"Neil!" Shiela shouted as she tried to move away from him. She hated herself for sleeping like a lard that she never noticed him coming in.
"I'm sleeping. Don't you dare disturb me," he replied lazily, and Shiela got horrified. She pushed harder, but Ryan pulled her tighter.
"How dare you? I may have consented in coming here, but I never intend to fall into your lies again."
"Stop it! You're so noisy," Ryan answered, then she buried his face in her hair.
"Neil, your girlfriend, is waiting in her room. Why are you here?"
"Where do you want me to sleep? This is my room. You really want me with Jullien?"
"I don't care whoever is with you. It's long over between us!"
"But I miss you. Don't you miss me, too?"
"The day you left me all alone is the day I stopped thinking about you."
"Shiela, I already told you. What power do I have against my parents? We were still young at that time, but I told them about you. I never expected that the last time we went to the USA for a vacation, was the last time I set my foot in the country. I was only allowed to go back three years ago and believed me, I was worried about you."
"Worrying is not a good excuse," she said, and her voice started to crack, "and while you were enjoying in a foreign land, I was living with fear."
"Shiela, where is our son? I called up the doctor, and she said our son was healthy in your womb."
Shiela cried as she heard this. Perhaps, there was truth to what Ryan said. Maybe, he indeed cared; and she knew that his parents were someone whose words were laws to the people surrounding them.
"He was, but my loneliness killed him. I was alone, Neil, and I had no one to talk to. You were not there," she cried harder when she said this, and Ryan held her closer.
"Shie, while a part of me still believes that you cannot afford to kill our child, I can still forgive you. Just tell me the whole truth because if I can prove that my parents maltreated you and did something to the child, I can also kill them."
A scene of that poignant memory eight years ago flashed before her. "Shiela, don't ever tell anyone that we keep you here. Not even Ryan. The day our son will know about this will be the day that your father and your aunt will step into their grave. Do you understand?"
"No parents can kill their blood, Neil."
"So it comes from your own mouth. So, where is the child, Shiela?"
"I lost him."
"My questions are simple. If you lost our child, at least tell me where is his grave so that I can give him the honor of making him a good resting place."
"I left him at the hospital. I didn't know where they placed him."
"What is the name of the hospital because they will have to answer for me."
Ryan's anger and desire to know the truth convinced Shiela that Ryan was sincere, and if only his parents gave him the chance before, he would never turn his back on her and his child. Thinking about his parent's threat, the death of her loved ones if she would betray them, and Ryan's anger to his parents scared her to her core that she didn't know what's right anymore.
She turned to her other side and faced Ryan. Seeing his dark eyes and the sincerity of his expression melted her even more. Her guilt towards all of them confused her and to stop Ryan from pestering about the child's whereabouts, she burrowed her face in his chest.
"I'm sorry, Neil. I'm so scared!"
Ryan hugged her and ran his fingers on top of her head. "Sweetheart, please tell me what scares you. Let's talk about it."
"I want to live, Neil. I want all of us to go on living."
"And who said you're going to die?"
"Thinking about the loss of our child will kill me."
Ryan sighed and conceded. He needed a longer time to find out the truth. He lifted her face up and held her nape, and without asking her permission, he bent his head down and claimed her lips. Shiela felt her heart hammering against her chest. This was wrong, and she shouldn't allow herself to get carried away. She still remembered his parent's conditions in setting her free, and that was to promise them that she would stay away from him if ever their paths would cross again.
"Neil, this is wrong," she said as she pushed him away.
"What's wrong with this? We had been doing this for a long time."
"But your girlfriend is out there..." Shiela couldn't think of something else to push him away.
"Quiet," he pushed Shiela back to the bed with a little force and began kissing her again.
Shiela melted in his kisses again, and before she knew it, Ryan had already pulled out the tie of her sleeping robe. Her mind wanted to push him away, but her heart and her body received his touch eagerly. When Ryan went to the extent of sliding her underwear off its place, she realized she lost her guard once again.
"Ryan, no!" she clenched her legs, but her desire held her powerless when he began nibbling the insides of her thighs until his mouth claimed the last part that held her feminine dignity.
As he began thrusting deep inside her, he bent down and whispered. "Would you believe me if I say that I have loved no one else but you? And may I ask you, Shie, was there anyone after me?"
Torn between the pleasure of the moment and the sweetness of his revelation, she told him the innermost longings of her heart. "There was only you."
"Was?" he taunted further while his deep and low thrusts drove her mad with pleasure and desire.
"I still love you, Niel, with all my life," she said while panting, her fingers burrowing in his back.