The CEO's Rose

Chapter 122: Trap

Ryan’s POV

Ryan Terrell was not the type of person who ran away from his problems. He was the kind of guy who faced things head on. No matter what came his way, he never, ever, backed down. He always kept moving forward.

Many of his business rivals could attest to that. But as much as Ryan would have loved to lean into that description wholeheartedly, he could not. For years now Ryan had been running away. And the person that he had been running from was somebody that he cared about a great deal.

His grandfather, Langston Terrell.

It had never been Ryan’s intention to go so long barely ever talking to the old man. When he had first found out about Brian and Gwendolyn, he had been livid, understandably so. But before things could come out in the open, Brian had gone and died, leaving the old man down one grandson and Ryan without a brother.

He had been torn between devastation at Brian’s death, and rage over what his brother had done to him. Back then, Ryan had looked at the old man and he had realized that to tell him the truth would be to break his grandfather’s heart all over again.

Unable to do that, he’d chosen to keep his distance until he had a better control of his emotions.

But that day had just never come, so years had passed, with Ryan watching the distance between him and his grandfather grow wider and wider, unable to do anything to bridge it. Fearful that if he spent too much time in his grandfather’s presence, he would ruin the image that the old man had of his youngest grandson. So Ryan had stayed away and now it seemed that there was a huge chance that his grandfather would be going away forever. Leaving Ryan is the only leaving Terrell in the whole wide world.

The call had come just after Ryan had sealed a very important business deal.

His grandfather had taken ill in the middle of the night and things were not looking good. Upon hearing those words from the family butler, Ryan had not wasted any time. He’d gotten into his car and had sped towards the Terrell family home. Breaking more than a few laws as he went but not caring at all. Whatever charges he’d have to incur, he would deal with them later.

So long as he got to see his grandfather again, nothing else mattered.

He had already wasted far to much time. He truly hoped that that had not been all of the time that the two of them had had left. That was the thought that clung to Ryan’s mind as he made his way through the hallways of the giant house that he had grown up in. The house still looked exactly as it had done during Ryan’s childhood. Nothing had changed at all in the years since he had last set foot there. But as worried as he was, he was not even sure that he would have noticed changes if there had been any present. He was far too busy chewing himself out to really pay attention to anything else.

***

Perhaps if he had visited more, or talked more to his grandfather, things would have been different.

Maybe during a conversation, the old man would have let out a cough and Ryan would have instantly been able to tell that something was wrong and asked his grandfather to seek medical intervention well in time. Perhaps if he came to see his grandfather more, he would have noticed a decline in his physical health and had specialists flown in to take a look at the old man. But all of that wishful thinking did not help Ryan at all.

All it served to do was remind him of the things that he should have done but did not. He had chosen to ignore his grandfather because he had been trying to spare the old man’s feelings, to not let him feel even an inkling of the hurt that Ryan still felt. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com

But in the end he’d ended up hurting the old man and hurting himself even more. Now it seemed he was in for even more pain. Just from the butler’s tone, Ryan had been able to tell that things were pretty bad. Just how was he supposed to handle losing yet another family member? Feeling tears building up in his eyes, Ryan blinked rapidly and picked up his pace.

Reaching the door to his grandfather’s rooms, he pushed them open and walked in, coming to a stop when he found the bed empty. Heart sinking, he turned to the butler. The man had been walking next to him like a silent shadow ever since he had arrived.

"Where is he?" Ryan asked, glad when his voice did not shake. His grandfather’s bed being empty could mean something that Ryan did not wish to face just yet. Fortunately for him, it seemed he did not need to.

Instead of delivering news of his grandfather’s passing, or saying that the old man had had to be rushed to the hospital, the butler instead raised a finger and pointed to the giant windows that led to his grandfathers’ private garden.

Worry giving way to suspicion, Ryan narrowed his eyes and began walking in that direction.

How could somebody who was supposedly at death’s door be well enough to be outside? Stepping through the giant windows, Ryan’s question was answered when he caught sight of his grandfather.

The old man, looking as healthy as can be was sitting beneath the shade of his favorite tree, a tea cup in his hands. At Ryan’s approach, his grandfather put the tea cup down onto its saucer and placed it on the stone table next to him.

" Took you long enough," He said in a very unimpressed tone and as Ryan took a seat next to him there was no denying what had happened. He’d been had. His grandfather had set the entire thing up in order to get Ryan to visit, and he had fallen for the trap.