31
Dean
October 2018
H e parked the car in front of Adrian and Martha’s house and sighed. Dean felt like a weight was lifted, though an extra weight had been put on and it was only going to get bigger and more real. But he knew he had done the right thing; desperate times called for desperate measures and, well; it didn’t get much more desperate than losing everything he had. Dean knew Ella needed to know the reason behind the pact, whether she agreed with the lying, the blackmailing, and the depth of their situation. Everything rested in her hands.
He was glad she knew. He knew she didn’t believe him when he told her he’d always thought she should’ve known, but it was the truth. If Ella had known when she was told about the contract, then she may have been more receptive to it. Maybe.
He sighed at the message on his phone. What he’d failed to tell Ella was that the actual physical contract wasn’t legally binding, and it pissed Dean off.
The thing they’d always been told was that there was physical evidence of this contract – and while Dean was always suspicious, it’d taken him longer than anticipated to find out that fact. He supposed in one way, it would never be legally binding. How was a forced marriage legal? But he knew having that information would one day be to his advantage.
Dean liked to be one step ahead of everyone else. Ella’s revelation had surprised him, but he was back on track. All he had to do was lay the foundation, and Dean knew he’d be back on top.
∞∞∞
He sat opposite his supposedly future mother- and father-in-law and sipped his coffee, allowing them to take in the news about their daughter. He knew he had to tell them.
Telling all four of them would have meant telling them everything, from how he had known about Matthew for years, to how he had tried to keep them apart and failed. He knew if he did that, the two fathers would have found them and killed Matthew.
He could have just told his father; that would have meant Anthony killing Matthew silently, kidnapping Ella back and no one else would have to suffer.
Both would have meant what Dean would have secretly loved mere days ago: eradicating the problem. Dean knew he could’ve never done it . But the thought of nothing being in his way any longer was perfect.
But he remembered the look on Ella’s face when he’d punched the man she loved. He remembered the way she told Dean they were going to get married. That was love. The pure, deep love that Dean had longed to share with Ella himself. The love he had never really felt with Quinn.
Before that moment in the house with the two of them, Dean didn’t think such a thing was possible. He thought what Ella was experiencing was pure, immature lust. But he saw it between Matthew and Ella: two people, so deeply in love, they would sacrifice anything to be together, even life itself.
He thought about Ella’s words before she left that party: ‘I’m done’ and how they had been swimming in his head for weeks.
Dean felt bad about telling her parents all about her… indiscretions, but he knew if he didn’t, then she would very well have married the boy and everything he had worked for would be gone forever. Which, in Dean’s mind, now that he had thought about it, wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world.
Dean knew if that happened, he would eventually save the company and secure his money.
But the damage was done, and he had blabbed. If his parents didn’t find out, there would be a small fighting chance for them both.
“So, you’re telling me that you’ve known about this… orphan boy for two years? But you didn’t think to tell me?” Adrian bellowed.
“To be fair, Adrian, I thought it was nothing more than a stupid thing to get out of her system before our marriage. I didn’t think it would get this far—” Dean’s voice trailed off when he saw Adrian’s face turning tomato red.
“I think Adrian is just annoyed—”
“I wouldn’t tell him how I feel, Martha,” Adrian snapped. He turned back to face Dean. “You knew it was serious before now, didn’t you?”
“I… I don’t know, Adrian. I didn’t think it was this serious until, well, now. I could never get enough evidence—” He stopped speaking. It didn’t matter, not to Adrian. All that mattered to him was that his walking, talking secret hoarder had wandered off with complete disregard for the contract.
A contract that they all knew very well wouldn’t hold up in court and thus would look so bad on all four of them that they could be tried as criminals for trying to create.
“Did you say that she’s engaged to this boy?” Martha piped up.
“Yes.”
Dean looked at the woman; she was always in the corner, always in the background. She was always smacked down when she tried to participate. He knew this was what was expected of Ella and him in their marriage. His father and her father both expected her to be like Amelia or Martha; sit in the background, agree with her husband, not speak, or have a strong opinion.
As much as he would enjoy having a housewife as if he were in the fifties, he knew it wouldn’t be possible, and if Dean was honest, he didn’t entirely like the idea of not having a spouse who didn’t share a conversation with him, who didn’t challenge his opinions and who was, well, a carbon copy of his mother or Martha. If Ella became his wife, he vowed to respect her better than these men did.
“And you’re telling me that she allowed this… runt to impregnate her?” Adrian bellowed again.
Dean could see the vein on his forehead protruding. If it burst and he had a stroke or something, they’d all probably blame Ella for it.
“Yes.”
He had told the story, and if he was completely honest, he felt bad betraying her. He knew he had to tell them because at the end of the day, they had a contract and Dean wanted his financial and professional security. But the look of pure love between Ella and this boy haunted him. It had since he left their house.
Dean could see the pure innocence, the pure love behind the look, and he knew it was the same way he felt about Ella since he could remember. But in that same look, Dean knew even if they walked down the aisle and exchanged vows, she would never love him. Everything he had fantasised about: falling in love slowly, the first kiss, the first time they would make love, the children—it was never anything but a fantasy.
In the depths of the obsession he had had for her and what she had been doing for the past three years, in the depths of trying to find comfort in Quinn, in the depths of trying to have it all by ignoring his father’s opportunity to tear the contract up – it had all been for love. For the love of Ella, and money.
Even despite his anger after hearing that she only saw him as a brother, when he resigned to only care about money, he knew deep down that his feelings for her had never gone away.
But now it was real: she was getting married to Matt. She was pregnant.
The words rang in his head like a bell: if you love her, let her go . He knew the words, or some variation of them, were in a song that Ella loved by some rock band.
People said the same all the time: if you truly loved someone, you had to let them go if that’s what was best for them. Matthew was what was best for her. Ella only deserved happiness, and he knew Matt was her happiness, he saw it as bright as a star.
But the thought of his money and his company kept playing on his brain. He could, of course, start a new business. He could find a job somewhere.
But the secret was out. What happened next was Adrian’s decision. Dean wasn’t going to tell his parents. Adrian would do that for him.
Dean felt the pull of regret. Yes, he had left it days and days, hell, he had left it a week before telling her family. He had given her time. But he knew what was going to come next would not be pretty, and for that, he felt bad. Something Dean didn’t expect.