Chapter 17

MELISSA QUIZON

Thursday came quickly. This was my first day at my new responsibility. Reid still didn't know about my new job. I didn't want to lie, but it was better to keep it a secret from my son. He might think of asking about Wright, and I had nothing to answer him. Eugene knew about my new job. If I needed him, he would come right away.

"I'll pick you up later. Wait for Mommy," I said softly to Reid as I sent him to school.

"Yes." He nodded and kissed me on the cheek before entering the gate of his school.

He stopped walking and faced me again. He waved, and I waved too before he disappeared from my eyesight. I hailed a taxi to go to Wright's address. I had prepared myself for our confrontation. I shouldn't get over how I felt, the feeling of hatred.

Yes, I still loved him. But I couldn't be with him anymore. I loved my son more now. My world revolved around him.

My mind was interrupted when the taxi stopped in front of a big house blocked by huge gates. I handed my fee to the driver before getting off the taxi. I swallowed several times before ringing the doorbell.

My grip tightened on the strap of the bag that hung over my shoulder when an assistant came out.

"Who are you?" she asked politely.

I was about to speak when the door of the house opened, and Wright came out. He was wearing a white V-neck shirt and just khaki shorts.

"Flora... I'll take it from here." He glanced at me and immediately returned his gaze to the maid. "Thank you."

Flora turned around and went inside. I was devastated as Wright approached the gate.

Those eyes held me in such a trance, I felt dizzy. My body became alert like it had been called by its owner. My senses were heightened, and my entire body prickled. Even from a distance, I knew his eyes were unique. He was tall and broad, but even with his grey cashmere sweater, his muscles were evident.

He came to the gate and opened it for me. "Come in."

"Thank you," I said in a cold voice and stepped through the gate. I walked to the door of his house but was stopped by the feeling of his hand sliding around my waist.

I looked at him sharply and removed his arm that was supporting me. "I don't need your assistance, Mister Agoncillo. I can perfectly walk without your hand supporting my back."

He bit his lower lip. He stared at me. With the extreme intensity of his stare, I was the first to avert my eyes. I went ahead of him. I didn't want to be rude. Especially to my employer. But he was different. He was pushing all my buttons. I wanted to show that I was no longer affected by him.

"Uncle! What took you so long?" I turned to Bobbie. She ran closer to us. When she saw me, she immediately stopped! Her hug tightened on the teddy bear she was carrying.

I gave her a sweet smile. "Hi, Bobbie. Remember me?"

I saw the hesitation on her face. She nodded softly and hid behind Wright's thigh. Wright turned to Bobbie and bent his upper body. He picked up the child, and she encircled her arms on his neck.

"Let's go inside." Wright went through the beautiful door first.

As soon as I went inside, the white and blue colors of the walls appeared before me. My shoes created sounds because of the wooden flooring tiles. I looked up and marveled at the glowing chandelier.

What else could I expect from an Agoncillo's house? I didn't know that he had a house built here. I had heard that they had sold all their land here in the Philippines. I saw Wright lower Bobbie onto the bench of the white Grand Piano.

He was whispering something to the child, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. Wright said goodbye to us because one of his investors was still on Skype, so Bobbie and I were left in the nice living room.

I started teaching Bobbie basic piano songs like 'Happy Birthday,' 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,' and 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat.' I was starting to wonder what was going on because it seemed like Bobbie was learning so fast, but maybe being a musician was inherent in her blood.

"Can I play a song?" she asked timidly.

I nodded. "Yes, s-sure."

She lowered the teddy bear and positioned her fingers on the piano keys. All my hair stood on end when she began playing one of Beethoven's songs.

"Bobbie..." Bobbie stopped when she heard that hard voice.

We both turned to face Wright. He held a tray containing cookies and juice. In my peripheral vision, I saw Bobbie hugging her teddy bear.

"I'm sorry, Uncle." I looked at Bobbie. She crouched down as she hugged the teddy bear tightly.

I swallowed. From the looks of the two of them, it looked like something had happened that they didn't like. I no longer restrained myself from asking questions. "You can play the piano, Bobbie?"

She nodded. "I can play instruments like guitar, violin, and drums."

"Is that why you didn't want to go to school? Because you already knew everything we taught to you?" I hoped my suspicion that Wright manipulated me was incorrect.

She shook her head. "I wanted to help my uncle."

"What kind of help?" In my peripheral vision, I saw Wright set the tray down on the table.

"I won't tell. We pinky-promised."

I knelt in front of her and smiled. "You know, I can also help you with your problem. Tell me."

"I'm sorry. I won't."

"Bobbie..." Wright approached us. I moved away a bit because our shoulders hit when he knelt. He caressed Bobbie's cheek. "Go to your room. Teacher Melissa and I will just talk. Okay?"

Bobbie nodded and got off the chair. My gaze followed her as she ran up the grand stairs. I also stood up and faced that manipulative jerk.

Wright cleared his throat. His eyes were troubled, and he could not look at me directly. I was starting to get bored. "Let's… let's go to the patio."

I followed him. My hands were clasped until we reached the patio. I sat in front of the mahogany table at the edge of the man-made waterfall. As relaxing as that scene was, I still couldn't enjoy it because Wright was in front of me.

I folded my arms and looked at him sharply. "This was your plan, no?"

"Yes."

"This is not looking well for you, Wright." I could not control myself. I was living in a rage right now.

He gasped. "This was the only way I knew to..."

"How many times do I have to say, 'I don't want to'?"

"I'm still entitled to see my child, Melissa."

Damn you! "You lost your right when you said that I have to abort him!"

"I-I had a reason..." His voice trembled, and his eyes started to redden.

"Whatever your reason was, child abortion is not the solution!" I raised my voice.

Why did he insist on claiming my son, even if he was the one to threw us away?! I knew garbage could be recycled or reused, but we were not like that. He had thrown us away; he could no longer pick us up and take us back.

"I don't care about your reasons. Keep them to yourself. I don't need to hear them."

He approached me, but I backed away immediately. "No...You need to hear them."

"I do not want to," I said firmly and turned away.

"Wait a minute…Mel..." I felt like I was burned when he touched my arm. I struggled out of his grasp. He went in front of me to block my path. The next thing that happened, I didn't expect to happen...

He knelt in front of me and hugged his arms around my waist.

"Shit. What are you doing?!" I shouted. I tried to remove his arms from my waist.

"Please, Melissa. I've changed. I'll make it right." Tears ran down from his eyes.

If I were just Melissa back then, I probably would have forgiven Wright. But now, it was too late for that. I had become more stable, and I had covered my heart with ice.

"I'm sorry for everything. Forgive me. Have mercy—"

"Mercy?" I laughed heartily, even though there was a blockage in my throat. "There's no mercy left in my heart for you, Wright. Honestly speaking, you have no room in my heart. I despise you! Let me go!"

"Melissa, my family—we were struggling...I couldn't do anything..." His shoulder shook, but I still tried to remove his arms from me. "I'm begging you. Listen to me...I have my reasons..."

I pushed him away, but his grip on me tightened even more. "Let me go! Wright!"

"I don't…I don't want to lose you again. I cannot take it anymore."

"Urgh! What the heck?! Let me go!" I was about to strike him, but cold water was suddenly poured on my body.

"You're hurting my uncle! You're a bad person!"

I lowered my hand and looked into Bobbie's glowing eyes. She held a glass that previously contained the juice.

"Bobbie!" Wright stood up and immediately approached Bobbie. He took the glass from the child's hands and wiped the tears from his cheek before facing Bobbie. "Why did you do that?"

"Why are you like that? You are no different from my father! You are all hurting and making my loved ones cry," she said earnestly to me before running into the house. I was stunned to see the pain in his eyes.

"Bobbie!" Wright shouted, but Bobbie didn't seem to hear him. Wright's gaze shifted to me. He slowly approached me, so my gaze went to him. "I-I'm sorry—jeez! Your blouse!"

I sighed when I saw the look of my blouse. It had gown wet, and my black bra showed through the white fabric. My arms covered my chest.

"I-I'll get you a T-shirt." He grew panicked.

"No, there's no need. I'm just going home," I said coldly. I passed him, but he grabbed my arm.

"No. I won't let your travel looking like that. Come with me. I'll find you a change of clothes," he said firmly as if he hadn't been begging me minutes ago.

I didn't say anything. I let him pull me inside the house. I gasped as I remembered the obvious pain in Bobbie's eyes. Was that what Reid's expression would look like when he found out I had lied to him? Would I be able to explain to him if the opportunity came?

I was left in the middle of the living room and waited for Wright to come down. I didn't want to go inside his room, so I just waited for him here.

I saw Wright coming down the stairs, and he handed the white dress. "Just get dressed in the bathroom upstairs. Just turn left, and you'll see a door."

I took a deep breath and took the dress from his hand. I didn't bother to say thank you because it was his fault this happened to me. If he hadn't manipulated me, I wouldn't have been covered in juice, and Bobbie wouldn't have made an impression on me.

I climbed the stairs and turned left. I first opened the blue door. My eyes almost popped out when I saw what was written there. My feet moved unconsciously, and I went inside.

Crib.

Unisex wall decor.

Toddler bedding.

Highchair. Robots. Dolls. Milk bottles. Blue and pink stroller. Clothes and bedsheets. And lots of baby stuff.

"What—"

"You opened the wrong door."

I turned to see the person who owned that voice. Wright was standing in the hallway, and his gaze penetrated my body. My heart pounded as he began to walk closer to me.

He passed me and went inside the room; his hand touched the crib. He rotated the toy attached to it, and it started creating a lullaby song.

"This room is my stress reliever." He sighed before looking around the room until his eyes landed on me. He smiled sadly. "I designed this room myself. Even the toys, bedsheets, this crib, everything...I chose them all by myself. I didn't know if our child was going to be a girl or a boy, so I divided the room." He caressed the crib. "It's his room. It's our son's room."

"Why did you do this? All of this?" I was thankful that I didn't stutter. "You don't like my son, do you? You turned your back on us."

He swallowed a few times and sighed, then faced me.

"Melissa...I used you. I used you to bring my first love back. To make her jealous. To make her crawl back to me." My jaw hardened because of what he said. And especially when he mentioned the name of the person who ruined my son's future. "Claire."

I looked at him coldly. I couldn't even listen to what he had to say. "I'm leaving."

I was about to go out of the room when he walked fast and closed the door in front of me. Wright turned and raised his arms on either side of me. I didn't flinch at the intensity of his stare. I resisted him.

"At least hear the whole story before you come to a conclusion."

Okay. I was giving him a chance to explain. It was up to me if I considered it or not. I didn't say I was giving him a chance to have a place in my son's life.

I was tired of being hurt over and over again because of him.

"I went to Cebu, not for a business meeting but because of Claire. I heard that she was no longer together with her boyfriend. Maybe she had already realized that I was the one for her. We talked about you. How...How I could get rid of you. She came home with me to Manila because that was part of the plan, that we had to hurt you so that you wouldn't chase me anymore." He cleared the blockage in his throat. "The day you left, I heard that our company was losing money. Daddy was addicted to gambling. He lost all of our property. The bank came to us every day to say that they would take our houses and land."

My lip almost bled from the pressure of my bite to stop the tears from coming out of my eyes. My hand clenched. The clothes I was holding were almost crumpled due to the pressure of it. Now that the revelations were coming out of his very lips, every pain I felt then was coming back. The nights when I cried, the insults of my schoolmates, the coldness of Grandma's treatment of me. And the most painful part was I remembered the day I begged him to help our child, but he dismissed me. His refusal to take care of my son.

It was all coming back again.

"But you come back even after we were over, and you said you were pregnant and I was the father. I didn't know how to feel. I was confused. Our company was losing money. We had nothing left. Even I had no certainty about the future."

"You wanted to kill us because of that? Was that it? That would solve all your problems?" I boldly said. "Wright, there are a lot of ways. We would not have pursued a luxurious life. We didn't need that. All I wanted was you—to be there for our baby. That was all, but you couldn't. You got scared. You only thought of yourself."

His eyes ached. Abundant tears dripped from his eyes. I pressed my lips tightly together and avoided looking at him. His shoulders shook, and small sobs were coming out of his mouth. He looked like that for a few minutes. His hands were also bent, blocking my side. "I tried...I tried to think that I could give our son a good life. I tried. But, Melissa, how could I do that? I grew up in a wealthy family. I was not the one stretching his body just to have something to eat. One word, and the things I needed would be in front of me. How could I support you if I did not know how to support myself?" His hand wiped his face. But as soon as he removed his hand, tears immediately dripped from his left eye. "What if I didn't succeed? I didn't want to...I didn't want the time to come for our son to blame me because I couldn't care for his needs. Because he could not eat three times a day. Because salt was all I could buy for you. Because we had no shelter but the road and under the bridge. I couldn't see our lives like that."

I couldn't stop my tears. It was like a dam the kept on pouring. "You're a coward, Wright. Do you think only money matters in the world? You are mistaken. You fool." Pain covered his eyes when I said those words. I pushed his chest and stepped back from him. "You left us just for that useless reason? You are a fool!" I added. "You wanted to abort Reid for that lame reason?! What if I did that? I aborted Reid. You would still leave me, wouldn't you? There was nothing left for me. I'm going crazy."

"Melissa..." He sniffed. "When I was in America, I tried several times to find you and go back. But Dad got sick. He had cancer. And Mama didn't want to let me go because Papa would die at any moment. He wanted me by his side if that time came. I couldn't leave. This house—I had it built at that time because I wanted us to live here when I found you."

"And you think it's that easy? That in an instant, we would come with you just because of what you said and because you were bribing us with these fancy things?! ​​"

"All I want is for us to be together," he said softly.

"The day you kicked me out and said you didn't love me, I was devastated. Because of you, Wright. You destroyed me. The pain was overwhelming. I lay myself in front of you, and you did nothing but step on me." My voice broke, and my shoulders shook. I got on my knees in exhaustion. "And here we are again. You want me to give you a chance just because you said that you've changed."

Wright immediately knelt in front of me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I didn't struggle anymore because I could feel his weakness. I pressed my head against his chest. We both sobbed and hugged each other. We were in that position for a few minutes.

"I love you, Melissa," he whispered in my ear. I stopped sobbing when I heard that. He turned me to him, and I saw the sincerity in his eyes. He removed a few strands of my hair from in front of my face. "I realized that when I was in America. When you were not with me anymore, I kept on looking for your warmth. I always wondered if you were okay. If you cried every day because of me. If the wound I had made had healed. I thought about you all the time. I always think of you. Because that's all I can do so that I can be with you. Even in my mind, even in my dreams."

He smiled sadly. I couldn't speak, or more correctly, I didn't know what to say because I didn't know if I still believed in him.

He glued our foreheads together and closed his eyes. His hands caressed my chin. "Believe me, please. Claire is not the one I love. You are. I can't blame you if you don't accept me now. I will prove to you that I love you. I love you and Reid."

That was enough. I'd heard enough.

I pushed him and quickly stood up. He sat on the floor and looked at the space I had been kneeling. I wiped the tears that had dried on my cheeks. "The tables have turned. I used to cry in front of you and beg for you to accept me. Now, you are on your knees, Wright, and like your reaction then, I don't know anything about you. Reid and I have a good life. Don't bother us anymore. We don't need you."

I opened the door and quickly went down the stairs. From there, I heard Wright shout. His voice was tinged with pain and suffering.

I fumbled with my bag that was on top of the grand piano. I just put the T-shirt he gave me on top of my blouse. Just as I was coming out of the gate, a taxi passed by, so I quickly waved at it. I said our home address, and then tears welled up in my eyes.

'I love you, Melissa.'

'I will prove to you that I love you.'

'I always think of you.'