CHAPTER 2

Jane would have fallen just as in love with the suite as she had if she had stayed the night. Her fiancée had just arrived last night from a two weeks trip so Lia understood.

"You should sit down for this." Jane murmured, pulling out a chair for her.

"What's going on? Is it Austin? You're scaring me." Lia asked, letting out a chuckle that sounded as fake as the synthetic press on her nails, she had taken great pain to set on her fingers last night.

"You have to sit first."

Lia nodded and gulped taking the chair Jane offered. "What's wrong? Is it Austin?"

"Fernando can't reach your mother." Jane dropped.

"I can't too, probably because her phone is dead or something. I don't know if she has a thing against charging a phone." Lia said laughing and Jane sighed.

"Her suite is empty. I think your mother...."

Jane didn't get to finish her sentence before Lia was out the door running down the hallway barefoot. She didn't care who was looking or how she looked with her hair flying in every direction.

Her mother had gone missing!

"I don't understand this. My mum was so excited about the wedding, she couldn't have run off. Something is wrong, I can feel it." Lia sobbed, her tears blinding her vision.

Jane pulled her close and Lia would have thanked her if she had the strength to speak, but she didn't so she just placed her head on Jane's shoulders and cried.

She pulled away after some minutes, to acknowledged her mother's fiancée for the first time since she walked into the room. "Mr Fernando, I'm so sorry about this. I promise you my mum would never do this on purpose. I think something is wrong."

She sniffed and blinked back tears. This had to be a prank. Where are the cameras?

"I mean my mum has been talking about this wedding nonstop. Since you proposed, it was all she could think or talk about."

Fernando shrugged nonchalantly in response and Lia narrowed her eyes. He was acting like he didn't care.

"That's all well and good but what will happen now Amelia? Your mother has run off and I am left looking like an idiot on my wedding day."

"I'll be outside, Lia." Jane slipped out after giving her hands a gentle squeeze but she almost missed it.

Lia felt she had been slapped. Gone was the loving man her mother had brought home for the past three years. The man who had paid for the amazing suite she had slept in, the wedding, the other things she now had. That man wasn't the one standing in front of her, she was looking at a stranger.

Where was the man who had been completely in love with her mother?? The man who had been reserved about meeting her for the first time? The man who had sought her blessings so he could ask her mother to marry him?

"I don't understand. Don't you care that my mother could be lying somewhere in pain and hurt? Is your reputation and your guests all you can think about? What about my mother?"

He sighed and Lia suddenly felt guilty for yelling at him. He was hurting too. They were both victims, and so was her mother. There was no way her mother had run off.

"I love your mother Amelia but I have to think about myself, since it's obvious that she must have been thinking only about herself when she bailed on our wedding."

Lia opened her mouth to speak but he wasn't finished. "That hall with all the decorations is filled with my guests. My family, my friends are there. My business partners are there and I'm sure a few of my enemies and competition are in that room waiting to see the outcome of this.

He wasn't shouting but Lia felt the power in his voice, in each word.

"We should tell the guests that the wedding has been postponed then. They'd understand that things like this happen from time to time." She sniffed and stood up meeting his eyes. "Surely that could work."

His chuckle sent icicles rolling down her back. It wasn't pleasant.. it was rather dark and cold. "Sure but that's only if I were some shoemaker in the middle of Manhattan that no one knew but I am Fernando, even you know what that means and we're in New York not Queens."

Lia sighed, exhaustion washing over her. Worrying for her mother was too much already, but what Mr Fernando was saying.. is on a different whole level of worries.

She closed her eyes. Was there really no way to prevent this honest man from getting tagged in the media? All he had done for her and her family was take care of them, he didn't deserve this. Only heavens knew what condition her mother was in but since she wasn't around, no one would really see it. Mr Fernando was a different story. He was like he said 'The Fernando ' the media would have a field day with this type of news. She thinks.

She could only imagine the headlines; 'influential billionaire left at the altar after spending a fortune for the wedding '

She wished this was something she could fix if she closed her eyes. She would give anything for all this to be one big fat nightmare. One she would wake up from and laugh after crying profusely at how real it felt.

But as she opened her eyes, she was face-to-face with Mr Fernando and he looked pissed.

"What other alternative is there?" She asked, her voice coming off as a whisper. "Is there anything I can do?" She tried again.

It wasn't like she could marry him in place of her mother, that would be too absurd.

"Stand in for your mother."

Lia wasn't sure she had heard him. She looked at him shaking her head. "What do you mean stand in ? I don't think I'm following."

"You have to marry me, Amelia. There's no other way."