“W-what” The woman’s voice faltered, her breath catching in her throat as her eyes widened.“I said I'll do it.” Jason repeated, “Isn't that what you want?”"Yes, but if I'm being honest, I didn't expect you to say yes—well, at least not so soon,” she admitted. "Well, what can I say? I really sympathise with everything your family went through,” Jason said, his words dripping with feigned sympathy, which the woman did not detect.With a wide grin stretched across her face, she leaned forward slightly, her eyes gleaming with anticipation. “I don’t want to sound forward, but I think it’s best that we move with haste and don’t delay. I think we should hold the wedding tonight.” She said with so much confidence and urgency.“Tonight?” Jason questioned “This woman is really something,” he added internally, marvelling at her audacity.“I know it's soon, but it will be a small ceremony. I'll call a priest that I know, and we can -”“No,” Jason interjected, cutting her off before she could
The blind item was more than enough to confirm Jason’s suspicion. “I need to find out who wrote this," he declared his next line of action aloud. He would have to track down the person who wrote it and find out if they had evidence to back up the claims. He hoped that it wasn't just bogus gossip. A knock on the door drew Jason’s attention away from his plan.“Just a minute,” he yelled as he covered the laptop with a pillow. “You can come in.”The door creaked open, revealing Rachel; she looked like she was about to go to bed. "Hi,” she said in a whisper.“Are you going to drug me again?” Jason said, his tone having a tinge of sarcasm in it.Rachel covered her face with her palms in embarrassment. “I'm so sorry about that,” she said, then removed her palms from her face. She sat on the edge of the bed with a grin. Jason watched her with furrowed brows, wondering what she was there for.“I heard you agreed to marry Amelia; you don't know how happy that makes me." Amelia said, her voi
The next morning, Jason woke up with only one goal on his mind: to get his phone from Camila and contact Reuben. If anyone could find out if it was truly Monica who posted the blind item, as Jason suspected it was, then it would be Reuben and his connections.He left the room for the first time since he tried to escape with Hannah in search of Camila. In the hallway, he ran into Hannah, who was dusting paintings.“Good morning, sir,” Hannah mused as she noticed Jason’s presence.“Hello Hannah, Good morning. Do you know where Camila is?”“Oh yes, she's having breakfast with her mother.” Once the words left her lips, Hannah slapped her palm against her forehead with a frustrated expression on her face. “I'm sorry, sir, I forgot to call you out to breakfast; it's just that.”“Hamnah” Jason gently called her name, cutting her sentence off. “It's fine,” he said before leaving the hallway and walking into the dining area.“Good morning, handsome." Camila beamed as soon as she saw Jason."Ye
It was now afternoon, and Jason had spent every minute since he hung up the call checking his phone to see if Reuben had sent him anything.As he was checking for the umpteenth time, he heard a knock on the door. He hesitated before telling the person to come in; he still wasn't comfortable about the incident with Hannah, and he tried to write it off as Hannah just being nosy and wanting to snoop around in his things. If that were the case, then he would have nothing to worry about because none of his belongings were here. But he had a nagging feeling that something else was going on, and he would have to confront her about it later.There was another louder knock on the door, which bore through Jason’s thoughts. He breathed a sigh of frustration. “You can come in,” he said reluctantly.The door opened to reveal Miriam. Jason struggled to stop himself from audibly groaning. He did not like her the most out of the three women. It wasn't hard for him to notice that they all revered her
The sun had begun to set in the sky. Jason had ripped the pages off of the notebook that he and Amelia used to communicate and threw them away.Now he and Amelia were lying in bed, pretending to be asleep, to wait and see if anyone would come for the phone. Both of them lay beside each other, their breaths slow and even.Minutes passed like hours as they waited. Just as Jason was beginning to doubt if anyone would show up, he heard a knock on the door. Following the knock, he heard the soft creaking of the door. His heartbeat quickened, but he kept his breathing steady. Through his half-closed eyes, he saw the person enter the room. It was Hannah.She tiptoed into the room, trembling slightly as she did. Her movements were clumsy, not like those of someone who was calculated. She reached the bookshelf where she had placed the phone, and in a quick motion, she snatched it, the phone nearly falling as she did. She checked if her clumsiness had woken them up, but she found that their ey
Going into the bathroom and locking the door, Jason felt his anticipation rise as he prepared to go through everything Reuben sent to him.The first was a voice recording. Jason lowered the volume on his phone as low as possible. He pressed play, then placed the speaker against his ear.“To be honest, it feels freeing to admit all of this,” he heard a feminine voice say. He assumed it was Monica.The woman continued, “Miriam was the one who leaked the video to the press. And you know that I wouldn't say such a thing without proof. I'll send you the emails and everything, but I'd like to remain anonymous.”Reuben replied, “Of course, you know I'd make sure of it.”“Good because I don't just have emails as proof; I have a recording of her admitting that she did it!” Monica said, her voice tinged with bitterness. “I don't know why she did it, though. I kept on asking myself how someone could be so callous, but I never found the answer. I mean, doing that to your own daughter.”It's terri
As Jason entered the study, the first thing he searched for were cameras. He checked all the corners of the walls but didn’t find any, which relieved him of some of the tension he felt.His initial plan was to confront Miriam face-to-face about the issue and what her true intentions were, but now that she was not home, he figured that the next best thing would be to check the study for anything that could lead him to the answers that he was looking for.The space in the study was more expensive than he had thought it would be. From the ceiling hung an ornate chandelier. On the walls, there were mahogany bookshelves and bookcases that were filled with leather-bound tomes and a wide range of books, antiques, and artifacts.There was a big oak desk in the centre of the room, with papers and files sprawled all over it. Right behind the desk was a chair with velvet cushioning.Jason started his inspection with the bookcases and shelves. He scanned through them, making sure to put whatever
“What are you doing here?” Hannah shrieked, “You’re not supposed to be in here, sir.”"Hannah, what’s that? What’s going on?” he heard Miriam say, followed by the sound of her heels against the floor as she walked to the study.Thinking fast, Jason pressed his finger to his lips, signalling for Hannah to be quiet. He took a book from the shelf and opened it, pretending to be immersed in it."Hannah, have you gone deaf? I asked you a question." Miriam snarled as she reached the door of the study. Her gaze darted inside the study, where she saw Jason standing and looking into a book. “Can you tell me why you’re in my private study?” Miriam said, her voice cold.Closing the book, Jason looked up at Miriam and said, “I’m sorry. I was so bored, so I looked around the house and saw the study. The door wasn’t locked, so I assumed that I could come in.” Jason said his tone was calm, a sharp contrast to the rapid beating of his heart.Miriam’s eyes narrowed slightly, her brows furrowing in sus