Hours drifted away like seconds and Elizabeth didn't wake up. Her body went through the seeming rigor mortis change due to the last night's adventure and an hour invested in the police station ─  telling them her story from scratch wouldn't have been as tiresome if she hadn't been kidnapped by Arnold and beaten on the head. She hadn't even changed the last night's attire.

On the brighter side, she had slept peacefully like a princess. As she lived the fact that it was her alienable right to the goose (feather) down pillow she laid her head on, or to the Hästens she had her pressed against. She smacked her lips and stretched her arms. "Joseph. . . baby, make me a lemonade squeezing three lemons and a tablespoon of sugar garnished with leaves of mint."

She began to giggle with a straightened-up backbone. "Did you send Uncle Tom to bring Melessa, Maria, and Liam from school? No! You are an irresponsible father, Joseph. Get a move on!"

She lay flat on her stomach, laughing like a hyena. To cover her embarrassment, she hid her face with her hands. In Joseph's absence, she started to enact a part of their future married life. "I can't wait for it, Jose."

She was happy and contented.

Just as she lifted and drew the curtains to see the weather outside. Nothing new──it was gray. She whirled around to see a burgundy-haired maid coming in with a table full of food on the wheels. The smell of it cheered her up.

"I've made four rounds secretly to check if you were awake. Then, I thought that I shouldn't disturb you and let you rest. I see you have slept in the same dress."

Elizabeth smiled. "Actually yes. Yesterday, I learned a life-changing truth about myself. It surely sapped my energy, but it was worth it. And my head . . . my head." She yanked her hand on the wound and felt something liquid; it was blood.

Immediately the maid walked her to the bed. "Ma'am, let me get a first aid box!" she said and dashed to the bedside drawer.

"Why is it bleeding again?" Elizabeth murmured, thinking hard. She bent to get her phone. Dialing Joseph's number was the first thing that struck her mind more than anything else. "What's wrong with him? It's two forty-five and he's not picking up his phone."

The frantic maid wrapped the gauge and went away. Elizabeth grabbed her jacket from the couch and slipped into sneakers. The outlook didn't look quite convincing, but anyways . . .

She landed in Mrs Warner's office. There was no one in the room except a man whose fair complexion blinded her for a second. She was pissed off. Not because she couldn't see anything, but because he had occupied Joseph's sit.

"Who are you? Why are you sitting there?"

"Hello, my name is Theo Musk. I'm Mrs Warner's new personal secretary. If I'm not wrong you must be her daughter, Elizabeth War──"

"Where's Joseph?" Elizabeth's eyebrows knitted as she passed him a deadly stare.

He got startled and cast his mind back. "Are you talking about Joseph Holden?" he erred. She terrified him into telling more with the power of her wide eyes. "Yes. He left this morning. I'm appointed in his place."

"He left the job," she pressed in disbelief. Her back hit the door. "But, why so abruptly?"

She raked her fingers through her hair before glimpsing at the man and leaping to grab his collars. "What did he tell you?"

Mrs Warner stood behind her. She could decipher the redness on Elizabeth's face. Before the girl could open her mouth, Mrs Warner said, "I tried to stop him. But he was resolute. I'm sorry El, I couldn't do anything for you."

Elizabeth grabbed the man's phone and dialed his number over and over again and heard the speaker say, please leave a voice message behind. Her mouth produced different types of intrusive sounds ─ everything popped out of the dilemma that gnawed her brain. "He can't leave his job. He loved to work."

Mrs Warner cupped her face slightly while she kept on chanting. "El, I'd advise you to forget about him. If he really harbored some genuine feelings for you, he wouldn't be abandoning you. Despite my constant persuasion to change his decision, he just left us."

Elizabeth's words landed like a tight slap on the elder's face, "Did you have to be that honest?"

"Go to your room," Still, Mrs Warner ordered with a tight expression.

Elizabeth pivoted on her heels impetuously and made her way outside. The sky, too, didn't look any happy with his decision. It was going to rain today. She quickened up her pace with determination this whole mile's distance and reached the sky-high gate that marked the dividing line of her ruptured aloofness and her merry reconcilement with her love. One of the security guards came out of his cubicle and bowed down. "Ma'am, should I arrange a car?"

He might have asked it because Elizabeth, in a true sense, perspired from everywhere.

She didn't speak a word, instead stepped up through the narrow door of his room to walk out through another door which leads her to the world beyond the mansion.

The mutton-chopped beard got suspicious of her demeanor and informed the head of their department quickly about her condition.

Elizabeth flagged down a taxi and jumped in. As soon as she got to his place, it started to drizzle. She clambered down, fighting against the resistance of her eyes to close as the rain started to pour down. "Joseph! Joseph!"

She banged on the steel gate of his.

"Joseph! Let me get through!" she shouted, craning her neck to see him through the glass window of his sitting room. Unfortunately, it was covered. "I know you are here!"

Her teary eyes were not shifting from the structure of his house. In utter disbelief, she hit her feet on the gate. "Don't hide from me, Joseph! Why did you fucking resign from there? Joseph, you can't leave me! Please, I beg you to stay . . ."

Her voice trailed off. She began to take her pitch a notch higher, given the heavy pounding of rain might absorb the sound of her feminine throat. "Joseph! If you are hating me because I'm Elizabeth. I'm truly sorry for that. Just see me for once, and I will promise to spend the rest of my life with you. I'll leave that fucking mansion behind. Please! Don't judge me because I belong to that household. Joseph, haven't you seen the changes in me? I'm not a selfish person anymore. I love you, Joseph! Please come out and make me yours."

The circumstances had sucked out all the joys that should have come with the bright news of her reunion with her family.

She rubbed her running nose on the jacket's sleeve and continued, "If you have lost your family, I too have lost the touch of my mother in all these years. Joseph, if you still think I'm responsible for your father and brother's death, then please punish me by resorting to some other severe way. Don't boycott me ─ I literally have no one whom I've ever loved so much."

Suddenly, Sarah opened her door. Her face turned blue when she saw Elizabeth lying near his entrance. Sarah stepped in the rain and dropped to her knees as she hugged Elizabeth ─ touching her wet gauge. "Elizabeth, don't hurt yourself."

"Elizabeth? Why did you call me by that name? Joseph . . . he must have told you about this. You are hiding him inside your house. I know . . . he can't trifle with my emotions like that." She rushed onward violently while Sarah followed her.

"Elizabeth!"

She noticed an unfolded, crinkled blanket on the couch. She pulled it away causing the little miniatures on her center table to shake and ultimately fall off.

"You are going to break them!" Sarah yelled. "It's my home."

Elizabeth turned around in horror, gazing at Sarah. For she wasn't used to hearing Sarah speak so awfully harsh. "I'm sorry," she cried out.

"Please go back. He has left his home. I don't know if he will ever come back or not. You, too, should move on."

"Sarah, love is not an arbitrary phenomenon, whereupon one person's decisions taken in haste are imposed on the other just to receive a wordless nod. I was also a significant part of this relationship. He should listen to my words as well before finding a new path."

Water pooled at Ruby's spot. Her clothes, hair, and shoes everything weighed much more than her body weight.

"Eliza─"

Without letting Sarah complete the comfort-providing line, Elizabeth pushed her past as she went on to bang Joseph's gate again. "Joseph! You loved me like crazy. Prove me wrong if those were just pretty lies of yours."

At that moment, a car halted. Sarah peered at the brawny men while keeping her hands on Elizabeth's shoulder.

Two bouncers marched toward Elizabeth and said, "Mrs Warner has sent us to take you back to the mansion."

Elizabeth didn't hear him as she imagined her life leaping the abyss of woebegoneness. "Dammit! Call me, Joseph."

People walking under their umbrellas in twos and threes secured a safe position from where they captured the short clips of the drama.

The bouncer stood before her eyes. "What we'll do, shall be seen as a part of our duty." He must have sniffed the parlous around him and decided to give her a heads-up. After all, who would want to get beaten by a girl who was witnessing her love life take the form of a devastating breakup?

"Everyone, we should proceed." He and his other peer hooked their arms and dragged her to the car. Meanwhile, Elizabeth jerked their arms and took off her sneakers, throwing them at Joseph's window. "Joseph, you will regret this decision. Joseph! Joseph!"

The bouncer forcefully pulled her to the car. A cry broke through her lips.

Sarah turned to the other side as she shut her ears, silencing the shrieks of justice and unbound love.

Sarah doddered inside while Anshuman handed her the towel to soak herself up. From behind Anshuman's silhouette, appeared Joseph. He pretended to look unperturbed.

"Never have I felt so flawed after lying to anyone than today, Mr Holden. This incident has raised a lot of questions about our friendship," Sarah recited arrogantly, not sparing a glance at him.

"Joseph, man, what's all this happening?" Anshuman breathed out.

Joseph adjusted the front of his jacket, looking at Anshuman with forced endearment. "I'm giving you the
keys," he said about his home. "Please show it to the real estate agents. And if you find a potential one, give them my contact number to discuss terms."

"Bro, this was gratuitous. She needed you in her life, Jos──"

Joseph pushed him against the wall, an arm doused at his throat. "Don't say anything that you might repent afterward."

"Great going! Excellent! I have no words to acknowledge your greatness!" Anshuman mocked in his cracked tone.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

As she returned to her room, she was surrounded by a circle of maids who took charge of restoring Elizabeth's makeup and giving her a nice hairdo. She had changed into a pale blue and pink cocktail dress. A tear blurred her vision in her right eye, soon making her sob.

Mrs Warner came from behind and tucked her head against her abdomen. "It's alright El. This dinner will help you take your mind off this subject. You will forget him soon."

Mark dashed through the door, breaking their serious line of thought.
"El, how are you doing now? Also, did Joseph really leave his job? I mean why so?"

"It was a fossilized decision on his part. I'm glad he had no issues from working here and had some other reasons." Mrs Warner then kissed Elizabeth's head. "My dear El is the world's most beautiful girl. She will get thousands of proposals from every corner of the world. And will ultimately choose anyone from them."

Mark squatted to whisper in her ear. "I'll promise to protect you not as a wannabe boyfriend, but as a doting brother.

"What's with the Chinese whispering out there?" She lifted a skeptical brow.

"It's a brother-sister thing," finally Elizabeth stated with a smile plastering on her face. There was no use in dwelling on the past, she believed.

Word count- 2070

a/n; Joseph's gone : (

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