “Because we will discuss our marriage.”

After hearing that word for the umpteenth time today, she felt herself immune to it. But if it was in her father’s best wishes that she should marry Jake, then she decided she had to. Even if it meant releasing Hart. In such a short while, he seemed to have found somebody better.

She knew when she saw him with that girl at the restaurant. Maybe she was seeing things, or it was purely her assumption, but she didn’t have that space for him anymore. Her father’s demise had taken too much space in her heart, as well as the feelings for Jake that she sought to keep hidden.

“Jake, is marriage the best option for us now?”

He didn’t waste a minute of his time before answering, “Yes.” He didn’t need to explain and make himself sound repetitive. In the end, it was because of her father's wish that she agreed to marry him.

“If that’s what my father wants most, I’ll be glad to do as he wishes.”

It was disappointing. He thought their attraction was so strong that she would willingly do it of her own accord, but he was wrong.

“Myra, you once told me you had feelings for me. Because of one mistake, you threw away all your feelings for me?” He asked suddenly, gazing deeply into her soft eyes. She opened her mouth to respond, but she couldn’t find any words.

Jake crashed his lips against Myra’s furiously. He didn’t like how she wasn’t answering, so he took it upon him to find his answers through her reactions.

Months ago, she thought Hart was the answer, but she ended up way more confused. It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. She was only here for a dinner meal. But she got so carried away with kissing him back that everything just didn’t matter anymore. His fingers glided around her, tugging down the zip at the back of her dress and guiding the cloth off her shoulders.

But the expected didn’t happen after all. He just tucked her deeper under the sheets and continued kissing her mercilessly. If she was to be his wife, waiting a few days or weeks more shouldn’t matter.

Eventually, he took his lips off hers.

“We should get changed for dinner,” Jake whispered, nibbling sensitively on her earlobe. Her face flushed from how she was straddling him earlier as she fell on her back, her limp body sinking into the sheets.

That was one hell of a kiss. She savoured how his fingers moved freely across her bare body to caress it and create massive electric-like sensations in her body, before grasping her to him like she was his possession. He hadn’t taken her, but he made her feel pangs of desire stabbing right through her. She refrained from moaning his name, but she knew he was who she wanted most.

If being married to him was more of a night like this, how was she going to survive it all?