Exclusively Yours - Episode 45
Subtitle; {Please, Love Me}
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Riccardo's POV
Two weeks had passed since Olivia told me about Asia's visit and how disturbéd she looked. So, being the kind of person I am, I went to her house the following morning to ask her what the issue was.
I have known Asia practically my whole life. We grew up together, and she is like a second sister to me. I know everything there is to know about her, so when she told me that she was fine and just needed to see me, I didn't believe her.
Even now, after two weeks have passed, I still don't believe her. Deep down in my heart, I know she's hiding something massive from me, and I also know it will be significant when it finally comes out.
What could be the issue that made her drive all the way from her place to mine just to tell me?
Why did she look so worried that even Olivia, who dislikés her, noticed it?
What is going on?
Does it concern Olivia and me?
After managing to push all those unwelcome thoughts aside for later, I picked up my schedule to skim through it. As I did, I noticed I had a ton of workload that needed to be completed this month.
A tired groan escaped my mouth, followed by an exhausted yawn. Glancing from the file in my hand to the clock on the wall, my eyes widened when I realized it was still morning.
After a minute of self-talk and a little scolding, I delved into work. Drawing, sketching, erasing, and redrawing different buildings as per the clients' orders. When I finished two buildings, I glanced back at the clock to see it was already past two in the afternoon.
Letting the pencil drop on the desk, I stood up to stretch my stressed-out body, only for the intercom to ring halfway through my stretch. Annoyed, I let it ring.
It rang again, and I answered with the remaining annoyance, "What?"
"Jade Rodriguez is here to see you," my secretary said.
Jade here? Why? I thought. If she tries anything, I won't hesitate to confront her.
"What did she say she wants?"
"She didn't say."
I sighed tiredly. "Let her in."
"Alright."
"Get to the point, Jade. What do you want?" I snapped as soon as she entered my office.
That fake, innocent smile she always wore to deceive people spread across her face, making me want to hît a woman for the first time.
"I brought you lunch. I figured you were too busy to eat," Jade said, walking to my desk and dropping a bag on it. "Your wife, Olivia, didn't bother to send you lunch."
Ignoring her last comment, I walked over to her. "What are you doing here, Jade?"
"I have something for you," she beamed, an evil glint in her eyes that made me queasy.
My eyes shifted to the bag she left on my table with evident disgust. "Other than that?"
"Oh, yes," Jade chimed happily. "Do you want to know what it is?"
I held back the urge to thrów her out the windów and said. "Please, do tell."
"You don't need to add 'please' to it, Rick. I was going to tell you anyway, even if you didn't want to know," she said with another weird smile. "Do you remember fourteen-year-old Riccardo?"
My brows furrowed at her out-of-the-blue question, and as much as I wanted to say yes, I couldn't because it was like a blank year in my life. One minute, I was thirteen, and the next, fifteen with no memory of the previous age. Only my family knows about what happened to me, so how did it get to her?
"No?" I replied, quite anxious to know what happened to me because my parents blatantly refused to tell me when I asked after I woke up in the hospital.
"Should I tell you?" Jade taunted, seeing my eagerness to know what she knows. When she saw a frown settle on my face, she stopped smiling and said, "You had a serious accidént."
An accidént?
Well, that makes sense since I woke up all bandaged in the hospital and was unable to walk for a couple of weeks.
What doesn't make sense, however, is why my parents were adamantly refusing to tell me what happened to me.
"Don't stress your brain. It will h+rt," she said as if she already knew about the migraine settling in my head.
I winced at the sudden pàin in my head, tugging hard on my head to clear the fog forming in my head.
"Rick, are you okay?" If I didn't know her enough, I would think she actually cares with the way her voice sounded. "Sit down for a bit."
I jerked her hands away from me as if they burnt my body, and I swear, I saw a pinch of hurt in her eyes. "Don't touch me. What were you saying?"
Jade stood up straighter than before with a new resolve swirling in her eyes that I didn't want to look at anymore. "You were driving at night along the St Peter bridge when you hit a couple, and the car you were in went diving down in the water underneath. You survived... barely but killéd two people." Her head tilted to the side with a mock pout on her lips. "Wanna know who they are?"
Oxygen slowly started leaving my lungs as I struggled with great difficulty to breathe. My eyes stained with tears as if I already know what she wanted to say but still couldn't accept it when my head tells me.
"Anastasia Donovan and her husband, Jeremy Donovan. Olivia's parents." The bombshell dropped, and I subconsciously stumbled backward, almost falling on my butt if not for my stamina.
No.
No.
No.
It can't be.
No.
God, please, no.
"That's not true," I said even when my heart and head were telling me otherwise. "You can't just waltz into my office and start spewing garbàge out of your fílthy mouth."
"Really? You think I am lying," Jade chuckled so darkly that for the first time since she entered my life, I was scared of her. "Honey, I did my research."
"What research?" I snapped even angrier than I was earlier when she walked in. The migraine wasn't even helping matters right now with the thumping in my head.
"I must say, your parents did a pretty good job in destróying out of the evidence that pointed to you. Everything was cleared, and Olivia's parents didn't get justice for such a cruél deàth."
I know what she is doing, and it's working. She is trying to make me see myself as a murdérer because that's what I am.
"But because I am Jade Rodriguez, I dug it out, and I have proof."
"Show me," I ordered.
"With pleasure," she beamed another innocent smile, and my stomach curled up again. I kept my eyes on her as she retrieved her phone from the handbag she carried and tapped a few times before showing the screen of the phone to me.
As slow as a freakíng snail, I took the phone from her to watch the video playing on it. My heart raced, thumped, and pounded heavily against my ribcage as air speedily departed from me.
No.
No.
My teary eyes watched as the car I vaguely remember went zooming through the empty bridge in the dark of the night. There were only two cars on the bridge; the one I think I remember and the other white one.
I should have stopped watching at that moment, but I didn't. I waited until the gray car hît the white car so hard it went somersaulting in the air, and it came crashing down with a loud thud. The glass shattering and going everywhere while the gray car fell into the water beneath the bridge with a splash.
I started to feel lightheaded, and my world spun before my eyes as I remembered how Olivia told me how much she despises the person who took her parents away from her. I laughed, surprising myself and Jade.
"That doesn't prove anything," I still doubted.
Maybe she is wrong. I couldn't have been there, right?
I didn't kíll my wife's parents, right?
"If you zoom in, you'll see your handsome face. And the other car too, you'll also see Olivia's parents' faces," Jade replied. "I can't wait to tell her."
No.
No.
Olivia will hàte me. I can take anything else from her, but definitely not hatréd. It will kíll me after slowly destróying me.
I grabbed her forearm so tightly that she whimpered. "No."
"No? Why no?"
"Jade, please, no. Don't do this to me." I am ready to stoop to the level of begging a luñatic if it means Olivia still loves me and looks at me the way she does.
Jade pouted. "What will you do for me?"
With the knowledge that she is about to ask for something disgusting, I went ahead and asked, "What the héck do you want?"
"Just like always, I want you."
"I am married," I said as if it wasn't already a known fact.
"Yes, and?" She snapped, anger evident in her face and most of all, her eyes. "It isn't written in the constitution of the country that a married man can't have fun."
I shook my head. "Jade, I can't chéat on Olivia. And especially not with you."
Jade chuckled and nodded her head. "Then, I'll just tell her. I'm sure she will love to know that the person she loves so much is responsible for the deàth of her beloved parents." She tutted. "Poor Olivia. She will be so heartbroken."
Closing my eyes to at least stop the pounding in my head for even a second, I forced myself to breathe into my lungs. "Stop that."
"Then give me what I want."
"I can't." My voice cracked, a tear dropping from one of my eyes. I hàte myself for being so vulnerable in front of the enémy, but I can't stop the tears. "I really can't."
"Fine," Jade muttered under her breath, and I almost didn't hear it. I looked up to meet her eyes gleaming again with évil intent. "On one condition though..." She drawled.
"What?"
"Make Olivia feel that she is unlovéd by you. If you don't do it, I'll know. I got eyes on both of you." She once again dropped another bómbshell because how on earth am I supposed to fake not loving the person I'd díe for?!
"Don't try to mess with me, Riccardo. You have no idea what I am capable of. I swear to God—if there's one—to absolutely and completely ruín Olivia's life if you don't do as I say." Jade freed herself from my grip and turned to walk to the door. Just when she was about to open it, she spun to face me. "And oh, don't think about it too much. It will only cause you more paín in your head. Don't say I didn't tell you." And she is out like she never came except she did, and her scent is everywhere.
She was right. My head hurt a lot when I forced myself to remember those blurry memories that I seemed to have forgotten.
How... how the héck could I have killéd two people and not known?
Why did the two people have to be Olivia's parents and not someone else?
I plopped myself down on the sofa and made no attempt to stop the tears running freely down my cheeks.
If this gets to Olivia, she will hàte me for life, and I wouldn't be able to do anything to make her love me again.
I saw the hatréd she had for her parents' kíller when she told me about it, and now, that kíller turned out to be me.
How awesome is that?
Fan-f+ckiñg-tastic!
TBC 📖✍️
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