This Crazy Rich Boy

"He's very sick, Miguel," Claire says. "Whether he's my boss or not, there's nothing wrong if I want to hold his hand to make him somehow feel better."

Miguel gazes at her. "Would you hold my hand if I were sick, too?"

She hesitates. "I…I might. It depends. If you have a contagious disease, I might emigrate to another country just to avoid you."

Miguel snickers. "Sense of humor. Now I see what he sees in you."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing." Miguel sighs. "I think we're sitting ducks here. Would you like to have coffee while we wait for the medical results?"

"I've just had coffee," she says. "With Michelle."

"Michelle?" His eyes go big. "She has set up at the office, right? She's there now?"

"Yeah," she says. "We were both waiting for him to show up. But then I got a phone call from Gabriel's butler."

"Does Michelle know what happened to him?"

She shrugs. "I didn't have a chance to tell her. I came here as soon as I learned."

"So," he says. "Do we wait here all day while Gabriel's in there?"

"Go ahead, Miguel. If you need to be elsewhere, you can go. I'll just stay here."

Miguel stops. He looks at her and he sees she's on the verge of tears. He shrugs and leaves quietly.

Claire restlessly paces the waiting area, waiting for the doctor or anyone to return. She can see through the small glass window that a nurse is posted inside the ICU, and that somehow gives her some relief. But not much. As long as they don't know what's wrong with Gabriel, she cannot rest. She's trembling with worry. Whether she admits it or not, what happened to Gabriel has made her realize how fragile happiness is—one moment you're in bliss, the next moment, everything can be taken away from you, just like that. She tries hard not to think of all the terrible possibilities, but her mind has no effective compartments, where different thoughts can be safely kept from each other to avoid scrambling into chaos.

After a while, Miguel reappears with two paper cups of beverage. "Tea," he says. "To calm the nerves."

Claire looks at the offered drink. She takes it. "Thank you," she mutters, but her voice is so hoarse it comes off as a groan.

He sighs and gazes in the direction of Gabriel's room. "I'm sure my brother will be fine. He's tough as nails."

She says nothing.

"When we were kids, he also got very sick. He'd never tell me or my mother about what he felt. He told no one. He just stayed in his room wrapped in layers of blanket. One morning, as my Mom was about to go out to attend to our little store downtown, she saw Gabriel's room was still closed and eerily quiet. Curious, she checked on him. She was shocked to find him burning with fever. I was in school that time. I learned about it only later. He almost died." Miguel smiles as he turns to her. "He almost died because he didn't tell anyone how he was feeling. We later learned he had typhoid fever, that if we had failed in bringing him to the hospital, it was merely hours before Gabriel would have come to the point where it would be impossible to save him. My mother was furious and heartbroken and terrified at the same time."

"Is that what happened this time?" she says.

Miguel shrugs. "That's very likely. Maybe Gabriel had been sick in the past many days. Maybe he was sick when we were at the amusement park, you know. That's how he'd always been. It takes a lot of effort to convince him to open up. But the thing with the two of us brothers is we know each other's intentions without actually saying it out loud." Miguel gazes at her. "For instance, I know he likes you."

Claire's heart jumps in her throat. She keeps her mouth shut. Is this the right time to tell Miguel of the real score between Gabriel and her? Maybe not.

But Miguel pursues it. "Do you know that? Are you aware that he likes you?"

He got sick because he likes me so much, is what Claire wants to say, with a pang of regret. Instead, she dodges the question. "He hired me to do a job for thirty days, Miguel. I'm his fake fiancée, his semi-pretend executive ȧssistant. I'm not sure if genuinely liking me is part of the job description."

Miguel laughs. "You should play dodgeball, because you're very good at dodging things."

"I don't know how to respond to that."

"Well," he says. "I can't blame you if you want to keep things strictly professional between you. My brother is a difficult person to be with. He has his deep passions. When you hurt him, he gets hurt deeply, perhaps even scarred. I'm the younger one, but to tell you the truth, I act more like his elder brother. I'm always trying to be on the look-out for his welfare. That's why the first time I heard about his new fiancée—which is you, supposedly—I flew out here to check him out and see if he wasn't being crazy or something."

"He was really being crazy for hiring me," she says.

"And you're crazier because you agreed to this." He smiles.

"I know. When I started, I thought this was only a job. I can endure a job. It was supposedly only a month. But now…"

"But now…what?"

But now I think I've fallen in love with him for real, Claire wants to say. But she keeps that to herself. "But now, I don't know."

Miguel sighs. He takes a sip of his cold beverage. "I wish I could be sick, too, so that I'd feel that you care about me."

"Stop it," she says. "Not here, Miguel."

"Just saying. Can't blame a man for trying."

"Aren't you even worried that Gabriel might never recover?"

He gazes at her. "I told you. I'll never believe in a thousand years that something stupid like this flu or whatever this is, could defeat him. I know my brother. He will emerge from this stronger, and perhaps crazier, than ever. Oh, I couldn't wait for more of his ideas on making women happy."

"Really?"

Miguel pauses. "You won't believe it," he says. "But ten years ago, Michelle Alcantara was my girlfriend."

It takes a full moment for Claire to realize what he just said. Her brow creases. "What did you say?"

"Michelle. Gabriel's evil ex. She used to be mine. But I love my brother so much that I…Well, how does one say this without sounding like an utter fool? I gave Michelle away. Because I thought it was a worthy sacrifice. But knowing what we know now, maybe it was the worst decision ever, made by yours truly."

"Are you for real?" Claire says. "And did Gabriel know about your 'sacrifice', as you describe it?"

"Yeah, absolutely," Miguel says. "And he was—"

Miguel is cut mid-sentence as the doctor reappears bearing Gabriel's medical results, his face grim. Claire doesn't even speak; she just reads the doctor's face intently, even before he begins reciting Gabriel's medical condition.