Heartbreak




    THE STORY CONTINUES

        If she didn’t know better she would swear that he had planned the timing of this celebration on purpose.  The night before her wedding to another man.

There was no suitable reason that she could have come up with that would have excused her from the night’s festivities.  The celebration of the engagement of Nikolas Cassadine and Gia Campbell was in full swing.  Being with the young couple who were finally to be wed was important to her fiancé.  Tonight was about family, and family was all-important to him.

Faith flagged down a passing waiter and grabbed another glass of champagne from his tray.  It was bound to be a very long evening and Faith was not entirely confident that she could endure it completely sober.

“Is something wrong?  That is your fourth glass of champagne in the time that you have been here.”

“Everything is fine.”  Faith’s smile was strained.  She stared into the deeply concerned eyes of the man standing before her and knew that her response would not suffice.  “I suppose it is all hitting me now,” she explained.  “In a few hours my life will change forever.”

His expression became unreadable.  “Are you having second thoughts about the marriage?”

Faith’s breath caught.  Had something she’d done or said led him to believe that she wrestled with that particular demon?  “I am as committed to him as ever.”  Her words sounded unconvincing even to her.

“Were the stolen nights you spent in my bed a part of your ‘commitment’ to him?”

The barb hit home with unerring accuracy.  Faith blanched before throwing up a defensive wall that was almost visible in its strength.  Upon seeing her reaction, her lover wished desperately for the ability to call back the damning words.

“I wondered,” Faith observed softly, “just when you would throw that up into my face.”  Her cool, condescending gaze could not disguise the hurt in her eyes.  “Tomorrow cannot come soon enough.”

With that parting shot the elegant beauty moved toward the opposite end of the room where her fiancé stood in conversation with the newly engaged couple.

“You look tired,” Faith’s lover heard her fiancé say.  “I am sure no one would hold it against you if you excused yourself and went home to rest.”

“I think I will,” Faith accepted wearily.  She gently kissed him on the mouth.  “Until tomorrow?”

“Until tomorrow.”  His strong fingers tenderly cupped Faith’s cheek.  “And then you are mine forever.”

Faith’s silent lover watched her leave the room.  Perhaps she would be the other man’s tomorrow.  But tonight…tonight she would be his.

~*~

Faith was weary of the emotional tug-of-war that her life had become. She had no one to blame for it but herself. Still, she looked forward to her wedding and the peace that her binding vows would bring.

How ironic was it that her lover first spoke the words he knew to be truth? 'At the moment of your vows, you will be lost to me forever.' She hadn't bothered to reply. They both knew the reality of his pronouncement. Unfaithful though she might be to her relationship with her fiance', it would all end when she took vows to become the other man's wife.

~*~

"Take me to her."

"She is not there." Yuri Petroff's voice was neutral. He knew that his employer would not be happy at the news. "Her cousin Morgan took her away only moments after she arrived at her home." He anticipated Stefan's next query. "She is ensconced in the compound in which the mobster Corinthos lives with his children."

Stefan understood what the guard attempted to convey to him. Corinthos' compound would be a fortress; heavily guarded and impenetrable.

Clenching his jaw, Stefan reached for his cellular phone. He thumbed the single digit that would dial her number and listened with mounting frustration as his call went unanswered.

"Master Stefan?"

"Take me home." Faith's choice had been made. Stefan would have to learn to live with it.

For tonight.

Faith's latest move undid any promises he might have made for tomorrow.