Aster

Chapter Fifteen: A Calm Before the Storm

Aster

     She'd lost track in the amount of times her blue gaze studied the picture sent to Jacob's email address. The woman bore striking resemblance to how he looked currently, and after the second day of consistent staring it dawned on Aster; she was Jacob's mother. Her mind was a hive of questions which brewed as though a storm, spilling into a cacophony of foreshadowing trepidation. Sitting on the leather sofa within the apartment, Aster's eyes traveled from the woman's chocolaty strands of hair, to the rounded features of a boy held happily within her arms. Jacob couldn't have been more than six, leaving the biggest question of her worries to be: Where was his mother now?

     Was it wrong of her to print the image from his email? Probably. Did she do it anyway? Yes. When she'd spent so much time in his penthouse with nothing but a white ceiling and glass walls to look at, this picture was the closest she's felt to Jacob since he left. The man had never even whispered about the woman, building walls so high she had been left to discover these things on complete, and total chance. It made Aster's heart hurt with stark realization that she didn't actually know much about the man named Jacob Sterling. Three days had passed upon discovering the photograph, three long, dreary days full of rain which made her feel like the longer she continued to looked at it - the more likely it would be to answer all her questions. However, it was just a picture, and pictures couldn't speak. Fingertips grazed the corner, running over the bright red awning in the backdrop, admiring the lights of a city diner at night; and that was when it hit her. 

     Like a harsh weight sacked against her gut, Aster scrambled to her feet with a start, gasping when blonde tresses flopped over her forehead in untamed curls. It wasn't just a city diner. She couldn't even predict the amount of times she'd passed the dull, dingy awning of that corner restaurant; the vibrant red in the image having faded to a lowly orange from age. Pictures couldn't speak, but they did tell stories. All that time it had simply been a monument to the background, some quaint diner on the corner of the street close to Jacob's business; but suddenly it was the center of her little world. A side of the image found its way between her lips, her right hand fumbling with the material of a raincoat while clumsily texting a rather indecipherable message for Matthew to please pick her up with nothing but a thumb.

     He seemed to understand her well enough. Within five minutes the familiar black Lincoln rolled to a stop in front of the apartment's roundabout, speckled by raindrops that drizzled lazily outside the large overhead shelter. Matthew's suited figured stepped out of the vehicle and rounded its backside to open the door for her when she approached it in a hurry that made his eyebrows raise, "Is everything alright?" The driver questioned when her eyes looked at him, but she wasn't quite sure how to answer that question. What was she even doing? Sticking her nose where it didn't belong, that's what. If she wanted to learn more about Jacob, she should ask him. That's all Aster had to do. However, there was this gnawing sensation in the back of her mind that kept her from fully agreeing. After all, the man had not been entirely honest with her the past few months; but deep down she knew it wasn't just that.

     There was more to Jacob sterling than met the eye, and Aster intended to find out just how much of the man was buried beneath the rainy city of Manhattan.

      Offering Matthew a smile, Aster slipped into the backseat with ease, peering through the dark silhouette of the car's interior, "I-It's all f-fine. Th-Th-" Aster's words trembled in the rush of adrenaline flooding her veins, creating a nervous stutter that rendered her speech more inaudible than was normal, "Thank you, Matthew." Of course it wasn't convincing, but she was the boss when the... Well, when the boss was away. Matthew simply had to bite the bullet and accept her answer at face value. The door closed, the Lincoln shuddering from the impact before he circled the vehicle once more to rejoin the driver's seat and roll forward with a gentle start.