Xhemin entered the grey cottage and switched on the lights, only to be welcomed by an unexpected familiar silhouette who had been waiting for her at the living room.

"Grandpa?" Xhemin was surprised to see Dr. Miles as she didn't expect him to be home. Since Huzey's accident, the old man barely comes home at this hour "You are home?"

​​

Dr. Miles looked at Xhemin in a hard gaze "Where have you been?"

"I went to the hospital to see Huzey and I went out to see a friend," She answered politely aware of the glint of indifference in Dr. Miles eyes. Did he saw Darryl and her outside?

"A friend?" The old man's lip curled before he confronted her once again. "That's the Lagdameo heir I saw in the gate…"

Xhemin's face lost all the colour she had in her face when Dr. Miles pointed the fact.

Seeing how Xhemin's face gave away her guilt and thunder-stricken with his granddaughter's love affair, the old man couldn't help but raised his voice "Since when did you had friends with that Lagdameo heir?"

"Grandpa let me—"

"This!" Dr. Miles cut Xhemin's explanation, throwing off the old newspaper that was resting on the table near him. All of it had the headlines about the Lagdameo woman "Tell me you aren't this person!"

Xhemin didn't dare deny it. There was no point of lying because her grandfather had all the information stitched out perfectly. She just closed her eyes, pressing the bridge in her nose that suddenly hurt. Will her grandfather understand her reason?

Xhemin's reaction only confirmed every question he had. Fired up with all of Xhemin's mishaps, he continued chiding her, his hard voice filling in the whole room making Xhemin shiver on each of his words "Do you know what's this gonna cause us?"

"I don't because you aren't telling me!" Xhemin cried, upset of how their conversation had become.

"I've told you many times why we had to stay away from the elites" Dr. Miles had to remind her again.

"Told me what? That it is for my safety? Because I was kidnapped when I was a baby and mom died because of it?" Xhemin retorted telling off everything that Dr. Miles used to reason with her "But grandpa that was a long time ago. I'm a big girl now"

"You don't know what you are talking about" Dr. Miles snapped back. Xhemin had never talked to him like this and hearing the girl's words only made him doubt all the decisions he had in his behalf. However, the doctor was still firm in his arguments "Do you know what kind of a family the Lagdameo's are? They won't approve of you?"

"Why not? Because I'm a granddaughter of a simple town doctor? Is that it?" Xhemin was used to the same line people threw at her in the camp but hearing the same words from her grandfather hurt like hell more, "Is that really what you are worried about or because you are afraid that they'll figure out I'm the famous Doctor Miles granddaughter and the heir to Feather HealthCare Corporation?"

"How did you know all of that?" Another confrontation shook Dr. Miles nerves. How much information did Xhemin knew about their past?

"Because I'm not stupid" She answered, tears were still falling from her out of frustration, "Can't you see I had grown up. I'm not a Little Misus anymore. I had to build a life on my own choices now"

"And your choice is that?" Dr. Miles pointed his hand toward a window that was looking through the ranch's gate "The Lagdameo heir? Is that the reason why you let everyone knew that there is a girl in Rivendell?"

"I didn't—"

"Do not ever lie over it!"

"Yes! Yes!" Xhemin hollered back with so much guilt in her eyes "Not entirely, but perhaps yes. I just really wanted to get the award myself but…also part of me was tired of everyone mocking me as a girl not suitable for him" Xhemin confessed.

"So you did this! You expose yourself just for that boy?" Dr. Miles couldn't believe Xhemin's stupidity. When did she grow all these courage to disobey him? "You are putting our family at risk!"

"How? You always tell me that but I can seemed to find a reasonable excuse for you to hide me away until now" She asked again, hoping perhaps this time her grandfather spill every goddam reason he had because Xhemin was too tired of it all.

"The elite community is not good for you. Trust me I've been there!"

"Isn't that something I had to decide on my own?" For the first time, Xhemin questioned her grandfather's decisions

"I just want you to be safe, how could you not understand that. Was Huzey's accident not enough for you?" Dr. Miles chided her relentlessly. The old man doesn't know how to talk through Xhemin anymore.

"What has Huzey's accident anything to do with Darryl and I?" Xhemin defended.

"The Lagdameo's are ruthless, they—"

"Do not even go there! Didn't you tell me not to accuse people without any proof?"

"Xhemin!" Dr. Miles eyes ragged in anger. "You'd become so stubborn just because of that boy that you barely knew!"

"That's not fair to say!"

"If you knew who he is, you'll never get involved with him!"

"I tried to stay away grandpa…. I tried" She confessed and new set of tears came by. Her voice was full of hurt, despair and frustration.

Weakly she added "….I tried for you, because I don't want you to get mad…. I tried so hard until my heart ache so much I can't anymore breathe…. But I just can't…I can't….

In defeat she admitted painfully "…I love him…"

When Dr. Miles heard Xhemin's confession, a scene flashed at the back of his mind, reminding him of someone he knew closely and the pain of the past came through him once more.

"You sounded like your mother…," The doctor gasped unintentionally, feeling so distant "…so stubborn"

"The mother I barely knew because just like everything else in my life, you shut her memories away. You hid everything about her just like you hid me" Xhemin wasn't able to withhold her bitterness and not able to take any more pain, the girl went running into the stairs and shut her door.

The old man was left dumfounded in the living room. His knees suddenly became weak that he needed to hold tightly on the chair to keep him from not falling into the floor.

Since when did Xhemin knew about Feather HealthCare Corporation?

What will her daughter's fate be as the Lagdameo heir's woman?

Was all this the punishment of heaven for all his mistakes?

Did God put the blame to his grandchildren to make him suffer terribly?

Dr. Miles could only close his eyes and cry silently as he asked God for forgiveness.