The Day I Stopped Being Mr Nice Guy

CHAPTER 2

The fresh, clean air of the general ward was a huge contrast to the panic that filled the emergency room hours ago. Clara Vance’s high heeled shoes made a clicking sound on the sterile floor as she pushed open the door of her daughter’s room.

Daisy was fast asleep under the covers of white sheets. She tiptoed to the bedside as her heart clenched at the sight of the oxygen mask placed on her daughter’s nose. She bent down and brushed her lips against a pale forehead.

“Happy birthday, my sweet girl,” she whispered croakily and pulled a small velvet box from her purse and placed it on the nightstand beside a cup of water. It was a delicate gold necklace with a single silver ring, which is elegant, looks expensive and….impersonal. It was nothing but a gift of obligation.

Satisfied, she turned to leave and closed the door quietly behind her. She turned and bumped straight into something solid.

“Oh!”

Dante did not move. He stood like a statue with his arms crossed, and his dark eyes thick with exhaustion and controlled fury.

“Why are you out here pacing the corridor instead of watching our daughter?” Clara snapped shamelessly, as every pinch of guilt disappeared and was replaced by anger.

“Why did you miss our daughter’s fifth birthday, Clara?” He asked calmly, as he tried to bottle down his frustration. “And don’t say work. Not today.”

She threw her hands up in mock dismay. “I was busy, Dante. Something came up. A last minute emergency. Must I report my entire schedule to you? You are overreacting. She is stable now, isn’t she?” She tried to push him aside. “Now get out of my way, I have more important issues to take care of.”

He didn’t budge. “Busy. All day? From ten in the morning until now, past nine at night? What kind of emergency last for twelve hours and prevents you from answering a single call while your child is in the hospital?”

“It is my private life! My buisness alone!” She shot back at him in annoyance which drew a sharp look from a nurse, down the hall. “You do your job as a jobless house husband and make sure our daughter doesn’t dies! Is that too much to ask?”

Dante laughed coldly and sneered. “Your private life? Is that what we are calling it now? So your private life involves spending the entire day baking a cake and celebrating another woman’s child while your own daughter coughs blood in a hospital bed?” He breathed deeply as he prayed for patience. “A jobless house husband uh? My busy wife, haven’t you being with your ex lover all this while?”

Clara’s face went from shock to rage. “You have been spying on me? You had me followed?”

“I did not need to!” he shot back as his own control snapped. “Your best friend, Eva, posted a whole photo album for the world to see! You, Mason, the happy little family. Tell me, Clara, did you even remember it was Daisy’s birthday when you were singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jasper Lockwood? How can you be so stupid?!”

Her eyes flashed angrily as she opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by her phone ringing in her purse and she reached out for it with her angry eyes still pinned on Dante, but when she saw the caller ID, her posture changed instantly and her anger softened into concern.

“Mason? What is it?” She said sweetly and turned away from Dante. “….what? A nightmare? Okay, okay, shhhhh…it’s okay, calm down. I am on my way. Just hold him. Tell him I miss him too and I will be there as soon as possible…infact, I am on my way.”

She ended the call and turned back to Dante with a cold expression on her face. All traces of their arguments forgotten as all she could think of now was this new ‘urgent emergency.’

“Jasper is having a nightmare. The poor child is terrified and asking for me. I have to go,” she announced as if it’s an important news.

Dante just stared at her in disbelief and said nothing.

“Look after our daughter. When she wakes up, tell her that I have gone to attend an important Buisness and I will try my best to see her again soon.” she said coldly and without sparing him another thought, she hurried down the hallway, towards the exit, towards the child who needed her more.

Dante stood rooted on the spot as he watched her go until she disappeared around a corner with a slow frustrated smile on his dry lips. He leaned back against the cold wall and ran a hand over his face.

Jasper is having a nightmare.

The sheer senselessness of it finally broke him. Her daughter has been on the emergency bed hours ago and almost died, but she had left because another child had a bad dream. The final, fragile thread of hope he had held on to…that somewhere, somehow, the woman he had married was still there…snapped.

It is finished.

He had believed, truly believed, that after they get married, she would move on. That Mason Lockwood was a reminder of a stupid past. He had given up everything, Poured every ounce of his being into this family, hoping it would be enough. Now he saw the truth. In her heart, her family was Mason and Jasper. He and Daisy were just…an obligation. A mistake she was forced into because she had gotten pregnant.

The vibration of his phone was a welcome interruption and he answered it, his voice hoarse and tired. “Walker. This better be good.”

“Doctor Vance?” Liam, his most promising junior researcher called out eagerly with excitement.

“Speaking.”

“Sir, we did it! Following your final formula and instructions to the letter, the synthesis was a success! The compound is stable and we have produced the first batch of Diathystine.”

The news was like an electric current on his skin. After years of dead ends, of countless nights he had spent in his home lab after putting Daisy to bed, of calculations and theories that the rest of his science colleagues called ‘impossible.’

“You are certain?” Dante asked in disbelief as all thoughts of Clara vanished instantly from his head.

“One hundred percent sir. The Initial tests match all your predicted parameters. It is a miracle. We worked all night. The first bottle will be delivered to Silver Falls General for Doctor Alice under your name by noon tomorrow.”

A breath he felt like he had been holding on for five years finally left his lungs as waves of relief washed over him. Daisy. She has a chance.

“Liam…thank you. Thank you and the entire team. This is….wonderful.”

“Ofcourse, sir! We were just executing your vision.” The line paused. “Sir, if you don’t mind me asking…now that the project is a success…will you be coming back to the company? Permanently? Vertex Pharmaceuticals isn’t the same without you.”

Dante looked around at the empty corridor where his wife had hurried down after calling him a ‘jobless house husband.’ He saw the past five years of his life…the missed promotions, the declined conferences, the quiet resignation from top of the pedestal of science, all for a family that was crumbling to ash in his hands.

He saw the future. A future where Daisy was strong. A future where she wouldn’t need him always around her. A future where he had nothing left to give to the dying embers of his marriage.

He thought of the photo again. He remembered Mason’s smug smile. Clara’s barely concealed joy.

A new resolve, sharp and cold solidified within him. He was done being Dante Vance, the full time father and part time genius. The world that had once celebrated him was waiting…and he was ready to reclaim it.

He raised the phone back to his ear, with a new decision etched in his heart.

“Tell the board,” he said. “Tell them I am coming back.”