“You go ahead?” Darren ordered.
As Aurelia’s gaze roamed around the room, Darren realized what the woman in front of him was asking about.
Without a word, Darren immediately ran over to clean up the shards of glass from the photo frame scattered across the floor. The flower vase was completely shattered.
“Good grief, I wanted to ask Mbok Nah to clean all this up earlier. How did I forget?” he wondered, swiftly tidying up his room with both hands.
“How could I forget everything after seeing Lia here? What’s wrong with me? Have I really become this whipped over that woman?”
“Stay right there. Don’t come over here—there are too many glass shards, and I’m afraid they’ll cut your feet,” Darren instructed.
After saying that, Darren picked up the house phone handset connected to the line downstairs.
“Mbok, could you come to my room? Bring a broom and a mop, too. Help me clean up this mess,” Darren asked as soon as Mbok Nah answered.
Within minutes, Mbok Nah was in the room, beginning to tidy everything up. While Mbok Nah cleaned, Darren led Aurelia outside and down the steps toward the garden behind the house.
Aurelia still hadn’t said a word. She still had so many questions about what she had just seen.
She sat in the gazebo, staring at the fish in the pond as she tried to piece together the words to ask Darren.
“Again, I’m sorry you had to see that. I actually wanted to call Mbok Nah to clean my room, but then I saw you here. And yeah, I immediately forgot what I’d originally come down for,” Darren explained. His eyes never left Aurelia.
“Why didn’t you just call her? Like you did earlier?” Aurelia asked in return, curious about the fair-skinned man.
“I actually wanted to come downstairs myself, so Mbok Nah could work more easily without me getting in the way.”
“What really happened, big brother?” Aurelia asked, having been extremely curious for a while now.
At her question, Darren immediately lowered his head. He drew a deep breath before answering Aurelia.
“I failed.” Those were the first words he said.
Aurelia’s brow furrowed as she waited for Darren to continue explaining. She simply sat beside him in silence, listening to what had really happened to the man who had already captured her heart and mind.
Before continuing, Darren looked at Aurelia’s face. She immediately met his gaze. Her expression was incredibly calm. Darren placed one hand on his thigh.
Again and again, Darren drew deep breaths until she could feel his exhalations against her skin.
“I failed,” Darren said again.
“Nora and I aren’t getting married. The wedding has been called off.”
“In three days, when everything had been prepared so perfectly, it turned out it would never happen. God has arranged everything. He’s written the scenario He believes is best for me.”
“Does Nora know about what happened between us?” Aurelia finally asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
Darren shook his head. “No. Nora was the one who called it off and destroyed those plans herself.”
“What happened? Why? Tell me now. Don’t give me half an answer,” Aurelia demanded.
“This morning, after I left your house, I went straight home, planning to accompany Nora to look at the venue we’d agreed on. But when I got home, I found Nora in my room, talking on her phone with someone. I couldn’t hear everything clearly, but I heard them promise to meet. I’d been with Nora for years, and I’d never heard her say such disgusting things before.”
“Without making a sound, I moved farther away and hid behind the wall, following her from a very safe distance.”
Aurelia remained silent, listening without interrupting.
“And do you know what happened next?”
Aurelia shook her head.
“She met a man at a luxurious boarding house.”
“So what’s the problem? Isn’t that normal?”
“They went into the room. Just think—what would two adults do in the same room if they weren’t involved in a deeply intimate relationship?”
“Did you see it yourself?” Aurelia asked.
Darren merely nodded.
He didn’t know whether what had happened was a blessing or a disaster.