40
Ella
I wish the ground would shake and open to take me down to the fiery pits of hell. I have done nothing to warrant the Devil taking my soul, but honestly, that would be a thousand times better than standing in front of Dean right now.
“Just leave us alone.” Matt sighs, opening the door and ushering me inside. I take the hint and cross the threshold of the house. But I keep watching as Dean approaches us anyway.
“I’m not here to do anything to either of you. I just want to talk.” He approaches the door. “Please. Nobody else knows I’m here. No one else knows where you are, Ella. Hell, last I heard your dad was giving your mother quite the hard time when she told him you went to the toilet before your appointment, and you’d run away.”
Matty looks at me, questioning whether to let him in or not.
“If it helps, you’re both married now. The deal is off the table. I can’t drag you back when there’s nothing for you there.”
I don’t need to tell him that there was never anything there for me. We both know as we stare at each other that that’s the case.
“Let him in. He’s right, he gains nothing. The damage for him is done.”
He strides in after Matt. Immediately, I can smell the expensive aftershave, the annoyance that oozes off him like raindrops along with that classic ‘Dean confidence’.
“Coffee?” Matt asks blandly.
Dean nods and disappears into the dining room to sit at the table, waiting to start whatever conversation he wants to have.
I hover, unsure of what to do with myself. My heart hammers like a war drum. I don’t know why I’m so worried; the contract is done.
But that doesn’t mean we’re free. That doesn’t mean they can’t kill Matt, and I know Anthony would, given the chance. Potentially my dad too, come to think of it.
“Thanks.” Dean nods when Matt comes in with the drinks. The last time we were like this was when he told us all about his mother’s true colours.
“What do you want? Honestly, I can’t do another round of beatings, I had to wear makeup at my wedding, so please, let’s call a physical truce?” Matt jokes.
Dean chuckles, and the sound surprises me. I can’t remember the last time I heard him genuinely laugh. It’s a warming, genuine sound and one that makes him a hundred times more likeable. “I agree to the physical truce. As I said, I’m not here to hurt anyone, I’m not here to take Ella back, I’m not here for anything but a conversation.”
“You said that last time and look what happened.” His eyes meet mine when I finish my sentence. His smile is tinged with regret.
“I know, and you know what, Ella? I apologise. When I was sitting there with your parents after I told them, it was… it hit me. When your dad challenged me, it made me think about watching the two of you that day, how I could see the love between you, and how pure it was. Back before we knew we were going to get married, and I was with Quinn… it made me think of that.”
“You’re not with her anymore?” I question.
“No. She couldn’t get over the idea that I refused my father’s deal. I never really loved her. It’s a long story.” He stops speaking at the memory. Clearly a touchy subject.
“No, I can’t get over the idea either,” Matt chides.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It’s no one’s fault but my own. All this time, I thought I didn’t care. I thought I wanted it all. For the longest time, I wanted everything, and I thought if I won you over, eventually you’d love me back. It was the day I came here and saw you both together and found out you were engaged and pregnant. I see a lot of me in you, Ella—”
“A self-absorbed, money-obsessed dickhead?” I scoff.
“Touché,” he replies. “What I mean is, I see a lot of the old me in you before we found out about the contract. The moment you met Matthew, or at least, the moment I realised what was going on and thought about how much you’d changed since you started university, you grew this kind of confidence. I was so obsessed with thinking you were the only key to what I wanted that I never stopped to think about you.”
I think I believe him, because I can see the slight change in his demeanour, the way he’s doing all of this negotiating and confrontation on his own and not involving our families.
“Man, I don’t think you’d be surprised to know that we don’t believe you,” Matt pipes up.
“No, it doesn’t surprise me. There’s probably nothing I can say to make you believe me, either. But hey, it’s worth the try. For what it’s worth, it won’t take them long to figure out where you are, Ella. I don’t think it’s a good idea you stay here unless you want him to die.”
“If I remember rightly, you threatened to kill him if I so much as looked at him,” I spit back.
Dean scoffs. “Oh, come on. I was angry. No, I wouldn’t kill him. You love him, and he makes you happy. I knew you were up to something the other night. You ooze confidence when you have a plan. Usually, you sit in the background like our mothers do, but when you know what you’re doing, like the Ella I saw the other night, the one who punched me? She comes out.”
He didn’t mention his feelings for me, but we both know it was between the lines.
“I didn’t know what or how, but I knew you were going to marry him, and I knew you weren’t going to attend that appointment either,” Dean finishes.
“It was my Mum,” I admit, not thinking about it. Dad will find out eventually, if not already. They will all find out, and in the spirit of not being like any of them with keeping secrets, Dean might as well know now.
Eventually, he nods. “Makes sense. She’s always been the one on your side.”
“So, what did you want to talk about, Dean?” Matt asks.
“Well, we both know the contract is officially over. I want to talk about what we do next,” Dean announces.
“What do you mean, ‘we’? I owe you absolutely nothing,” I snap. “You’ve done nothing but be an absolute arsehole to me.”
He looks down and takes a sip of coffee. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m going to take a leaf from your book and lay all my cards on the table. Please just hear me out.”
I sigh, glancing at Matt, who just shrugs.
“We’re listening.” The power those two words give me feels liberating. It’s such a small gesture, but where I’ve essentially had no power since I was sixteen, the simple decision of whether or not to listen to Dean makes me feel like a queen.
Dean nods before saying, “I’ve loved you for years. Everything I’ve done to you: the spying, trying to get close to you, the way I always thought about you and being married to you, and the jealousy I felt when I found out about him… it was all because I’d let myself start having feelings for you. That’s why when you told me that you’d never love me because I was essentially your sibling, it made me… well, angry. The more and more I stewed over it, the more I knew you were running back to Matthew, and it broke me. I vowed to myself that I would get you and secure my money in whatever means possible.”
This all makes sense. With Dean, nothing is ever simple, and it’s either about him or his money. If he has no one to stroke his delicate and large ego, he becomes angry Dean.
“When my father gave me that offer of ripping up the contract, it was because he knew about Quinn. I was sleeping with her from the day she walked back into my life, until the night of the party. I never loved her; it was only because I needed a distraction. Because I was failing with you, I needed someone to tell me the right things, and she did. I wanted you to fail. I was angry because, in my mind, you got to swan around with Matthew and yet I had to stand by and know that your heart would always be his. She gave me the ego boost I needed. When Dad offered me the deal, I thought I could free us both, but then the terms were that I would be disowned. I’d have to surrender my job, my promotion when Dad retires. Everything. The more I thought about it, the more I was being selfish, and I wanted everything, Ella. I wanted you. I wanted my status, my money, my job.”
“He gave you those terms?” Matt scoffs. “And you r—”
“Yes, I refused it, okay? I made a selfish mistake in anger. The story of my life.”
“Tell me about it.” I roll my eyes. “That’s why I punched him.”
“Anyway… Quinn wouldn’t shut up about it. It was becoming clearer that she was only in it for the money and not for me. And then the party happened. That’s when I snapped. I made her leave and finished it. That was when I started realising that… maybe I had been too irrational—”
“It took you that long to realise?” I spit the last bit of my tea out. The look of regret reflects in his eyes.
“I was going to speak to you the morning you ran off. I was going to come and discuss it with you, how maybe we could have worked something out. That night was like an epiphany for me; I knew your heart was going to be with him forever. I don’t know what my plan was, but I wanted to apologise. Then you ran off.” Dean shrugs and finishes his drink. “It made me angrier because I knew exactly what you’d done. A part of me wanted you to find a way out because if I would never have you, then really, what was the point?”
Part of me wants to believe all of this. But Dean’s been nothing but evil… and like in most fictional tales, villains don’t change. Evil is evil, right?
Then… a lot of evil people can, and do, change.
Evil usually comes from something, or someone, that breaks the villain. Barely any villain is evil just for being evil.
I know the real villains are Anthony, Amelia, and my dad, with Dean taking second place, and Mum being in third. For a long time, I thought Dean was the worst of them when really, he was just broken and needed fixing.
Dean may have been a villain, but that was because I broke him. I made him evil because I was the object of his affection despite me not knowing it. I may have done nothing inherently wrong, but I caused Dean’s problems, and he caused mine. Pretty ironic, really, given that we were friends for sixteen years.
“Why all the dramatics?” Matt asks a few minutes later.
“When I came and saw you together, and you’d told me you were engaged, a part of me was enraged. That’s why I started dragging you home. It was that pure… selfishness in me. Then you told me you were pregnant, and more anger came. I thought when you came home with us that that was my last-ditch attempt at having you, but then I knew you were up to something.”
I swirl my rings around on my fingers, one at a time, unable to look at Dean.
“I knew if you’d run away, it would be back here. It didn’t take me long to work out when and where your wedding was. Part of me wanted to rat you out once again, but I knew it would be the death of Matthew. I couldn’t do that to you. I knew I’d lost you, a long time ago. So… if the only reason I would be marrying you was to as you quite rightly said, ‘protect a paedophile,’ then who am I to stop true love?” Dean asks. “I genuinely did not come here to break you up. Yeah, I’m bitter. Yeah, I was evil. I’ve made mistakes, but I’ve realised that it’s all in the twisted, awful name of love.”
“And money,” I add.
He chuckles. “Yeah, and money.”
“So, what do you want, us to give you forgiveness?” Matt scoffs. “Because I don’t buy you, Dean. Sure, I can buy that you became so obsessed with Ella and money that it drove you to do what you did. But I don’t buy that you’ve suddenly seen the error of your ways.”
“Does it matter? You guys won. I’m not in the habit of killing the father of an unborn child, or in the name of jealousy, even if I did threaten it. If I wanted you dead, I’ve known about you for two years, I’ve had ample time.” Dean folds his arms and cocks his head.
I admit, he has a point. I don’t even think Dean would have it in him to kill. His dad, or my dad? They do, I’ve no doubt after what I’ve witnessed recently.
All those years ago before I met Matt, Dean and I were friends. And even after I met Matt, through all his strange, devious schemes to keep tabs on me, I know he did what he did because deep down, he cares. It might have come out in some twisted, disgusting ways, but he’s right, his actions were driven by love.
So, when I look into his eyes right now and see those blue pools shining back at me, I honestly believe he’s changed. Change doesn’t come without sacrifice, and Dean sacrificed his feelings for this revelation.
And I know the exact moment that everything changed for him.
“It was the moment just before I got in the taxi, wasn’t it?” I ask without context. Dean just stares. “The night of the party, outside, before I got in the taxi.”
“Yeah, it was that.” He knows what I’m on about, deep down we still have that slight connection where we know each other.
“So, it’s great that you’ve had this big epiphany and everything, Dean. Thanks for that, but… what exactly do you want us to do?” Matt asks.
“I want you to help me secure the company,” Dean announces. He sits up properly in his chair and clasps his hands together on the table as if he was at work.
“You do realise if he goes anywhere near my father or yours, they’ll kill him, right?” I point out.
“It doesn’t involve Matthew going anywhere near them, nor does it involve you going anywhere near them.” He means business, and I’m not sure whether I like it or not. “We’re going to team up. We’re going to go to the police, all three of us, and give them a statement about my mother. And we’re going to put in a statement saying that the four of them had the intent to force you into a forced marriage. Ella, we are going to get them.”