Chapter 3

After some minutes of silence.

“How many times will I tell you not to do stuff like this? If your friends are leading you astray, why not cut them off?” Mr. Eric asked, trying so hard not to shout as he caught a faint whiff of alcohol coming from her.

“But Dad, there’s nothing wrong with that.” She replied, and Mrs. Yvonne interrupted before things got out of hand.

“You have to listen to your Dad, Gracie.”

“But I’m 21 Mum.”

“I know, even if you’re 30, we are still your parents.”

“I can make decisions on my own!” Grace retorted.

“I know, dearie, but we are here to lead you to the right path just in case you divert.”

“Mum, I…”

“ENOUGH!” Mr. Eric shouted and the two ladies became quiet.

“Is this how you want to behave till the Owens notice? Do you think they would want their son to get engaged with a wayward, ill-mannered, and mischievous girl? Or do you think they won’t dig up information about you?” Mr. Eric questioned, his butt edging close to the end of the couch.

“Why can’t you learn from your sister?” He finally asked, hitting the sour spot in her heart.

Knowing her daughter would retort to the last question he asked and her husband would get angrier; Mrs. Yvonne just held her daughter’s hand to calm her down while she spoke to her husband.

“Calm down, Darling; you already know that getting into a family like that has been her dream, so I’m sure she wouldn’t want to mess up such an opportunity, especially not one with the Owens.”

“You had better change and not be the reason why we are disgraced, I’ll give you two weeks to decide and get back to me. After that, the engagement process will commerce.”

“But Dad I —”

“Don’t Dad me, this is not the first time you’ve promised to change. Think about it and get back to me.” He said with the mindset that she was going to change, if not completely, but at least to a noticeable point.

While preparing himself to get up, he didn’t know he had just given her the chance to withdraw from the arrangement. After he left, Grace turned to her mother.

“Mum.” She called, feeling sad that she would lose this golden opportunity.

“Don’t be sad, dear; Daddy is just helping you out, okay?”

“Okay,” Grace replied, hoping to get hold of the opportunity presented to her.

She was going to do anything not to let this golden opportunity pass her by. She had been planning on how to seduce one of those extremely rich boys, but now it came this easy: she was never going to let it go.

“Good night Dear.”

“Good night Mum,” Rose responded and went straight to her room. Mrs. Yvonne sighed. At least, this would be the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

******

`````````` SEVEN YEARS AGO ``````````

“HUGO!” Mrs. Freya shouted again, she felt like her head was going to burst into a million pieces.

“Could you please stop shouting? Let’s settle this in peace.” Mr. Hugo replied rubbing his forehead with his fingers.

“SETTLE THIS IN PEACE!?” She shrieked her question and Mr. Hugo had to close his eyes to condone the headache he was already having.

“Are you not going to say something?” She asked again after some minutes, she couldn’t afford to shout again, her voice was a bit coarse.

“What do you want me to say when you won’t give me a chance to say anything?” Mr. Hugo answered her question with his question.

“Is she telling the truth?” Mrs. Freya demanded, pointing to the beautiful woman with an adorable teenage son.

“What do you think?” He answered her with another question.

“How could you?” Mrs. Freya questioned as tears threatened to, fall from her eyes.

“How could you do this to me? To us?” She asked, holding the hand of her son who was speechless. His gaze on the strange woman and son was that of disgust and pure hatred.

“Freya, relax.”

“Don’t tell me to relax Hugo! You cheated on me with her.” She retorted, pointing at the silent woman whose eyes were glued to the floor.

“How long? How long have you been doing this? Is there another woman after her?” After a few seconds of absolute silence, Mr. Hugo spoke up.

“Freya, we both know that I was in a relationship before the forced arranged marriage between us. You never loved me, we had to get married to seal the contract between our parents.” Hugo started but seeing the disgust in Freya’s face, he paused.

“I know you think I don’t know you had been sneaking out to see your ex-boyfriend even after our marriage till he finally got tired and broke up with you,” He said casually, and Freya’s eyes widened.

“I broke her heart by quitting our relationship because of you.” He said, pointing to the third party in the sitting room.

“But after that, it hurt me that you didn’t deserve my sacrifice at all. I tried to follow my mum’s advice by learning to love you, but what did you do? You went out sleeping with that riffraff!” Mr. Hugo raised his voice while the fear-stricken Freya tried to keep her husband’s mouth shut by making signs, but he ignored it.

“You think I didn’t know all this while? Do you think you got your tracks covered? I endured all that for the first year of our marriage, hoping you’d stop, but you didn’t; you even treated me like trash. Freya, let’s not dive deep into that.” Hugo ended, taking a deep breath.

“How — how did —” Freya bumbled.

“How did I know right? You were naïve. If I hadn’t secretly taken a paternity test on him.” He said, pointing to his first son, Cillian.

“And he was proved to be my son, I would have dissolved this marriage years ago.” He said and she gasped, feeling ashamed of herself.

“I understood your feelings because I felt the same too. That was why I gave you the freedom to continue with your infidelity, after all, we were forced into this.” He said, looking at her unwaveringly to see all the emotions on her face.

“I went back to her, but it wasn’t easy getting her over, but love conquers all. We continued with our relationship till I found out that she was pregnant. You don’t expect me to tell her to abort my baby, do you?” He asked and Freya found herself shaking her head in response with tears in her eyes.

“I married her in secret, gave her a house to live in and a company under the Owen’s corporation to manage. She gave birth to a boy and he has proven himself to be the real son of his father. He’s intelligent, smart, and anything good you can say.” Mr. Hugo said with a proud smile.

“So is he the reason you refused to let your son into the company as the next successor?” Mrs. Freya asked, hoping it wasn’t what she thought but her hopes were shattered within seconds.

“Yes, he is. Take a good look at our son; he is proud, to begin with, lazy, dumb, womanizes even as a teenager, drinks, smokes, lavishes money without care of the world, does…”

“DAD!” Cillian yelled, standing abruptly, ready to run into his dad.