Page 60 of Neptune

She seethed. "You're still wearing that ugly ring. I know that it has something to do with her, the girl you gave the other ring to. I know that you're still thinking about her. How could you be such an idiot, Luke?"

I frowned at her.

"That girl gave up on you years ago," Josephine shouted. "She knew that she was no match for you the moment she stepped into our world. She gave up on you, Luke!"

Josephine panted, while here I was, taken aback by her words.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I bit out.

She suddenly paled. She stepped back, retreating, her eyes wide in shock, as if she’d just realized what she’d blurted out.

She shook her head in denial. "Nothing," she stuttered. "I was just assuming things."

What was she talking about? Cassie giving up on me all those years ago? Cassie stepping into our world?

My jaw clenched. I gripped Josephine's shoulders, shaking her. She stared at me in horror.

"Did you meet Cassie?" I asked, my voice low and cold as ice.

She stiffened under my grip, still staring at me with wide eyes. Her lips trembled.

"Fucking answer me, Josephine," I hissed, feeling like I was about to explode. "Did you meet her? Did you meet Cassie before?"

Still, she was silent, like she just froze into ice.

"Answer me!" I hollered, startling her. The fear in her eyes was unmistakable.

I felt like I wanted to choke her to death. It took every part of me to restrain myself from doing so.

My voice was laced with venom when I said the next question, "What have you done to Cassie?"

Josephine shook her head in denial, but my menacing eyes told her to not lie.

She let out a shaky breath. "I didn't know anything—"

"Liar!" I lashed out, losing my patience. The fury in my blood made me shake in anger.

Tears of fear pooled in Josephine's eyes.

"It wasn't my fault," she stuttered. "She was trying to trick you. I had to remind her of where she stood. I had to tell that bitch—"

"Watch your mouth," I hissed.

How dare she speak of Cassie like that.

I gripped her shoulders even firmer, trying so fucking hard not to hurt her, because a man should never hit a woman. "What the fuck did you do to her? How did you meet her?"

Josephine's tears dropped onto her cheeks. But then she glared at me, as if she couldn't accept the fact that I would hurt her because of another woman.

"She's a snake," Josephine bit out. "She was trying to manipulate you. She was trying to trick you to marry her. For God's sake, just because she was pregnant—"

" Pregnant ?" My voice was shaking. My world seemed to stop.

"Yes, she was fucking pregnant," Josephine spat, her eyes murderous. Disgust skated all over her face. "I couldn't just let her barge into our life just like that. She disgusted me."

I was stunned. What the hell was Josephine talking about?

Cassie was pregnant? She was carrying my child?

My blood rushed to every vein in my body. No, she couldn't have possibly been...

But there had indeed been one time that we had sex without protection. I still remembered that I'd pulled out, but...

Fuck . We knew for a fact that it hadn't been completely safe. I might not have pulled out in time . It was Cassie that I'd rammed into—I should have expected that I couldn't control my fucking dick.

Oh, God .

"What happened to her?" I hissed again at Josephine, my fist shaking with rage. "How the fuck did you two even meet in the first place?"

She cried, as if seeing me treating her like this broke her heart. And there was nothing I wanted more than to shred her into pieces.

"I don't know." Her voice was a weak whisper. "She was the one who came here, and you were out of town because of a business meeting. We talked, and I left her at the coffee shop."

" What did you say to her ?" I hollered again, startling her. I panted. This shit fucking hurt.

Knowing that Cassie was pregnant with my child and had come all the way here years ago only to be crushed by this bitch in front of me made me want to destroy everything.

Maybe I really deserved to be in hell.

Josephine's lips trembled. "You wouldn't hurt me, Luke." But the look in her eyes told me otherwise. She knew that she didn't even believe her own words. "You wouldn't destroy me."

I stared into her with so much coldness—I could even feel that my heart was already frozen.

There was only fury and resentment in my voice as I said the words to her, slowly and clearly, "Trust me, Josephine. I will fucking ruin you so badly that you’ll wish you never knew me."

???

After finding out about Cassie trying to find me five years ago, and that she'd been pregnant with my child, I noticed that something was odd.

I'd been trying to dig up more information about her—I had some connections in the media industry, and I'd hired people to obtain confidential information—but I hadn't found anything about our child.

Cassie had never spoken in public about having a child, nor had she spoken about that to her close friends.

This was strange. There was no trace of our child. She must have hidden our child from the rest of the world, but even I couldn't figure it out.

Cassie was always in the spotlight, and it was hard to approach her without drawing attention from reporters.

I didn't care about that as long as we could be together, but with my family still crumbling and the probability that Cassie might not even want to see me anymore after hearing Josephine's lies, I had to be careful.

I didn't want to end up hurting her even more with all the conflicts with my family and her celebrity life .

I buried my face with my hands, sitting at my desk, when Ashton, my secretary, walked into my office.

Immediately, I focused my attention on him as he was going to give me another report.

"We've found what you're looking for," Ashton said, but he looked reluctant, as if whatever information that he'd acquired was bad. "We found out about what happened to Cassie. And we've found your son."

I was taken aback, abruptly straightening up. "My son?" My voice was shaking.

It was a boy.

"Yes, your son." He looked at me with sympathy, and I didn't like it one bit, as if he was telling me that something bad had happened to my son.

I waited for him to say more.

"We've looked through the records of all the hospitals in New York from the day that you left for your business trip in Texas in autumn 2014," Ashton said. "And indeed, she was admitted into one of them. She had an accident. A car crash."

My heart felt like it was being squeezed so violently until it burst into dust. "What?" I stuttered.

"She was hit by a car when she was crossing an intersection," Aston said with sad eyes. "Luke." He took a deep breath, as if bracing himself to deliver the information. "They said that she lost a part of her memory because of the brain damage she got from the accident."

Everything around me felt like it was crumbling. The air in my lungs was sucked out, and I felt like someone had just shot me in the head.

"The record said that she lost one year of her memory before the accident," Ashton said. "She might not remember you anymore." His last sentence was said softly—he knew that it would kill me.

What kind of nonsense was this ?

Did Ashton just say that Cassie had forgotten everything about us?

I still couldn't believe how cruel fate had turned for us.

The big lump in my throat made it so difficult to speak that it was only a whisper that left my mouth when I asked, "What about our son?"

Ashton let out a long sigh. "Both Cassie and your son survived the accident.

The hospital called her guardian, which was her stepmother, Morgan.

She came from LA to New York. Due to Cassie's critical condition, it took a few days for her to wake up, but miraculously, the baby was fine and healthy.

They handed the baby to Morgan, who told them that she would take good care of him and that they had a house and a family in New York. But..."

The expression on Ashton's face made me start to doubt whether I still wanted to hear the rest of the story or not.

"I've already checked further about that too. Based on the data we've got, they apparently had no house nor relatives here that would have helped them with the baby while waiting for Cassie to get discharged from the hospital. Morgan was lying."

My heart was beating so fast. I waited for Ashton to continue.

"I've checked the orphanages in this city, and there is one boy who was brought in on the same day that your son was discharged from the hospital," Ashton said, and my heart sank.

"I've talked with the head of the orphanage.

That day, somebody put a box in front of the gate and left.

When they checked what was inside the box, they were startled to find a newborn baby. "

I couldn't believe that all of those things had happened to Cassie and our son, and I hadn't even been there to protect them.

I hadn't been there when they needed me the most.

I balled my hand into a fist, clenching it tightly at my side. "Where is that orphanage?"

?? ?

While some kids were playing soccer on the field in front of me, their shouts echoing in my ears, my eyes were glued to one particular brown-haired boy who was sitting alone in the corner, a drawing paper on his lap, a crayon in his hand.

He was five years old.

"The DNA test is out," Ashton said beside me, while I still hadn't taken my eyes off the boy. "It's confirmed. He's your son."

Even though I'd expected that, my heart still skipped a beat. All these emotions inside me were too overwhelming.

I scanned everything about the boy. He was beautiful. My son was beautiful.