Simon's POV

This has gone on for long enough! I thought as I stormed out of Nicola's house late that night.

I can't bear to see Nicola so down and now desperate! No way! That Hudson better come down here right now and claim his girl, or I will go to him and drag him here. And that won't be pretty!

I stopped in front of my car, placing my hands on it, waiting until I calmed down.

I remember six years ago, when she had come back to college after a trip, she had looked equally broken and completely lost. Her tears wouldn't stop. I was the one who brought her here and helped her start a new life and forget about that guy.

But now he is back in her life, and he has again broken her heart. I swear to God! I said as I punched my car.

I know that Danny guy is nice and all, but I just can't watch Nicola compromise on her life. She deserves to be with the man she loves. Especially when he, too, loves her.

And I do know that douchebag Hudson loves her. He is just stuck. And I can understand and respect why. He had just lost his wife after all and started over so soon while his heart was still heeling from the loss. That's not wise.

But apparently, it's not a broken heart that's keeping him from coming to Nicola. It's guilt of not having mourned enough for the loss of his wife and mother of his children.

Yeah, I know his story. Ryan and I have known each other through business for several years now and ever since these two idiotic love birds came home from there vacation, Ryan and I have been checking on each other's best friends through each other.

Gabriel will not come unless he was given a little push or a little motivation. And it's time to give him that little push, which will make him run to her, I thought as an idea popped in my head, making me grin from ear to ear all of a sudden.

I took my phone out, messaging Ryan for Gabriel's number. In a minute, he replied back with the number and asked what I was up to. I replied, "You will see," and quickly dialed Gabriel's number..

.........

Gabriel's POV

I gulped down the last of my drink for the night and got up from my chair to leave for my room. It's late, and it's time to get some sleep.

I drank two glasses tonight which was much less than my usual and I was able to get up on my feet without too much effort and my legs weren't as wobbly as it usually was after my nightcap, so I was proud of myself. I hope I will be able to get some sleep, though.

I would very much appreciate it if those honey colored eyes would spare me tonight.

I feel exhausted and I have a very important meeting with some Chinese clients tomorrow after which I will be entertaining them until evening.

I needed the sleep. I have been operating on very little of that, these couple of months, and I can't afford any mishaps tomorrow.

I groaned as I reached my room and removed my shirt. My muscles were aching from exhaustion. Maybe a long, warm shower before bed might help.

I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard my phone ring. Who in the world could call this late? I thought as I dried myself and came out of the bathroom, wrapping a towel around my waist.

I checked the caller Id as I picked it up, but it was from an unknown number.

"Hello?"

"Hey douchebag,  Simon Gilliard here," said an arrogant voice from the other end. Mature, I thought with annoyance as I rolled my eyes and went inside my closet to find something to wear.

"Do you know what time it is, Gilliard? Why the hell are you calling me even?" I asked him, not bothering with my manners as well.

"Why else would I call you?" He asked in a duh tone, irritating me further.

"Nicola? What about her?" I asked, pulling on a pair of shorts and walking out of the closet.

Suddenly, I thought of something, making me stop short. "Wait, why are you calling me so late to talk about Nicola? Did something happen to her? Is she ok? " I asked worriedly. I felt my heart rate speed up and my palms getting sweaty as I felt myself panick. And the damned guy was taking too long to answer.

"What do you think?" He finally hissed out, pissing me off.

"Don't fuck with me right now Gilliard! What happened to her!" I burst out, loosing my patience. My mind was going wild right now with worst-case scenarios, and I didn't have time for his games.

"My my, aren't we full of concern today," came his bitter reply. I gritted my teeth, stopping myself from bursting out again. "Don't worry," he continued, making me sag with relief. " She is fine, no thanks to you. She is a tough girl. I just called you to give you some good news."

"What?" I asked him suspiciously as I sat down on my bed, waiting for him to get to the point already so that I could end this call.

"Nicola is getting married!" He announced, making my heart drop and my breath hitch in my throat.

"Yeah, she has been dating this guy for several months, and he called me tonight. He told me he was going to propose to her tomorrow night. He wanted to make it special, so he was asking me about her most favorite places." he continued in a chirpy voice.

I felt a dull pain in my chest as he rattled on about the guy.

Mom had told me about the guy, and I had only assumed that they were dating, but to actually be told that they were and things were this serious.

The pain in my chest had become unbearable by now, making my entire body numb.

"You don't think she would accept, do you?" I asked hopefully.

"Why wouldn't she accept? She started dating with the intention to marry, and things are going well with them." He replied. What the fuck! It was like a blow to my heart. This isn't happening. She wanted to marry him?

"But.. isn't it a bit too soon for marriage?" I asked. "I mean they would barely know each other. Why is she being stupid? Why aren't you telling her it's too soon aren't you supposed to be her best friend. What kind of friend are you if you are not talking some sense into her? Don't you know that she doesn't love the guy? I mean six months ago she told me she loved me. She couldn't have fallen out of love and fallen in love with someone else that soon and that easily! Aren't you the least bit worried for her. How could you just..." I lost my strength to go on as despair took over me. I can't bear the pain. I tried controlling myself but I was loosing the battle as I felt my heart break realising that I was truly loosing her.

"I am worried for her. And I am doing something about it.

I am calling and informing the man whom she actually loves, that she is about to go and make the stupidest decision of her life because he refuses to come and give her the love she deserves.

It's been six months, man. You told her you want her but can't be with her. What do you expect her to do then.

Look, my job was to inform you before it was too late. Now it's up to you. If you don't want her marrying someone else, then come and stop her before it's too late. Or just let her go. Let her marry this guy. Who knows, maybe it won't be as bad as we think. They might actually end up being happy. Anyways, it's up to you, so..." He fell silent and just hung up, leaving me with my haunting thoughts.

She was marrying someone else. I still can't believe it!

I shut my eyes as images started floating around in my brain. It was like my brain wanted to torture me some more. It showed me Nicola, looking up at a dark-haired man as he slipped a ring on her finger and smiled down at her. It showed Nicola being kissed by the guy and touched by him. Images kept flashing around making me feel dizzy.

I imagined her on her wedding day,
looking beautiful in a wedding dress. And suddenly, I saw her smiling, her eyes gazing down lovingly at her swollen stomach as she gently rubbed it.

No! I shouted, as I begged it to stop. I couldn't take it anymore.

I can't bear to see another man touch her. I can't bear to see her being pregnant with another man's child.

How could she do this! I wondered. Is she seriously moving on. Am I seriously losing her forever.

I cried out as I sat up, grabbing the lamp that was on the bedside table and throwing it at the wall. I just can't bear this pain of losing her.

Why? I asked myself. Why do I feel like my hands are chained together. I feel so helpless. But I keep remembering what Sarah wrote in her diary.

How I had only thought of Nicola's fear and neglected to even consider Sarah's pain. I would be doing that again if I ran to Nicola. I am forgetting about Sarah. I can't do that to her again.

I grabbed my hair in my fists as I placed my elbows on my knees, sitting there with my eyes closed.

After some time, I opened my eyes and I saw Sarah's diary next to my feet. I had kept it on the bedside table as a reminder of my duty as her husband.

Now, it was lying by my feet like as if it was calling me.

I slowly reached for it, picking it up. I ran my fingers across its soft pink cover.

I felt this weird inner calm. One that I haven't felt since the last time I saw Nicola.

I know this book held some pretty bitter stuff. It held a part of Sarah that she never revealed to me or her sister. Then why do I feel peace?

Curious, I opened the book quickly, skipping the parts I read and then skimming through the rest until I reached the parts where we got together.

She wrote about how she had avoided telling Nicola and was afraid of how she might react. The way she wrote, it sounded like she had always known Nicola had liked me more than a friend. It seemed like I had been the only one who didn't know.

It continued further to the day Nicola had come home, and disaster struck. Nicola felt betrayed by her sister. Sarah wrote how ashamed she had felt seeing her sister broken.

At that time, Nicola had been pretty closed off. She hadn't let anyone in her life. Sarah and I were the only two people whom she had trusted, but we both hurt her.

She wrote how scared she had been as Nicola just packed up and left. I remember how much Sarah had cried. I had been angry at Nicola for hurting Sarah. It wasn't Sarah's fault that I loved her.

How stupid I had been. I had been obsessed over Sarah so much. Nicola had been only twenty-one at the time, all alone and hurt by the two people she had trusted would never hurt her.

It was sheer luck that Simon had been a decent guy and had taken such good care of her and given her the opportunity to be who she is today. I had just blamed her for her misfortune and left her be.

What the hell kind of person am I, let alone supposed best friend.  No wonder she trusted Simon and had stayed clear of me when she had met me after Sarah's death.

I skimmed through again, reading how proud Sarah was as she saw her sister succeed in life. I felt proud of her, too. I had done some digging of my own too, and I knew just how successful she had become.

There was a gap, and then she started writing after she got pregnant with the twins. She wrote her feelings and her excitement with every step of the pregnancy. But as her writing progressed, she wrote about a distance between her and me, making my heart skip a beat.

Dear Dairy,

I am so lucky to have a husband like Gabriel. I could never have asked for more. He is so attentive, so caring, and so loving, but... I feel that he is not happy.

In fact, I feel him to be not himself. We have been married for several years now, but I can not feel that closeness between us as husband and wife. The closeness that there should be after being married for this long. I have known him since we were kids, but I have never known him.

He had always been closer to Nicola, and now that she is gone from his life, I feel she took that part of him with her.

He doesn't allow anyone close. Not even his own wife. Had we been wrong. Was I not the girl for him?..

Dear Diary

It's been four years now. Gabriel and Nicola hasnt herad from nor seen each other, but she still refuses to date someone else. She says she is busy. She has more important things to do than waste time on men. But I can't help wondering, has she still not gotten over Gabriel?

Dear diary,

Do you know something? I really did come between two hearts. I knowingly broke them apart. I had been selfish and spoilt. I had wanted what was truly not mine. I should never have taken advantage of the time Nicola had taken that trip and gone away from Gabriel  to push Gabriel into proposing to me.

I don't even want to think of the game that I had played with the help of Gabriel's mother in forcing Gabriel to marry me.

I realise now that it was not worth it. I had ruined all three of our lives. None of us are happy. I hate to admit it,  but the only reason I am still married to Gabriel is because of the girls.

I should never have forced this, or else I wouldn't now have to force myself to stay in a marriage filled with emptiness.

Where is this coming from? It's coming from years of being married to a shell of a man whose light of his life is a whole other woman who left him when I forced myself into his life, basically kicking her out.

It's coming from the fact that I met someone. I met a man who has shown me what actually being in love is. What actually being some ones happiness is. The light of someone's life.

I feel so guilty. But I felt so empty. And it just happened. I had realised that Mine and Gabriel's love had actually been a childish infatuation.

I had just been in love with the idea of being his girl. The wife of the young and rich CEO.

I know it wasn't real because I feel the real thing now. Real love. And I don't know what to do....

What the hell! Sarah had cheated on me? She had been in love with someone else?

All this time, I had been feeling guilty because I had been missing Nicola and wanting Nicola despite being married to a beautiful woman who loved me.

It turned out that her love wasn't so real either. We really had been just infatuated with each other. Wanting our childhood crush to be the real deal.

Our stubbornness had ruined so many lives. I had stubbornly wanted that girl next door. The girl with beauty, talent, and confidence. The perfect girl for a future CEO.

I had refused to accept for all these years that I had always actually loved her dorky sister instead.

Sarah and I had both been stubborn and selfish. And we both paid the price by not being able to be with the ones we truly loved.

But Nicola? She hadn't done anything wrong. She hadn't deserved not to have the man she truly loved. And she surely doesn't deserve to marry a man she doesn't love.

She would end up as Sarah had. In a life filled with emptiness. Spending each day with what ifs. Craving for more. I can't let that happen to her. I can't let the same fate be hers as well.

She deserves to be with the man she loves because I, too, love her. So very much. Always had and forever will. Even if she marries another man. Even if she starts a life with him and has his children. I will still love her...as she had loved me.

And I have nothing here to stop me now. I no longer have to stay here feeling guilty for leaving Sarah because she had left me long before she died.  She left me the day she fell in love with another man.

So I will go to Nicola. I will go and stop her from making the same mistake Sarah and I made. Because even if I don't, Nicola deserves her happily ever after...

_______________________________________

Whew! After re-writing this chapter three times, I am finally done. This chapter was hard, so I really hope you guys will like it. 🤞

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