Episode 71: Grateful

Emily was in the waiting room with Jake sitting across from her. He hadn't said a thing to her since the doctors urgently catered to Stella who was now in the emergency room. Not a word of blame, expression of anger - nothing came from him. He was basically a shell of a man.

Though this sight of him was what she had longed for, the woman couldn't help feeling the total opposite in this case.

She hadn't meant for things to turn out this way.

Even if karma was supposed to reach them for all they had done to her, she never prayed for it to be in this form.

This...

It was all too cruel.

Emily wanted to ask if he was okay during the past two hours of them getting no news from the professionals here, but she knew that would be asking the obvious.

Of course he wasn't okay.

Who would be in a situation like this?

Heck, the woman didn't like either of them and she wasn't okay.

Bowing her head with a deep sigh, she couldn't help but begin to pray.

There was nothing else that could be done in a situation like this.

Amidst that, her phone buzzed in her pocket and the woman took it out to see that it was a text from Nicholas.

He was at work, why was he messaging her?

How's everything going?

She couldn't help how her mouth contorted at that.

Like hell.

His reply came instantly.

What do you mean? Aren't you supposed to be wrapping up at this point?

Her lips trembled.

Nicholas...

He answered.

Yes, sweetheart?

When her fingers typed the next sentence, the tear finally slipped out of her eyes and onto the phone's screen.

I think Stella's about to lose her baby.

It took a minute before he replied and she knew it was because of the shock he must have been experiencing.

The phone in her hand started to ring and when she saw his caller ID it didn't take long before she answered.

"Em," His voice addressed softly.

A silent sob wracked through her at this point.

"Tell me what happened."

She covered her mouth almost as if to keep in the awful sounds it was surely going to make. Then she took a deep breath before spilling everything to him.

"After I signed the contract with Jake I left his office only to bump into Stella. It didn't take long before she got fired up after eavesdropping on what I had been discussing with him...which was that I had planned everything from the start. His downfall that is. She got so angry that she lunged at me and out of instinct, I avoided her attack. I-I didn't expect for her to fall that hard, Nicholas. I didn't know that she would bleed like that..." Her mouth started to tremble as her voice cracked at the end.

"Do you...do you think that it's my fault?" She ended in a hushed whisper.

"It was an accident, Emily." He strongly assured her.

"I know but—"

"No buts," he cut her off swiftly. "I know it may be a lot for you to take in at the moment but none of it is your fault. It was just an unfortunate occurrence which none of you could have predicted."

She sniffled. "Are you sure?"

He felt his heart ache at how broken she sounded in this moment. This was what Nicholas had been fearing - her getting hurt. It always seemed to happen when she was involved with these two. It was like a curse that could not be broken.

"I'm sure."

Jake who had been listening to her conversation all this time felt even more like shit after hearing all of that.

So it turned out none of this was Emily's fault.

It was all because of Stella's uncontrollable moment of rage.

But then again, she didn't know things would have turned out so ugly only because of venting her anger.

"Where are you right now? Do you want me to come and get you?"

"I'm at the hospital and no, don't come. I don't want to take you from your work."

"Emily, you know that I don't care about any of that. You're my number one priority. You have been since the moment I fell in love with you."

Her heart fluttered and she couldn't help but feel grateful for the lightness in her chest at this heavy moment.

"We still haven't gotten any news as yet. When I find out what's going on, I'll call you back and keep you posted."

His sigh was heard through the speakers. "You do that then."

She hummed in agreement before hanging up promptly.

On cue, the doors to the emergency room opened and a doctor came out. Jake was before him within the next minute and was bombarding him with questions. "Is everything okay, doc? How is she? Our baby is gonna be fine, right?"

The doctor's eyes gave no hint of any good news.

For a moment Jake's shoulders fell and Emily swore she stopped breathing altogether.

"Miss Peterson lost a lot of blood on the way here," the doctor started rigidly. "Because of that it was difficult to operate without an amount which is equivalent to the loss."

"So..." Jake's hands were shaking.

"Thankfully, we got a transfer in time to deal with the issue. As of right now, we have to keep watch but Miss Peterson and your baby will be fine, Mr. Mallion."

Jake held his hands on his knees as a huge sigh of relief left him. "Thank God."

Emily felt like a huge weight was lifted off her shoulders.

"This is all thanks to your quick response towards the emergency." The doctor continued seriously. "If you had delayed calling the ambulance and hadn't gotten her here in time, well, let's just say things wouldn't have been pretty."

His eyes landed on Emily at that.

He wanted to express his gratitude but simply didn't know what to say.

She gave him a curt nod which showed she understood that much.

Standing up straight, he asked. "So can I see her now?"

"You can see Miss Peterson after she's been safely transferred to a room. That will take another half an hour and her anesthesia would have worn off by then."

"Okay, I'll wait."

"Me too." Emily chimed in because she really wanted to see with her own eyes if everything was okay.

As promised, Jake and Emily were able to see Stella within the next thirty minutes. The sight of her was frail when they opened the door and her partner was beside her in a flash, holding her hand desperately.

"How are you feeling?" He asked softly.

"I'm okay," she blew out. "Better than before for sure."

"That's good, that's good." The man nodded squeezing at her hand.

Emily looked at the both of them awkwardly, not knowing what to do, especially with the patient staring at her wordlessly.

When she opened her mouth, it wasn't what the actress had expected to come out of it.

"Thank you."

Her eyes expanded in surprise at that.

The expression of gratitude was on the verge of being so inaudible that Emily was beginning to wonder if it had been a figment of her imagination but at the look on Jake's face she knew it wasn't.

"What did you just say?"

"Don't think I'll be repeating myself." Stella snapped, reverting to her usual persona.

Emily couldn't help but smile at that ironically.

"Once is enough." She agreed.

The woman huffed at her benevolence, but deep down it was just a front.

Jake spared a tired smile before saying, "She's right. Thank you, Emily."

Before she could react to that, the door to the room was flung open and in stumbled someone Emily never thought she would see in a thousand years.

"Adrianna?"

The raven haired girl whipped around at the sound of her name.

Her eyes widened momentarily at the sight of Emily but she couldn't address her because of the state Stella was in.

"Auntie, how did this happen?" She cried, taking the space on the other side of the bed.

Meanwhile, Emily's head was reeling from shock.

Auntie? Stella and Adrianna were related?

Stella rolled her eyes as the young girl started to cry beside her.

"Stop the waterworks, drama queen. I'm fine."

"Are you?" She said, peeking up behind mascara-stained eyes.

Stella gave her a helpless look. "Yes, I am." Her gaze found the brunette's own from across the room. "That one over there was nice enough to call the ambulance in time to get me treatment."

The girl perked up, looking at Emily as if she was her own savior.

"You did that for her?"

"Uh..." She didn't know what to say with all this attention on her.

"Thank you so much." The words held so much strength in them they almost knocked the woman off her feet.

Emily rubbed at the nape of her neck awkwardly. "No problem."

Even though there was bad blood between everyone in the room, the well-being of an innocent had been enough to squash all that.

Well, at least at this moment.

Realizing that she had overstayed her visit, Emily gestured to the door. "Now that I see everything is alright, I'll be leaving then."

She didn't bother to wait for their responses, just made her way through the door swiftly.

Do you think you can pick me up now?

Her text received a message after a second's time.

It was almost as if the man had been waiting for it.

I'm already parked outside.

H-How? She thought in shock.

Her feet carried her out the door quickly and her eyes scanned the parking lot to find a familiar black car. She hurriedly made her way when she saw the man open the door and come out just in time to greet her.

Before he could even get a word out, she threw herself in his arms. He grunted at the force of her but she was sighing in relief.

As expected, being in his arms still had the calming effect it always did.

Nicholas smiled at her display of affection. "Aren't you scared that someone will see us?"

She shook her head. "I don't care."

His lips twitched at that.

Slowly removing her from him, he held her face in his hands and searched her eyes carefully. "How are you, my love?"

She gave him a weak smile.

"I feel drained."

"And Miss Peterson?"

A sigh slipped past her lips. "She's fine."

He nodded before taking her hands in his and pulling her into the car. "Let's talk about it on our way home."

A figure came running out the front door as Emily nodded at Nicholas in agreement.

It was Adrianna.

She was coming after the woman in order to apologize about everything that she had done to her in the past. It was warranted after what she did for her auntie today but with the smile on her face, the girl misunderstood it as one of pure content.

Is she happy about what happened today? Adrianna thought with rage. How could she be smiling after everything that happened?

She started to wonder if everything Stella has explained to her prior to the actress leaving was true.

Her auntie had claimed that she was the one who was careless in her angered advances but shouldn't Emily have expected this much when avoiding her? She was a pregnant woman after all! How could she just let her fall to the ground without doing anything to stop it?

Maybe...maybe Emily had planned all of this.

Her eyes followed the figure of a man who was seconds away from disappearing.

From where she stood, he looked older than Emily was and her eyebrows drew together at the expensive car in which he rode.

With a feeling of abhorrence brewing in her chest, the girl took out her phone and captured pictures of their moments.

All the while, her lips curved deviously as she assumed the worst.

***

A/N:

I have good news and bad news.

Which one do you wanna hear first?

Bad news? Okay then.

The bad news is that we're coming down to the final chapters of this book and I'm already in my feels about it.

*cue the waterworks*

The good news is that I'm on fire planning the rest of the Hollywood series and I may or may not have the first half of Chase and Valentina's book written already 👀.

I'll be posting their story after TAH so make sure to give it as much love and support like you do this one.

It's not cute favoring one child over the other.

I'll see you guys in the next episode, love Zan. 💕