One Wild Night

Chapter 393: The Past (2)

Although Aaron had asked Sara to get a job and not bother about helping him out with his chores, Sara paid no attention to him.      

Sara went about cleaning the whole place and rearranging everything in a way that the studio became more spacious and started to look homely.     

After cleaning and preparing breakfast for them every morning, she would sit around the studio chatting with the models that came around and asking them questions.      

Soon, she asked Aaron to teach her how to use the camera so that she could work alongside him whenever he had too many people to attend to at the same time or whenever he wasn’t available.     

Seeing how much interest she showed in his business, Aaron agreed to teach her all about photography, and soon she became almost as good as he was.     

Once she became capable of handling the studio on her own, she encouraged him to start accepting jobs away from the studio as those would fetch him more money.      

Taking her advice, he began to travel with some of the models to different locations to take pictures of them in places of their choice, and he started leaving her in charge of the studio.      

This not only brought him more money, but it also brought him more exposure, and slowly his client base increased from just upcoming models to supermodels.      

Falling in love with Sara had been a very slow but gradual process, and it had little or nothing to do with her beauty. Of course, Sara was a strikingly beautiful woman, but he had seen even more beautiful and desirable women than her.     

Being a photographer who mostly dealt with models, he had seen his fair share of beauties in their various states of dress and undress to be moved by the physical attributes of a woman.      

Returning to his studio after every long day of work to find her waiting, excited and eager to hear all about his day and the people he had met, had gradually become the highlight of his day.      

Seeing all the changes she had made both in his life and in the studio in the short time she had been with him, it was difficult not to be interested in her. She had been so involved in his business that he had almost started to forget about her dreams of becoming a model.     

“Sara, can I have a word with you?” Aaron asked one evening, four months after she started living and working with him.     

“Do you even need to ask?” Sara asked with an amused smile as she went to sit on the wooden seat across from him that served as their dining.     

“It has been four months,” Aaron reminded her with a solemn expression. It wasn’t that he wanted her to leave, but he needed to know her plans.     

“Four months is gone already?” She asked, surprised.     

“Yeah. How time flies,” Aaron said quietly as he watched her closely, and then she leaned forward in her seat.     

“I know you said I can only stay for three months, but can’t you change your mind? I really love living here and working with you,” Sara said, looking at him with hopeful eyes.      

“What about your modeling ambition? Are you not interested in pursuing it anymore? You can’t do that if you remain here just taking photos of other models,” Aaron reminded her.      

“No. I don’t want to do that anymore,” she said, and Aaron looked at her skeptically.     

“Why not?”      

“Have you seen the number of models that come in and out of your studio daily? There are models everywhere. I thought because I was pretty and I had the body for it, I was special and could become a supermodel, especially after that bastard gave me false assurance. But I’ve come to terms with reality. It was a silly dream,” Sara said with a shake of her head.      

“Listen, Aaron. All I need right now is a chance to prove myself to you. I really do love this job. Employ me, and you won’t regret it, I promise,” Sara said solemnly, and Aaron smiled at her.      

“I can’t deny that you have been very helpful in the last four months. I only wanted to be sure that working with me isn’t going to hinder your personal ambition in any way…”     

“Not at all. I assure you. If anything, this has helped me redirect my focus,” she quickly cut in to assure him.      

“That’s good to know. Since you’re good at the job and willing to work with me, I will be paying you for your services from now on. Also, we will be moving out of here soon. I want this place to be solely for work purposes. Maybe we can move into a two-bedroom apartment, and you can have a room to yourself. That way, you can be more comfortable, and you don’t have to move your stuff around. What do you think about that?” Aaron asked, and Sara screeched happily as she left her seat and went around the table to embrace him.      

“Thank you so much, Aaron. I love you,” she said as she gave him a smacking kiss on the lips, and then as though realizing what she had done, her eyes widened, and she quickly pulled away from Aaron, who was looking at her in surprise.     

She cleared her throat, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry,” she said apologetically, and without waiting for him to respond, she quickly ran away from there and went outside.     

Aaron remained where he sat, not knowing what to think or how to feel about Sara’s action and then her reaction following it.      

He waited for some time, and when she didn’t come back inside, he went in search of her and found her seated at the foot of the wooden stairway that led to the studio.     

“Why are you out here?” He asked as he joined her and sat beside her.      

“I feel embarrassed,” she confessed.     

“Why? It was a simple mistake. You don’t have to feel embarrassed,” Aaron assured her.     

“It wasn’t a mistake, Aaron. I’m in love with you. I’ve always been in love with you from the first moment I walked into your studio, but you never took note of me,” Sara said, surprising Aaron.     

“You are in love with me?” He asked in a very low voice, and she gave him a nod.      

“Why else would I want to remain by your side? Why do you think you were the first I came to when I was duped?” She asked, and Aaron felt his mouth go dry.      

Before now, he had always been so engrossed in his job to get into any serious relationship, especially as most ladies he knew were not interested in going into a relationship with a man who was always surrounded by beautiful half-naked models. So he occasionally he had mixed business with pleasure and had flings with some of the models who were interested in him.     

Sara turned to him when he didn’t say anything as she had expected him to, “You don’t have to feel pressured by my confession or anything. I understand if you don’t feel the same way. It would be hard for you to feel the same way when you see such beautiful people every day. I can’t be compared with them in any way,” she said with a wistful smile.     

“Don’t say that,” Aaron scolded her.      

“But it’s the truth. I’m just a pretty stupid homeless girl who was too naive to know she was being scammed,” she said with a self-deprecating smile, and Aaron shook his head.      

“You’re better than that. Everyone makes mistakes, and you can’t keep beating yourself over it. Let’s go inside. It’s getting cold,” Aaron said and led her back inside the studio.     

It took Aaron some more weeks before he finally opened up to her about how he felt, and once he did, Sara was over the moon     

with joy. Their relationship had started perfectly. Maybe too perfectly.      

It seemed to Aaron that they were a match made in heaven, and their love was written in the stars. And he had fallen hopelessly in love with her, giving her all of him and all he had.     

Some months later, they moved from the studio to their apartment as planned. But not as employer and employee, but instead as lovers.      

And a year later, he was over the moon with joy when she announced over dinner that she was pregnant.     

“Pregnant?” He had asked quietly since he wasn’t sure if that was what she wanted even though it was everything he wanted. A little boy or girl that looked like them.      

Sara bobbed her head, “I’m so stupid,” she said with quivering lips as she buried her face in her palms and cried.      

Startled and heartbroken by her tears, Aaron took her into his arms and consoled her, “You are not stupid. Please stop crying,” Aaron said as he patted her back and kissed away her tears.      

“If you don’t want the baby, we can abort the pregnancy,” Aaron assured her as she cried, and as if that seemed to reassure her of something, she looked up at him as tears flowed down her cheeks.     

“What about you? What do you want?” She asked with a sniffle, and Aaron shrugged.     

“I already consider you my family, and I would love us to keep the pregnancy. But only if you want to. It’s your body, so you should be able to decide what you want. If we are keeping the baby, we should get married and make it official,” Aaron said, and she looked away from him.     

“I need to think about it,” she told him after a while.     

“Take all the time you need, but also keep in mind that if we’re going to abort the pregnancy, we have to do it fast to avoid complications,” he reminded her.     

Three days later, Sara informed him that she had decided to keep the child, but on certain conditions, one of them being that he would open a bank account for her and deposit a sum of money for both her and the baby. She needed assurance that she wouldn’t be left stranded with their baby if he suddenly decided that he was no longer interested in her in the future.      

Aaron, being blinded by love, and trusting that nothing could go wrong with their relationship, not only opened the account at her request but also made her a signatory to his business account as well after their intimate wedding. And that didn’t stop him from paying her monthly salary since she insisted that regardless of their relationship, she was his employee and had to be paid.      

Soon they returned to their normal routine, with Aaron traveling around with clients while Sara stayed back to attend to the clients at the studio.      

When they both went for her ultrasound some weeks later, and they found out she was carrying twins, Aaron’s joy knew no bounds at the thought of not having just one but two kids who had their genes.      

That was the first time Sara let it slip that she had been born a triplet when the attending sonographer asked if her family had a history of multiple pregnancies.     

“You have a twin brother and sister? I thought you said you were an only child?” Aaron asked after they left the doctor’s office.      

“They both died during childbirth, and only I survived,” Sara had said without looking at him.     

So he could better care for her, he employed someone to assist with taking care of the chores at home and hired someone else to be at the studio with her so that she wouldn’t stress herself too much.     

Aaron also started declining jobs that would make him travel too far away from home, as he always made sure he could return every night to be with her.      

Not long after that time, it was confirmed that she was pregnant with a boy and a girl, and Aaron’s joy was full. As far as he was concerned, everything was perfect, or so he thought until he traveled out of town for a quick job and received a call from the maid at home informing him that Sara was on her way to the hospital alone and she was carrying her hospital bag for delivery.      

“But the baby is not due until next month,” Aaron said with a frown, and he asked the maid to accompany Sara, but the maid said Sara insisted on going alone and that she was just going for a routine check-up.      

Not feeling comfortable with it, Aaron immediately abandoned all he was doing, and by the time he arrived some hours later and got to the hospital where they had registered her, he didn’t find her there.      

He called Sara to find out where she was, and she sent him the address of a different hospital and her room number.     

Once he arrived at the hospital, he headed directly for the room, and when he walked in, he saw Sara lying on the bed, cradling a baby in her arms.     

“Why didn’t you call me? What happened? You’re supposed to put to birth next month,” Aaron asked in confusion.     

“I was spotting, so I was worried,” she said without looking away from the baby.      

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here with you, baby,” Aaron said apologetically as he went to her and kissed her forehead before looking down at the bundle in her arms with awe.     

“She looks so beautiful,” Aaron said, thinking the baby in her arms was their daughter.     

“He. This is your son, Aaron. Here, take him,” she said as she offered the baby to him.      

“Our son,” Aaron corrected with a proud smile as he carefully carried the baby, who looked so fragile.      

“Where is she, Sara? Where is our daughter?” Aaron asked when he noticed that the second baby wasn’t anywhere in sight, and Sara didn’t seem excited or happy. She just looked dull.      

“She didn’t make it,” Sara said in a flat voice devoid of emotion as she looked up at him with blank eyes.      

Aaron’s heart didn’t just skip a beat. It cracked, “She didn’t make what?” He asked, refusing to believe what he had heard.     

“She died.”     

“No. No,” Aaron repeated with a shake of his head as tears gathered in his eyes.     

“She can’t die. How can you say that so easily? Where is she? I need to see her for myself,” Aaron said, and as though sensing his father’s agitation, the baby in his arms began to cry.     

Sara pressed a button by her bedside, and a nurse came in to take the baby from Aaron, “We still need to carry out some tests on the baby,” the nurse informed Aaron as she took the baby from him.      

“Where is she? I want to see her,” Aaron asked as the nurse walked away with the baby.     

“You can’t see her. I already asked the doctor to get rid of the body,” Sara said, and Aaron looked at her in disbelief.     

“You did what?”      

“There was no need to keep the body. I didn’t know when you would get here, and I didn’t want to see it or just leave it,” Sara said without emotion.      

Aaron staggered back in shock, “Please tell me you’re kidding.”     

“Why would I kid about something like this?” She asked, and Aaron looked at her like she had just slapped him in the face.     

“How could you do that? How could you do that to me, Sara? She was my baby too. I had a right to see her. To hold her and kiss her goodbye!” Aaron cried, and Sara turned away from him.      

He never received any explanation or apology from Sara after that. A few days later, after she returned     

from the hospital with the baby, he returned from the studio to find that she had left after taking all the money in his safe, cleared the money in the account he opened for her and the baby, and made a large withdrawal from his business account.     

The only thing she had left behind was a short note telling him that she had come to the realization that she couldn’t live that way with him. She wasn’t cut out for marriage or motherhood, and she wanted more for herself. She was leaving the country for Italy, where she intended to pursue her dreams as a model, and he shouldn’t bother searching for her. If he truly loved her, he should forget about her and consider the money she took as her payment for carrying his child.