Chapter 366 – Beginning with a Daring Encounter

“I get that. But what is she doing?” Sonia asked with concern, and this time Benne paused what he was doing and looked at her.

“She is probably on the phone with Lucas. We agreed that since we will be telling our parents about Anita after dinner, she should talk to Lucas about Rachel first,” Benne said, guessing that Celsie had probably already told Sonia about Rachel’s role in everything.

“Oh, fuck! I’m going upstairs to stay with her,” Sonia said and quickly walked away.

“Her loyalty to Celsie is admirable,” Jade said, glad that at least Celsie would have the support of Sonia when she had to break the news to her brother.

“They’re her family,” Bryan murmured. He wasn’t looking forward to the moment they would have to break the news to their parents either. He would really hate to see Celsie’s cheerful parents sad.

“Let’s get to work, guys,” Jade clapped her hands to get the attention of both her brothers, who looked like they would rather be upstairs with Celsie and Sonia than down there preparing for their father’s party.

**********

The line was silent for a moment after Celsie’s statement as Lucas tried to process the piece of information he had just received.

He knew Rachel’s second cousin, Anita Miller. Since Anita was the closest in age to Rachel in the family, they were more like sisters, but Rachel often complained about how her mother always asked her to be more like her cousin Anita who was more composed and organized than she was.

As a matter of fact, he remembered having met her once over the years when she visited Rachel’s home, and he also remembered saying hi to her over the phone a couple of times when she spoke with Rachel over the phone in his presence. She was even supposed to be Rachel’s maid of honor.

He understood the relationship between Rachel and Anita, but what he could not understand was the connection between Anita and Celsie’s scandal.

Although he was angry with Rachel and wanted nothing more to do with her, he believed she must have told Anita about it during a harmless conversation without knowing that Anita had other intentions. He doubted that Rachel could have asked Anita to do something like that. Rachel was clingy and annoyingly possessive, but he believed he knew her well enough to know what she was capable of and not. He didn’t think that she would intentionally do something like that to hurt either Celsie or him. Especially not when it was that close to their wedding.

“Luc?” Celsie called softly, wanting to know if he was still there. This was the least of the confession, so if he couldn’t take even this one, she might just have to keep the rest of it to herself and risk his anger later.

“I know her. I’ve met her before at Rachel’s place,” Lucas explained.

Celsie cleared her throat nervously, “I see! Anyway, I think Rachel must have talked to her about my… About what happened in the past…”

“I’m sorry to interrupt you, but do you know Anita personally? I mean, have you crossed paths with her to make her want to do something like this to you?” Lucas cut in, wanting to know why Anita could have done that.

As far as he knew, Celsie didn’t know Anita, and he had never really talked to Celsie about her either since they hardly ever spoke about his relationship with Rachel.

“Kind of,” Celsie said as she paced the room.

Hearing this, Lucas felt slightly relieved that he had been right and Anita hadn’t done that just because of his relationship with Rachel. It would have been devastating to know that Celsie suffered such public humiliation because of him.

“You remember that time I called to seek your advice?” She asked and stopped pacing when Sonia pushed open the door gently.

“You mean the time you needed my advice concerning your colleague’s friend and her driver?” Lucas asked, trying to lighten the mood since it was making him too anxious.

If what she wanted to say wasn’t serious, Celsie would probably have laughed. But she was too nervous to be amused, “Yes, that time. Anita was the lady I thought he was in love with,” Celsie said, and Lucas listened patiently as she explained how she had gotten close to Anita, who was Benne’s employee, and how she had gotten to learn that they had both been involved in a relationship without Anita knowing Benne’s true identity. How Anita had ruined the relationship because she thought he wasn’t wealthy, and now she wanted him back.

Lucas thought about it as she spoke. He could remember overhearing Rachel’s discussion with Anita over the phone a few months back about a wealthy guy she had just met and was seeing, and he still remembered how Rachel had laughed heartily some weeks later when she was telling him that the guy Anita was seeing wasn’t as wealthy as he had made Anita believe, and Anita was trying to shake him off politely. So that guy was Benne? Was the world really so small that they all had to cross paths this way?

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing that I ended things with Rachel. It seems like everyone in that family is nuts,” Lucas said, thinking that was all.

“Yeah. But… There is more,” Celsie said in a very small voice. Her hand was beginning to tremble, so Sonia led her to sit on one of the sofas in the room, and Sonia placed an arm around Celsie for comfort.

“What?” Lucas asked cautiously now, hoping that it had nothing to do with Rachel’s direct involvement in this.

Although she appreciated Sonia’s presence, Celsie was too nervous to sit down, so she stood up and paced around the room as she tried to organize her words, “In the course of trying to find evidence against Anita, Benne hired someone to keep an eye on her, and the person kind of planted a device in her office, so that was how we overheard…” She paused to take in a deep breath.

“Oh, God! I’m sorry, Luc. I’m really sorry about this. I’d rather not tell you, but I know that it is important and I have to tell you. I just hope you won’t think…”

“Slow down, Celsie. You are making me anxious. Take a deep breath and tell me what is wrong, please,” Lucas interrupted. He knew that the only time Celsie talked so much and so fast at the same time was when she was nervous about something, and from the quavering sound of her voice, he could tell that she was struggling not to cry.

“We think Rachel helped Jamie…”

Lucas’ heart stopped and almost doubled over when he felt a sharp pain in his heart the moment he heard Rachel’s name in the same sentence as Jamie’s. He didn’t need her to complete the sentence to know what it meant.

“Rachel knew Jamie?” Lucas asked in a strangled voice, unable to get the words out.

Tears gathered in Celsie’s voice when she heard the undeniable pain in Lucas’ voice, “I don’t know. We are not sure. Maybe it’s nothing…”

“Don’t do that, Celsie. Please don’t,” Lucas pleaded as the first tear dropped from his eyes, knowing that Celsie was trying to make it sound like nothing so that he wouldn’t feel hurt even though he knew that she was broken too.

“I’m sorry, Luc…” Celsie’s voice hitched, and she broke into a sob. She felt sorry for both herself and her brother, who had been victims of both Jamie’s and Rachel’s unhealthy affection.

Immediately Sonia took the phone from her, “Luc,” Sonia called softly.

“Sony, what is she saying? Why is she crying? Is it true? Did Rachel really know Jamie?” Lucas asked in a shaky voice as confused tears ran down his cheek while he clutched the left part of his chest, which felt like it was going to explode.

“I’m sorry, Luc. We don’t know for sure how she could have helped Jamie. But from Anita’s end of their phone conversation, it sounded like Rachel assisted Jamie,” Sonia explained, and tears rolled down her cheeks as she watched Celsie, who was now sitting on the couch with both legs drawn up, and her face buried in her hands as she cried.

She could also hear Lucas’ labored breath as he struggled to speak, “I… I can’t talk now…” Lucas was gasping for breath as he hung up the call and let the phone fall off his hand which was trembling as he shook his head in denial, and shut his eyes tightly.

Rachel? The lady he had been in love with for over ten years? Someone he would have sworn with his life was incapable of hurting a fly? She had helped Jamie abduct his sister and had been beside him all these years? No. Rachel loved him. She would never do something as unforgivable as that to him. She wouldn’t.

The more he tried to convince himself that all of this was a misunderstanding, the more his brain dug up some details of that time that he had ignored.

He remembered Rachel had kept pressing him to see if he knew who Celsie’s prom date was. He had tried to find out from Celsie, but she had said it was a secret, and he had told Rachel so.

He remembered how Rachel had kept insisting that they leave without Celsie that prom night since she said she was waiting for her prom date.

Rachel had been aware that their parents were going out for their anniversary dinner date, so it was possible she had been the one who passed that piece of information to Jamie since even Sonia had not been aware of the dinner date.

He remembered how she had been busy on her phone at some point, and whenever he started looking around for Celsie at the party, she would insist that Celsie was probably busy having fun somewhere, so he should not worry about Celsie and give her his attention instead.

He remembered how she had made sure that his glass was never empty all through the night.

“Oh, God! Please, no! No!” Lucas cried as he raised his hand to his head, wanting to block out these thoughts. His whole body was trembling as different emotions choked him.

He wouldn’t have been as broken as this had he been told that Rachel cheated on him. He could even forgive her for that. But something like this? No. He couldn’t. He didn’t want it to be true. He didn’t want it to be true that Celsie had gone through all of that simply because he had been in love with someone like Rachel and had trusted her like a fool.

His head was aching. His heart was hurting. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. Not when he was struggling to breathe. Maybe it was better this way. He deserved to die for loving and trusting a person like Rachel. If only he hadn’t been too trusting, none of that would have happened to Celsie.

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