85

Macy woke up with a splitting headache that she almost thought she was having a migraine.
“Ouch!” She held her head as she tried to open her eyes and move.
Richard was done with his research and investigation to the hospital Macy gave birth to and he, in fact, had realized that the hospital was owned by one of his classmates in high school.
Richard was never a social person since he was young and so, he rarely kept acquaintances who didn’t benefit himself with anything and that was the same reason why he didn’t have any friends.
But with a few calls here and there, he had managed to get the number of one Aniston Mowlie who owned the hospital and was its CEO.
He had inherited it from his father and he had done well for himself for it was thriving and he had managed to open other branches in other states.
Richard didn’t care that it was four in the morning and he dialed the number one of his people jad sent him.
“Fuuuck! Why call this early?
Better be quick. I slept late and I am still very sleepy,” the other side said after the call connected and Richard sighed.
If he didn’t need this man’s help…
“Hello Aniston?” Richard greeted in a low deep voice and the other man was quiet trying to locate the voice in his mind but he couldn’t.
He opened his eyes and looked at the number.
It was a new number but it was a local.
“Hello? Who is this?” Aniston finally asked his mind telling him that he wasn’t talking to just any person.
When he picked the call, he thought that it was one of his hospitals’ directors who was calling with another emergency or a financial emergency for one of the hospitals.
“Sorry to wake you up. I know it is early and I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t have to.
This is Richard, Richard Armstrong.
We were classmates in high school.
I don’t know if you remember me?” Fr the first time ever, Richard decided to use his name to get something.
He knew that this would be the quickest way of getting the tapes he needed if the man cooperated.
“Richard Armstrong?
As in the fucking great Richard Armstrong?
Oh, sorry. Excuse my language.
It is just that I am surprised I would get a call from you.
Wow!
How may I help you?” Aniston asked still unbelieving that Richard Armstrong would call him.
“There is a case I am investigating and I need some security footage form your hospital.
Do you think you could help me?” Richard went directly to the agenda.
“Of course. Name the day and the year and I will have my people deliver it to you within the hour.
Wow!
If you don’t mind if I may ask, are you a police officer?” Aniston dared but Richard was in a good mood and so, he answered.
“No. it is for a personal matter.
I need the tapes for the whole year XXXX,” Richard said and if he could see the other man, he was already on his feet as he took a bath robe and wore it and rushed to his study.
“Where do you need them delivered?’ Aniston asked as he took a pen and a writing [ad from his home office’s table.
“I won’t bother you more than I need to. Someone will be there to pick them in thirty minutes,” Richard said and the other man sighed.
Aniston had thought that he would get a chance to meet with Richard.
He, like many other business people in the town, wished to start a partnership with the Armstrongs but he had been turned down several times and he thought that this was the day and that Richard would come to pick up the tapes himself.
“Oh, okay,” Aniston said in disappointment and sighed.
“Aniston, I am in your debt for this.
How about we grab dinner after I take care of the issue at hand?” Richard asked the other man.
He could hear the disappointment in Aniston’s voce and even his man, the one who sent him the number, told him of the various attempts Aniston had made in order to collaborate with the Armstrong Group and they had all been turned down.
Since he had willingly agreed into helping Richard without asking or demanding for anything, Richard thought that it was only good that he returned the hand.
On the other side of the phone, Aniston had jumped with joy and punched the air as he listened to Richard’s offer.
“Okay. I will be waiting for your call,” he said trying to reign his excitement in and Richard agreed with a mm and hang up.
After the call, he called one of his men to go and pick the tapes and that was when he went to Macy’s room.
She was still sleeping even after Mel barged into the room wanting to wake Macy but her father carried her out and explained that her mama was not well and that she needed to let her rest for a while.
“Go and ask Nurse Lin to make mama ginger soup and I will ask you to bring it up when mama wakes up,” Richard had said and Mel had beamed.
“I will make the sweetest ginger chicken soup for mama so that’s he can get better soon,” Mel had said and run downstairs.
“No running down the stairs,” Richard had reminded her.
She apologized but still took two stairs each step down.
When Macy woke up and held her head with a painful expression, Richard had seen it for his gaze was on her.
He had been looking at her thinking of how much he loved her.
He realized that all the time he thought he was in love with Cassandra, he wasn’t.
He was just infatuated with her and he realized later it was because of the fact that Cassy had loved him despite his leg being disabled and his poor condition.
It was gratitude and duty and not love.
He realized that if he had loved her even a quarter of what he felt for Macy, eh would b=never have been able to let her go.
He was able to let her go that easily because it hadn’t been love all along.
He also thought of the fact that Macy was his first and he was hers.
He had never been with a girl before and he was obsessed with work and training and he thus never got any chance to socialize with people and that was why his parents had thought that he was abnormal.
They had even asked him if he was gay and his answer, like always, was he does not know.
And it was true that he did not know.
This was because he had never found anyone to make his heart rush with hot blood be it a female or a male.
That was how his parents had come up with the idea of drugging him to make him sleep with a woman and then force him to marry her.
Fortunately for him, he hadn’t slept with the girl they had set up.
And when he woke up with a strange girl in his bed, he was so angry at himself for falling into their trick that he left even without looking at her.
He was so disgusted with her and himself because he, at first, had thought that his family had succeeded.
He almost killed Asher if he hadn’t gone to hide in the main mansion with his parents for a week.
Richard had gone missing for two whole years as he took missions nonstop and that was how he ended up almost dead and in LA.
He wondered if things would have turned out differently if he had stayed and maybe faced the girl he had slept with.
He wondered whether Macy would have loved him then having in mind that she was only seventeen then.
He didn’t even know how to feel about that.
He had slept with an underage teenager even without knowing.
But he was glad that of all the beds Macy could have ended up in that night, she ended up in his.
“Do you have a headache?” Richard asked as he stood up from the small couch in Macy’s room and walked towards her.
“Macy opened her eyes in surprise when she heard that voice then the memories of the previous night flooded her mind.
She wondered why Richard was in her room.
“Maybe he is here to send me out of his house himself,” she thought then struggled to sit up despite the pain in her head.
“What time is it?” she asked and looked at the wall clock.
It was eleven.
“Wah! I overslept,” she said but Richard wasn’t listening.
He was at the door and opened it then shouted, “MEL! MAMA IS AWAKE!” He said then walked towards her.