A Wrong Surrogate for the CEO-Chapter 71: There was no turning back
Curtis’ eyes blinked open.
The sun was high, and rays of sunlight streamed into his room through slightly parted curtains.
He yawned slightly as he sat up. He had never woken up this late before.
But there was a first time for everything, and it seemed that his first time had to do with his wife, Lara.
Memories of last night streamed into his mind, and Curtis could not help the smile that spread across his face.
He turned towards his bed to see if Lara was still sleeping. But to his surprise, the bed was empty.
Curtis was the only one on it. And there were no traces of Lara left in the room.
The thought struck him as weird. He had expected her to wake up by his side this morning, but she seemed to have had other plans.
It wasn’t a big deal though. Curtis figured out that she was probably somewhere else in the house.
He got up and prepared for work, with a contented smile on his face.
When Curtis stepped into the living room, he was surprised to see Lazarus waiting.
"Where’s Lara?" he asked.
His bodyguard’s face remained expressionless as he responded.
"I have no idea sir."
Curtis’s brows furrowed into a frown.
"What do you mean you have no idea?" he quipped.
"She left the house very early in the morning. I offered to drive her, but she said she needed some space," he explained.
Lara had told his bodyguard that she needed to be alone?
Was she... running from him?
That could not possibly be true, right?
A small shiver of fear ran down Curtis’s back.
He needed to find her.
Without saying another word to Lazarus, Curtis walked out of the house. He dialed Lara’s contact as he walked towards his car, but she didn’t pick up
Where could she be?
His first thought was to go to the office and see if she was there. But it made no sense. If Lara wanted some space, she definitely would not have gone to work.
But that was all he had. Ever since they got married, Lara’s destination had always been from work to home.
Nothing changed. It was a never ending cycle, and Lara had broken the circle by running to somewhere he had no idea about.
The fear at the base of his spine started to grow higher.
He had no idea where his wife was, but he was going to find her.
At all costs.
**
Lara stared at the waves with tears in her eyes. It was so beautiful. She felt a sense of calm, sitting on the beach floor and watching the water.
She had seen the sunrise too, and the way the colour of the rising sun reflected on the beach had taken her breath away.
Nature was beautiful, but it wasn’t enough to make Lara cry.
The tears in her eyes were ones of...regret.
She shouldn’t have slept with Curtis.
The sex was great, and Lara knew that no man would ever be able to make her explode with pleasure like that.
But the moment she opened her eyes and found herself sleeping in his arms, the moment she saw how peaceful, how utterly beautiful he was as he slept, that was when she knew.
That she had made a mistake.
It didn’t matter that she had told him that it would be just sex. That it won’t hurt his feelings.
It didn’t matter that even after waking up next to him, no matter how hard she tried, her heart wasn’t still fluttering for him.
The water rose and ebbed, and Lara’s thought flowed with it. She knew that he would be awake now, and probably looking for her.
If Curtis managed to find her, what was she supposed to tell him?
Break his heart even further by telling him that she had no idea what she was supposed to do after waking up next to him?
That she had run like a coward rather than staying and facing whatever awkward morning they were bound to have?
She sighed, and her thoughts scattered like the wind. There was no point in overthinking everything.
What had happened had happened. The least she could do was face it.
Lara stood up and walked back to her car. Her cell phone was inside, and the moment she picked it up, she knew she was in trouble.
Curtis had called her a hundred and sixty seven times. And the text messages he had sent were almost double of that number.
Her heart fell into the abyss that was her stomach.
He must be so worried sick about her. As if he knew she had seen the texts and missed calls, her phone rang again.
Lara took a deep breath before she picked up.
"What the hell, Lara?" was the first word that came out of his mouth.
"I am so sorry," she responded.
"Do you hate me that much? Is that it? You offer your body to me, wake up the next morning and run away because I disgust you?"
His words were filled with so much anger and pain that it broke Lara’s heart.
"No. No... Curtis no. I...I am sorry. I don’t hate you. I just..." she stammered, but no reasonable sentence came out of her mouth.
"You know what? Forget it. I don’t want to hear whatever you have to say. Last night was a mistake, and thank you so much for rubbing that fact in my face by running away."
"Curtis..." she tried to speak, but he interrupted her.
"Text me the location of where you are. Lazarus will be there to pick you up. Don’t move an inch, Lara," he ordered and hung up.
Helpless, Lara sent the location of the beach she was at. She tried to call him back, but he didn’t pick her calls.
So she stayed and waited for Lazarus to pick her up, and for some reason, Lara suddenly wished that she hadn’t left the house that morning.
But it was too late.
There was no turning back.
