Beauty and the Billionaire

AFRAID

CHAPTER-49
AFRAID

AUSTIN'S POV :-

Something was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

After I had cleaned up me and Eva, we returned to the kitchen and Eva made us lunch and then I served for us as we sat together to eat. No words passed her lips during the entire time, and she seemed...lost. I would have given a substantial portion of my fortune to know what she was thinking during those moments. My thoughts jumbled together in an atypical mess. I couldn't understand her. Couldn't read what was wrong.

She didn't say anything when I asked if needed more food. She didn't say anything when I told her to eat because she was just constantly staring at her plate. Too much silence. I did the math with what little faculties I had left. No words meant something was wrong.

A knock at my door filtered through the beat from my headphones. I didn’t particularly care for music, but mom insisted I show at least some interest in it since most boys my age did.

Slipping off my headphones, I turned as she walked in and sat on my bed.

“Good morning.”

She didn’t say anything, simply stared at the wood floor beneath her feet. She clasped her hands between her knees, and her shoulders stooped at a defeated angle.

I waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, I put my headphones back on and tapped my foot along to the beat so she could see I was taking her advice.

Minutes passed, but she never looked over at my rhythmic efforts. My foot got tired, so I gave up and put the headphones down on my desk, the music tinny and far away. Why was she silent?

It occurred to me all this was odd. If she came to my room, she usually had something to say. Why not this time? I cycled through my list of possible responses, but she’d never prepared me for silence. I needed some sort of a cue. Or was this a test? Was silence a cue in and of itself?

A faint thump-thump added to the hum of the earphones’ incessant hum. I flicked off my iPod, killing the noise. It was a plop, not a thump. Mom hadn’t moved, but tears were dropping to the floor beneath her. Otherwise, silence.

“Mum?” Tears meant sad, unless it was a wedding, and then tears meant happy. Unless it was a wedding of someone you hated, in which case it could cut either way. I generally just offered a handkerchief and avoided trying to parse the reason behind the tears. But mom didn’t cry, unless dad hurt her, me or Fina but he had gone away for a week due to his work so I couldn’t gauge what her tears meant. “Is something wrong?”

Silence. It was oppressive. I’d never minded it before, but this sort of silence seemed to speak. The hackles along the back of my neck rose. Something was off. I couldn’t feel it like normal people, but I could sense it on a basic, animal level. Something that had been whole was now broken. But what?

“Mum?”

She cleared her throat and pressed her fingertips to her closed eyes. “Mikhail.”

Mikhail was one of my father's men. He was also mom's bodyguard. Mum used to spend time with Mikhail more than she spent with dad. I even saw them kissing once but I didn't understand why she would kiss him. Mum told me we kiss the people we liked. So, I gathered mum liked him.