Love Undefeated (Unexpected #5) (33 page)

Life was absolutely fantastic.

From the recent financial reports, my dad’s company was thriving and I planned to keep it that way.

My friends were healthy and doing their thing.

And my girlfriend loved me.

I’m changing her status to engaged soon. Quite soon.

I trusted Nales. I didn’t trust guys who checked her out, saw that there was no ring on her finger, and thought she was fair game.

Devon and I were laughing buddies again. Sure, I hated the prick for hitting on her and wanting to snatch Nales from under me. In hindsight, I couldn’t blame him. I’d have done the same thing if I liked the girl. He was just a guy who got caught in the web of my woman’s spell.

I was catching up on the status report that Babacan’s assistant e-mailed yesterday. I didn’t have the chance to skim it until now, when I was on a little under six hour flight to New York.

My dad’s long-time business partner, Paul Everleigh, had wanted to meet in person about a business opportunity with his software design company. He was a man who conducted his business in an old-fashioned way, face-to-face meetings rather than online. I could argue that he could see my face during the meeting and he owned a tech company, but I respected his wishes. It was what he was comfortable with so Claire booked my flight two days ago for the meeting in Manhattan. I was only staying for a night then I was flying back in time for a lacrosse game against Canada.

I loved playing the game, but the next few games were back-to-back, so I wasn’t sure if I could get away from my scheduled meetings that were pivotal to the company’s growth.

“Sir, would you like some wine?” the flight attendant, who reminded me of my Aunt Clarice with the way she piled her hair up high and placed a neat bow on top, asked.

I politely shook my head. “No thank you.”

She smiled and asked the passenger in front of me if he needed anything.

I stretched my legs and reached for my phone. I took a picture of my sad face and sent it to Nales. I missed her already. I always missed her.

She was in a meeting so she wouldn’t be able to respond until later, but I wanted her to know that I was thinking of her.

I wasn’t a mushy-mushy, needy kind of guy. I seldom texted her with pathetic emojis, but lately I’d been feeling off, and if I was being real to myself, I was scared.

Scared that something would burst our personal bubble of happiness.

Scared that somewhere out of the blue, unexpected trouble would come and create chaos.

I shrugged my shoulders and focused on the report on my computer.

My phone buzzed, Nales probably just got out of the meeting, and I smiled as I checked the screen.

My smile came to a stop, my heart dropped a hundred thousand feet, and dread filled my nerves.

It was a text from my dad. My dad who rarely used his phone to call. He’d only gotten used to texting a few months ago. I remembered scheduling a two-hour meeting with him to teach him how to type on the smartphone I’d bought and show him how it worked. He was a fast learner, but like his friend, Paul, he wasn’t keen on changing his ways. I’d told him that texting got the information out there faster than calling because most of the time, the calls would’t reach my phone, but the text messages would.

I wanted the plane to turn around.

I flagged the flight attendant.

“How long do we have before we land?” My voice was shaky, my nerves were on a live wire, fraying, electrifying, buzzing with adrenaline.

“We have an hour before we land at JFK, sir,” she stated, her brows furrowing as she took a look at me. “Is everything okay?”

I barely looked at her to say thanks. My hands were already typing as fast as I could, willing the plane ride to go faster, wishing that I had a teleport machine so I could go back five hours earlier and not board the plane.

“Claire.” My assistant answered on the first ring.

“Yes, sir?” Her voice was calm, she must not have known. Yet.

“Call Paul and cancel the meeting.”

“You’re on your way to New York, sir,” she stated, she was probably thinking this was one of my last-minute ideas. She’s had to deal with a lot of those so I really couldn’t blame her.

“I also need you to book me the next flight out. As soon as I land in New York, I need to go back to San Francisco.” My words came out rapidly. I was trying to get them out before my brain shut down and my heart kicked into flight mode.

“Sir?”

“Do it as fast as you can, Claire. I need to get back.”

“Okay,” she said, I could detect a slight tremor in her voice.

“My mom’s in the hospital,” I whispered, the gravity of the situation dawning on me, stealing the remaining bits of energy I had in me. My mom, the first woman who showed me what love was like, how unconditional love was in the purest form, was three thousand miles away.

I could only imagine what my dad was going through.

My initial reaction was to internalize everything. Force myself to deal with it alone. When my dad had the aneurysm, I didn’t even tell Nalee until after everything fell apart. I learned to sort the shit out in my head and not let anyone know. It’s how I dealt with bad news.

I thought of how my mom would deal with the emergency on hand. She would take charge, no doubt. But she would also share her feelings. I was thirteen when I’d broken my lacrosse sticks, upset that I didn’t make the team, and sulked in my room for the whole day. My mom had taken a look at me and said, “Tell me what’s wrong, son.” I’d remained mute and she just sat with me on top of my X-Men bed sheets and stayed until I spilled the beans.

When I was finished telling her what I was miserable about, she’d said, “You’re not meant to carry the burden alone, my child. One day you’ll find out that it’s always better to share it with someone else so the load is not too heavy for you to carry.”

I didn’t think I learned my lesson then.

Not when I’d kept all the bad news from Nalee, thinking that she couldn’t handle it. When in fact, I’d just pushed her away and let her deal with a laundry-full of burden by herself.

I’m just learning my lesson
now
.

I texted Nalee, “Dad called 911. Mom’s at Stanford. Be there in a couple of hours. Claire’s booking my return flight asap.”

The good, the bad, everything in between.

I was sharing it with Nales.

Because when the woman who had been the center of my universe since birth was laying in a hospital bed somewhere, I would need the woman I loved with all that I was, beside me.

“She has Parkinson’s,” Korbel, Xavier’s dad, said as he hung his head, his shoulders slumped in the wooden hospital chair.

I reached out and held his hand.

He took my offering and I felt shaky, wobbly fingers.

“Cyrene’s my…she’s my –” he heaved and the shaking reached his voice, “everything.”

I’d only met Xavier’s mother three times. The first time was during our college grad party, the second and third were during family dinners. She was one sweet lady, encouraging me to drink three glasses of wine because she’d said, “Life’s too messy. Wine puts everything into perspective.”

“I’m sorry –” His voice cracked. “I don’t mean to burden you. I know you have a lot of things going on from what my son tells us. I don’t want to take up your time.”

“I’m here for you and your family, Korbel,” I said, the sight of him looking lost and vulnerable were crumbling the bits of doubt that I shouldn’t be here and had taken root the minute I stepped into Stanford ICU where Xavier’s mom was housed.

“My son doesn’t know,” he said softly. “We didn’t tell him. My wife wanted to wait until we’d gotten another opinion from a neurologist at Johns Hopkins. My friend, Serg, referred us to him. His mother was diagnosed early in her sixties, so my wife and I thought we’d wait to get more insight.”

He let go of my hand and continued, “Xavier’s shouldering a lot of the responsibilities that I should be doing. It’s been difficult for me to stand by on the sidelines when my son’s there, trying to rein in our company. I know it’s not what he loves, but he does it because he loves us.”

My eyes started to water. Xavier’s dad was Xavier’s hero, the man he wanted to grow up to become.

I’m not sure how Xavier would handle the news about his mom. Especially after what had happened with his dad. It’s been tough for my boyfriend to handle everything on his own.

So many assumptions could and were made.

Xavier’s family was rich, so it wasn’t really a hardship for the son to take over the family business.

“It’s not only us that rely on him to make it work. Our company has hundreds of employees. Thousands if you count our international holdings. With a single decision, my son puts each of the employees’ livelihood in his hands,” he admitted, the weight of his words bearing down on each breath he took.

I’d often thought that Xavier’s dad looked younger than his age.

Now, sitting by my side, with the gravity of what his wife was going through and the pressures that he thought he was putting on his son, he looked like his true age times ten.

I watched the nurse talk to the woman in front of us. A lady who looked to be about in her thirties with chocolate brown eyes and a harangued expression. She was nodding to the nurse in blue scrubs and then they both left the room.

I’d been here for over an hour.

Xavier’s dad for over four hours.

The doctors were doing more tests on Cyrene, trying to determine if her head had sustained injuries.

Cyrene had been in the shower when she’d slipped and fell.

From what Xavier’s dad told me, she’d had issues with her coordination lately and it may not have been the wisest decision to have left her alone.

Xavier’s father’s dark brown eyes reflected the pain he was going through. “It’s been a tough time for our family. My son – he’s a good man. He handles things on his own. I’m not sure what happened between you and him, when you began not showing up for the dinners my wife invited you to. If—”

“We’re okay. We’re in a good place now,” I supplied for him. The last thing I wanted was for Xavier’s dad to blame himself for what transpired between Xavier and I. His aneurysm may have catapulted the sequence, but the results were ours and ours alone.

“He’s a good man, Nalee. I hope you understand that,” he said. “Sometimes good men make bad choices.”

I tilted my head. “Is she going to be okay?”

I have no idea what Xavier told his dad about us.

But I didn’t think this was the space for him to be talking about what happened.

Or maybe this was his way of trying to cope with his wife’s accident.

It’s easier to focus on something else that you think you can control rather than face the one thing you have no control of.

His shoulders slumped lower. “We’ll know more in a few minutes.”

Cyrene was unconscious when Xavier’s dad found her in their master bathroom.

On the way to the hospital, Xavier’s dad had given the phone to a paramedic who had texted Xavier upon his dad’s request.

I’d cancelled my next meeting as soon as I’d received Xavier’s text.

His family might not know me very well, but there wasn’t a thread of doubt in my mind that they needed Xavier.