A Baby for the Billionaire

9

KEREM

Once I return to space to study what was already there, my head is anywhere but what I should be concentrating on. I feel tired, my neck, back and neck hurt. If Zara were here, she would bring me hot tea with honey and she would serve hers with cinnamon sticks that she put on everything. For Zara everything looked good with cinnamon. She would sit up behind the chair and massage my shoulders and neck. I can imagine her with her hands incorporated into my muscles, pressing with the intention of relaxing me and taking me to a path of inner peace that is necessary for my complex days of enduring so many situations that I have to deal with. It is no longer just my job, suddenly those days of stress due to mundane situations become opaque and insignificant in the face of the enormous emptiness that I feel in my heart after the absence of my partner, my friend, the love of my life, the mother of my son. From my Zara.

"Do you want some tea, my love?" I can hear her voice ringing in my ears as she offers me delicious tea.

Heavens.

Something as simple as tea becomes majestic when thinking about her. Something as routine as the meal of the day or going to sleep becomes something even bigger just getting an idea of ​​what it meant to do it by his side, but she is no longer here to share it with me. It's been weeks since the last time she was by my side, but not anymore. That last time, that day I let her go, that plane she got on even knowing inside me that it wasn't necessary for her to do it.

I should never have allowed it.

I didn't have to.

But still it happened.

Zara...

I open my eyes and find myself with the disappointing reality that there is no honey tea or cinnamon tea, her hands are not on my shoulders or the presence of her love that filled all the space like when you walk through life knowing that you have a safe shelter in which to shelter what is in you.

Suddenly you know how cruel and hard loneliness can really be.

I shake my head, put away the already turned off computer and go up the stairs of the apartment, on my way to my room. I pass by Ali's as always, although he remains watched by the security cameras and by the microphone with the speaker that is anchored to my room. Before, it was Zara who took care of him at night. I never did. I never felt entirely safe rocking him in my arms or giving him a bottle or some food, until I had to be with the baby twenty-four hours a day and she thought that It would be a good idea for both. She could never have been so wrong.

At first my mother offered to come take care of Ali, but I refuse to let another person I love get on a plane.

Tomorrow we will go to another city and it will be the first flight I will take my son after the loss of my wife.

"Loss."
I feel pangs of guilt and anger after using that word in regards to her. Zara did not deserve what happened. I also flatly refuse when people talk about her in the past tense.

I refuse to use the past tense to refer to her.

She continues with me, even though reality tries to hit me with slaps showing me that she is not with me, that her music and her hips dancing in the mornings are no longer there, nor are her afternoons of seeing her in the patio reading lying in the patio of our house in Istanbul, nor her figure in Ali's room rocking him at dawn here in the United States.

I stop in that room like I did before and open the door. I think I see the light silhouetted inside the room and revealing her with the child in her arms. Not enough, not happening at all.

I take a step forward and look at my son sleeping in his crib.

So chubby, with his eyes closed, breathing in and out. The idea of ​​stopping by his room to check if he's still breathing since Zara can no longer come here to do it herself gave me the idea of ​​stopping by several times a day.

I didn't know what she was doing. I saw her go by several times, but I always thought she was just looking at him. Since then, it has become a habit of mine.

I look at him from one side of his bed and my heart leaps into my throat just imagining what this little boy's life will be like without a mother.

He didn't deserve this.

Something like this did not have to happen to him. Why did fate impose something like this on him? He will hardly have her in his memories when he grows up In fact, the only ones he will keep will be the photos and videos that I have not dared to see since then. I even changed my cell phone so as not to find the impact that this would cause me, but social networks have also prevailed on occasion.

I still keep that happy family of the three of us together on my network profile. What do people think when they see her, knowing what has happened? I don't mind. We are still a family...happy. We continue. Shall we continue?

A tear wets my right cheek, but the phone begins to vibrate in my pocket and I rush to check it before I can wake my baby.

I leave the room, closing the door slowly behind me and go to my room, where I check the screen and see that it is Neville who calls me. I can already imagine what it is about, but I still attend to him.

"If it wasn't you, I'd hang up right now," I warn him.

"Mr. Deniz, what happened?"

"What are you talking about, Neville? Look at the time!"

"I'm sorry, but I've been notified by Miss Mindy that she's been fired without even starting.

"I told her to call me and she did almost ten minutes after warning her. She didn't answer me when I called her.

" You spoke at the agreed time, '' he suggests.

But I wanted to talk earlier.

"Sir..."

"I know, Neville. Tell her to come."

"Sure?"

"Yes."

"And why did you do that?"

"To serve as a lesson. Right now she must be valuing the opportunity that I am giving her much more."

"Yeah... I suggest that next time you keep me informed if you have these plans."

"And you should also be warned that a Plan B, Plan C and D is always necessary as well."

"Yes sir."

"Rest, Neville. I'll wait for you in the morning. The nanny will be here earlier to get the child ready."

"The boy".

Sounds foreign to me.

It doesn't sound like "my son."

"Perfect, sir. Rest. Goodnight."

"Whatever," I answer and hang up.

I fall into bed looking at the ceiling and close my eyes until I fall asleep without even putting on my pajamas.

Zara is still by my side, hugging me around the chest and cradling her face in my arms.

My love, good night.

Rest.

Love you.