Serilda

Chapter 14

Erik

I was a ticking bomb ready to explode. I had waited for an hour or two for her too to come back but she hadn't. The morning sun was shining bright and high in the sky but she wasn't home yet. If she really thought that she could defy me without any consequences then she was wrong.

She had driven away when I had ordered her not to. If she might have come back I really wouldn't have been this mad at her as now I was. In reality, I wouldn't have been this mad at all to begin with but Aaron walking away from the office yesterday without any word and that too at a time when he knew a very important client was coming. His disappearance had messed up my plans, put me in a position where I could lose a potential client. It was a thank to last minute emergency on their side that had saved me from losing them.

Aaron had returned hours later saying he has gone to help a dear friend of his. We had a tongue lashing which had only ended up in both of us getting mad at each other to a great extent. I had called him careless, selfish and someone who didn't care about the business at all. I had gone personal saying that it was the reason dad didn't like him in the first place and he was a mistake that never should have happened, a mistake dad hated him for. Even added that he could never be his son like I was. When I had realized what I have said it had been too late like every other time.

Aaron and I had different mothers. My mother had died giving me birth and Aaron was a mistake of a one-night stand between my dad and his mother, Claire. Dad had told me on a drunken night that he was forced to marry her because she belonged to a Catholic reputed family. They haven't loved each other. He hadn't loved even my mother. All he had loved and cared about was money and power. Nothing else. He had called Aaron a mistake on a drunken night in front of him when there had been a fight between our parents. He was young and it had hurt him. If it wasn't for Claire than dad would have even raised his hands on him.

Claire had applied for a divorce afterward by going against her parent's wishes. She had been a good mother to me and I loved her for that. Being only ten then I couldn't understand why they were getting a divorce. I knew I was going to lose Claire and somewhere I had started hating Aaron for that for no reason. I had blamed him for their divorce. The divorce did happen but Aaron stayed with me and dad. I had hated him, pushed him down the swing, did nothing when he was bullied and even made his life not less than hell in our home. Even dad hated him, demoralized him, scolded him every day for one thing or another. I enjoyed it. I had hated him more when he would come back home happy from Claire in breaks. It was long three months where I wasn't able to hurt him.

It was years later when I came to know that the reason for their divorce had been not Aaron but my own father. Aaron had caught our father fucking our nanny and told Claire. My dad had fought for Aaron's full custody because Claire had made it known to the world about my father's affair. It was a messy divorce. He wanted to teach Claire a lesson so he had taken away his son.

I was nineteen when I came to know all but all the damage had been done. I had realized how mistaken I was but it was too late for me to correct my mistakes. It was years after when my dad had become civil towards Aaron and it was too only because he had graduated top of his class in Harvard making him proud. He had made him proud enough to accept him as a son. For years Aaron had done everything just to please him. When I had partied hard he had studied, when I was out there to be wild and young he was in the office trying to make more money and my father happy. However, things between us had just been civil. He didn't trust me and was not my friend. He had been formal with me. We weren't like brothers but I could only blame myself for it.

I had struck a nerve saying those things. Aaron hadn't held back when it came to striking back.

He had yelled in the confines of my office room that no one could ever love me because of my attitude. He had brought up the past of me being left alone by Serene, how she had left me behind and dumped me on the wedding day. It had been fuel to the fire. He had even gone to the extent saying that no one could ever love me even my own wife couldn't ever love me, how she would hate me for the rest of her life. Even rubbed Serena's wedding in my face, how she was getting married leaving me behind. How I wasn't a man meant for love and only to be used and fucked for my money and power.