"What is it, Charlie?" I asked the man for the third time and just like the other times he let out a sigh trying to find words.
Charlie had barged into the room few hours after my physiotherapist left and had been sitting infront of me for almost half an hour now without saying a thing.
"I'm sorry." He muttered shaking his head.
"Will you please speak up? What is going on?"
"I have never seen you look at a woman the way you looked at Luciana. I have never seen you so interested in someone. But..but she is not the one. She is not."
"What? Where is all this coming from? Oh..don't tell me you looked into her details. I told you not to do that. I told you if the chance comes I want to learn things about her from her own mouth." I snapped at him.
"I know. I know you said that. But you are my brother, dammit. I wanted to be sure that she wouldn't hurt you in the end. But still I kept my promise to you. I told you I won't look into her details. But a guard who was with us on the day we met Luciana said he saw her yesterday. He saw her with a baby. And all I did was confirm whether the baby was her's." Charlie justified.
"That is still breaching her privacy, Charlie."
"I know." He mumbled sounding disappointed at himself.
"So the baby is her's." I said suddenly feeling something in my throat making it painful to swallow.
"It is." He said not making eye contact with me.
"It's no problem, Charlie. It's not like I'm in love with her. Heck, I don't even know her that much. All I want from her is her friendship. I don't know why but when I met her, for once I felt like I could speak to someone freely even if she has not spoken much in my presence. And after so many years I felt like having a friend. I just want to get to know her."
"And that will be the beginning of your downfall, Sir." Charlie warned.
"But I now know that she isn't available so that won't happen. I won't lie and say that it doesn't upset me. Because it does. It's sucks to know that the woman I for once felt something is already taken. I had had a feeling that I could find my future in her. But if it's not love then let it be friendship." I said with a sigh.
"Why? What if you slowly fall for her? What then? I won't let you do this to yourself."
"You care too much about me, brother." I said smiling gratefully at the man before me.
"You don't care about yourself that much so someone has to." He said making me smile.
Charlie was the first person I employed. Back then I was fully capable of driving myself around but I still chose to take him in as my driver. When I first met him he was roaming around in the street late at night clutching onto his stomach in hunger and I saw myself in him. I remembered the days when I like him suffered in hunger and prayed for some help. Charlie had worked for someone before as a driver and that was all he knew and so I took him under my wing and that was probably the best thing I ever did. Through every tough situation he had stayed by me and supported me. Never had he walked away. Even when things got very difficult he stayed. When I ended up in the wheelchair he was the one who took care of me as I was too weak to do anything. I had no family to help me then so he became my family. My brother by choice.
"Seriously, Sir. Don't chase behind that woman and get yourself hurt. Let her go. The one meant for you is still out there but it's not Luciana."
"What is meant to happen will happen, Charlie. And moreover what are the odds of me meeting her again?" I asked with a smile and he let out a sigh before storming out. With him gone I dropped the fake smile off my face and took a deep breath hoping to calm my emotions and when that didn't work I took my anger out on the objects in my study and threw them all away, breaking things one after the other.
