The CEO’s Quadruplets

Chapter 8

The next several weeks passed quietly. The interior decorator Isabella had hired diligently organized their plans, bringing the house to life. However, with each new piece shipped in, Isabella felt the house was only getting emptier. She went through the motions of her life, while barely leaving the house. Going to her course and department meetings became her biggest outing. She shopped for groceries on the way home, and would schedule her doctor’s appointments before classes. There no longer became a reason for nice dinners or adventures to new places around Los Angeles County. It would only make Isabella want to see Amory more, and doing things alone just felt pointless.

Anne came over to talk about the baby shower often, but it was evident that she was checking in for her own curiosity and another’s. Isabella took a weekend with Elizabeth to drive upstate to find better pumpkins for Halloween. When the holiday came, Anne and Leo came over to help Isabella pass out candy in her new neighborhood surprisingly filled with families. The mothers her age were excited to meet her, asking her questions that she did not have in her heart to answer because their happiness highlighted her isolation from her family and her life partner she had devoted herself to in that quaint Italian garden.

As much as she loved her dog, her work, and her friends, none of it could fill the gaps made in her life with Amory’s absence. However, she did not have the heart to admit their sudden separation to anyone. She plastered s smile onto her face as she told strangers he husband was traveling for work, and being that it was only half of a lie everyone seemed to accept it.

Isabella had kept herself locked away as her stomach grew wider and her mind became more tired. It did not help that it had become too hard to drive with her waist behind the wheel. Her wagon was able to fit her figure, but the stress of it was simply eliminated if she called the car service they had on retainer. Now, Isabella was making no significant trips without a stranger driving her somewhere, which added another dimension to not wanting to go out.

When Thanksgiving rolled around, Isabella booked herself a trip to a specialty spa upstate designed for pregnant women like herself. Instead of wallowing at someone else’s dinner table that holiday, she floated in a dark suspension tank as she remembered the four little miracles growing inside her. It gave her strength to know her tough love with her husband was more for them than herself.

Even if the uncharted territory brought loneliness and reasons to lie to others she loved, Isabella knew in her heart that is was better for the babies to have a stable life. She kept telling herself it was right for them. For their sake alone, she kept moving forward. When a damp December finally rolled around, Isabella knew that the time away from Amory was stretching on much longer than she ever anticipated.

Amory was nowhere to be seen. Starting only a few days after their fateful fight, he sent her flowers twice a day. Each had a little card that read like a text. They told Isabella what he was doing. He was staying in a studio-owned penthouse that felt nothing like their home. He missed the dinners they made together. He hated himself for letting her leave like that. He was waiting for permission to return home. And as always, he loved her. As time stretched on they became less frequent, but the blooms never stopped coming.

Reading the notes made Isabella feel guilty. It made her look at the rings on her finger that reminded her of all those happy times that seemed to slip away with every passing day. When she tossed aside the typed out notes, Isabella remembered the way Amory had called her cruel. That had been his knife in the fight, and it made a mark on her.

Still, Amory never told her that Starla was gone, and tabloids still gave false reports of her romance with her handsome producer. The images nagged her in grocery aisles, and she got so angry at one once that Isabella tore it up while waiting to pay. She promptly paid for it and apologized for the outburst. Thankfully, the teenage cashier did not ask about the sudden crazed fit that made everyone in the store stare at Isabella.

Now, it was raining, and Isabella had cancelled her class so the students could prepare for their upcoming presentations for the final projects and start exam prep. She emailed out study guides and left them all their own devices. The students might have just considered it a nice gesture, but she just wanted to be alone that evening with a large plate of gnocchi. As Isabella put athletic tape around her growing stomach in attempt to support the weight, the doorbell rang.

            “I brought salad and cheese bread,” Anne as she stepped through the door and held up a brown bag. “I thought we could eat the loaf of bread and then make ourselves feel better by having a bit of greens.”

            Isabella smiled. “I’m already making pasta.”

            “Even better!”

            They stepped through to the kitchen where Anne rambled on about her day as Isabella began to plop the gnocchi into the boiling water a few at a time. Bella watched over them, waiting for the little bites of doughy heaven floated up to the surface to be fished out. Romeo slept on his little pillow in the kitchen, watching both women move about as he waited for food to drop. As Isabella was dropping in her third and final batch of gnocchi, Anne brought up Amory. To hear his name aloud felt like a stab in the heart, but Isabella kept her composure cool as she listened intently.

            “Amory had to leave the country yesterday.”

            “Where is he then?” Isabella had a sudden thought of him in Hong Kong as she was going into labor.

            “Vancouver. The Canadian distributor Blake Studios is partnered with has their contract up for renewal, and they want to talk terms. I’m not sure Amory should have gone though. He took a team of lawyers, but I still think he might screw the whole thing up.”