26
Dean
2 Years Ago — December 2016
T he moment Dean clamped eyes on Matthew Davenport’s social media page, he recognised him. His suspicions from back in January had finally been confirmed. He’d been past the shop multiple times in between, trying to gauge who the boy was, and if he was ever with Ella. He’d never found out much, and eventually, Dean gave up caring. It wasn’t worth it when, even if his suspicions had been correct, she was going to walk down that aisle and exchange vows with him, anyway. He’d had Quinn. She was bound to have someone, Dean knew.
But, oh, how he wished he had insisted on pursuing it as soon as his eyes hit the page. Dean kicked himself; how could he have been so stupid?
The same… orphan boy she had taken on the cruise with her was the same boy who dared to keep checking Ella out in the coffee shop all those months ago.
He was a boy in every kind of way, not a man, and thus he certainly didn’t deserve Ella.
The moment he had a call from the cruise, around fifteen minutes prior, to tell him who had checked in with Ella, Dean had felt like both the best news ever and the worst. He was satisfied because he finally had his answer, but it was like a dagger in the heart.
He poured himself a glass of whiskey.
Dean’s plan had been a long one, but the moment the clients had given him six tickets, and not three, he knew what he needed to do. He gave three tickets to three discreet employees he knew had the annual leave and would keep things a secret for a free cruise and an extra month’s wage in cash to keep it all quiet.
So far, they had emailed him the facts: Ella had taken two men on the cruise with her, one her age named Matthew, and an older man with the same last name. Matthew and Ella were spending a lot of time together, and from what the housekeeping had gathered, Ella’s room had not been used, and it looked like there were two suitcases with both men's and women’s clothing and toiletries littered around the room Matthew was occupying. His people had overheard Matthew and Ella calling each other pet names.
When Dean filled in the rest himself, he was pissed off, to say the least. The anger fizzed in him as if he were a bottle of Coke that had mints dropped in, and he was about to explode.
Its bubbles overwhelmed his mind first, and then his bloodstream.
Dean’s yell echoed around the room, and when he threw the glass, he instantly felt better. The shattered pieces of glass that rained on the kitchen floor made Dean’s bright red vision lessen and turn to amber. He didn’t care about the glass on the floor; he would deal with it later.
When the sharp, burning taste of the whiskey slid down his throat from the bottle, the amber vision transitioned to green. He knew then that he could deal with it all again and he walked back to his laptop.
The thing Dean couldn’t understand was, why him? His social media was boring; it told a tale of happy family memories in the photos before the two adults disappeared and the photos became slowly less animated. Dean felt bad when he read that he was an orphan. No one deserved to lose their parents, even at sixteen. But nothing about this Matthew boy looked that interesting; nothing jumped out and made him look like he was exciting enough for Ella. Dean knew Ella like the back of his hand. If she was ever to find love before their marriage, he would have expected her to find someone different than her: maybe a man with tattoos, or a man who found surfing fun, a man who would be into video games, or who would find something like airsoft and shooting fake guns and bullets at others fun.
Sure, this Matthew was opposite to her – he had no parents, no money and worked part-time serving coffee and cake – but for all intents and purposes, they were the same.
Dean had always loved Quinn because she was his opposite: she loved the thrills of life. She dyed her hair bright red because she wanted to be seen. She loved the attention. Dean didn’t. Sure, he liked to drive around in his car which cost him more than most people’s yearly wages, and he liked his house in the most expensive part of the city with its gates. He loved to whip out his cash when going shopping. But he didn’t like attention . He lived for the small shocks he gave people, whereas Quinn wanted people to see her.
Ella hated attention. Though whenever he was with her, Dean gave it to her, and he knew she hated it. How could he not give a woman like Ella his attention with the way she looked, the way she seemed to always love life, until recently.
He knew he needed to get her away from Matthew, and he knew for the good of their families, for the company, and most importantly, for Dean himself, he needed to make her see that she couldn’t fall too deeply for this orphan boy.
If this got in the way of their wedding, then Dean knew all hell would break loose. Her father would be tried for extortion and blackmail toward Anthony. Amelia would be tried for paedophilia or whatever the charge is for having sex with a student. Dean would lose his money, status, the company…
Everything, every single little thing, Dean knew, was resting on the shoulders of Ella; that blonde-haired, soft angel he wanted for more than just convenience. She didn’t even understand the gravity of the situation, and it angered him.
Dean had no idea how he would break their little liaison up. He knew himself how strong love could be: it could be the phoenix that rises from the ashes and flies you higher than you ever thought possible. Love could be the most dangerous drug in existence, yet it causes you to become addicted before you’ve even let it touch your lips.
Dean knew he would have to play the long game. He didn’t even have the full picture yet, but it was as close to finished as it was ever going to be.
He looked at the boy’s profile again – no sign of Ella, apart from two photos: one of a group of students on a trip with the university from January this year. Dean noted how Matthew and Ella stood beside each other, yet she seemed to laugh at something the girl beside her was saying or doing. The other picture was of a group of them at the student union bar – they were grouped together and looked tipsy. Dean noted the date on the photo, October twenty-fifteen; a month after Ella started university. Dean knew they couldn’t have dated then. It was far too early. Or could they have?
He wondered how they got together; whether they had gone out on a date, or whether it was a gradual friends-getting-closer situation. He wondered whether Ella had slept with him yet. She knew from the moment she was told about the contract that she was to remain a virgin. But much like love, Dean knew lust was a strong, hypnotic feeling. There was no way she wouldn’t have given in.
The rage started bubbling like a volcano in him all over again. He had to do something , he just didn’t know what yet.