Chapter 119 - The Voice from the Darkness

His voice shocks the beejesus out of her. She squints in the half-darkness. "Miguel?"

Miguel steps into the light, his face drooping with indescribable sadness. "What is it, Claire? Why are you doing this to me?"

Claire gazes at him, steeling her resolve. She feels something, a sense of danger. Sure, this is Miguel Tan, a normally level-headed person. But he seems different now. He seems in so much pain, and she only has an inkling of why it is so. And yet, she can't do anything about it. She can't give in to this show of pain or sadness or whatever this is. Gabriel's love is at stake, and she would never want to compromise that.

"I don't understand, Miguel," she mutters. "I already made it clear so many times. I didn't want to hurt you, but you're doing this. You're the one who's hurting yourself. You know I'm…I'm in love with Gab."

Miguel scoffs. "But you only just met. You can't possibly be so in love with him? Less than four weeks and you're already so in love with the man who initially hired you to pose as his fake fiancée."

"Are you hearing what you're saying?" Claire's voice quakes with emotion. "You've only just met me, too, do you even realize that? And yet, here you are, telling me these things. That's what love is, Migs. It's hard to understand, to fathom. How can you belittle my love for your brother, while ignoring the fact of your own infatuation?"

"Infatuation? You call this infatuation?" There's hurt in Miguel's voice.

She shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe you're behaving like this because of all the women who are chasing you, the table has turned when it comes to me. Perhaps because I'm the only one who couldn't return what you offer."

Miguel steps closer. Claire recoils, expecting the worst.

"You have no idea, Claire, what you're doing to me," he mutters. His face is so close to her face that she could smell his liquor-tinged breath. "You're driving me crazy. How can you not like me? How can you not want what a million other girls are dying to experience? I can make you deliriously happy, Claire. If you let me have you for a single night, just one night, I ȧssure you, you will never ever forget me."

Claire takes a few steps back. "Stop it. Do you even remember who I am? I'm your brother's fiancée—"

"How could I forget the fake fiancée?"

"It's not… It's different now."

"Oh, really?" Miguel scoffs. "Then why are you called Bella at the office? Why the deception? Why all this play-acting? Did you really think it's going to work in the long run?" Miguel's eyes glimmer with resentment. "My brother is just playing. He's just trying to rebound from his heartache. He's just using you, Claire. Wake up. I'm the one who truly loves you."

"Stop it."

"I'm not doing anything. I'm just saying the truth."

Tears peep out of her eyes. "But everything you say is just malicious. How can you do this to your own brother?"

Miguel says nothing; he just keeps gazing at her, his eyes bright with dėsɨrė. He steps closer.

"Don't," Claire says, her voice rising in pitch. "Whatever you're thinking, just don't. And look around you. We're in the lobby of this building. This building owned by your brother. Are you really thinking of doing something that would put your brother's name to shame?"

Miguel stops. He looks at her. A wave of different emotions flits across his face, like he's trying to fight over what he feels.

But then his face darkens. He throws his arm around her, locking her in his embrace.

Claire struggles. In her mind, in that split second, she couldn't decide whether to scream or to fight him. Still, she thinks about Gab, and what this will do to their reputation. It's going to spread like wildfire. She imagines the headline, "Brother of Business Tycoon Figures in Attempted ****." It's going to hurt Gab's reputation, and everything else.

"I just want to feel you," Miguel mutters in her ear, as his hands start groping her. He's a man on fire, delirious with dėsɨrė, and he breathes in her scent, desperately, hungrily, almost like a mad man. He probably knows this is his one and only chance to do this, to feel what his brother takes for granted, to inhabit this insane moment and never leave it.

Fear and anger clutch Claire's throat. She cannot accept this. For some twisted miracle, no one seems to be coming. The elevators are not moving. No one's coming down from the offices in the upper floors. No one's coming in through the lobby. And where's the building's security officer when you need him most? As though the whole world left them to their own devices. Is this planned, orchestrated by Miguel? But why here? Why now? Or maybe this is all merely a sad, unfortunate coincidence.

She closes her eyes, and before he could do anything more, she gives her free knee enough wiggle room, then with all her remaining strength, uses that knee to pummel Miguel in the groin so hard that even Claire recoils from the forces of the impact.

The effect is instantaneous. Suddenly, Miguel loses his grasp of her, and he falls down on his own knees, grasping his groin, his face white as sheet, his eyes wide and bulging in shock and unbelievable pain. He crumples on the floor like a fetus, whimpering in pain.

"I hope I don't see you again, Miguel," Claire mutters, catching her breath. "I thought you're different. How mistaken have I been."

He looks up and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out of it. Only some sound coming from the back of his throat. And Claire doesn't wait for him to recover—she just half-runs from the spot, away from it all, out into the open road, where Dean, her chauffer, awaits, completely unaware of what just happened.