32
Ella
September 2018
“E lls, what on earth are you doing?”
I throw my clothes in my suitcase. Matt takes a pile back out, throwing them on the bed. I glare at him, not making eye contact, but making sure he can see the look on my face. I pick the clothes back up and return them to the suitcase, without folding them.
“Ella!”
I ignore him, so he picks the clothes back out of the suitcase.
“No!”
“What’re you doing?” His hands fall on my shoulders. I look into those dark eyes, the ones that had me seduced from the moment I looked into them. He’s my medusa; one look in those eyes and he’s claimed me for life.
“Dean knows now. He’s going to go home and tell his parents and mine. He’ll tell them where we are, Matty. We’re fucked. This is it. We have to leave.”
“Come here.” He sighs, pulling me into his hold. I close my eyes and inhale, the scent hitting my nose and instantly calming my pulsating headache.
I quickly glance up at his mouth. “Matty, your face…” I grab his hand and drag him into the bathroom.
“I’m fine. He didn’t hit that hard, for a fucking posh boy,” he says as I take some cotton wool, dampen it and start dabbing. He winces as soon as I start.
“Fine, are you?” I raise my eyebrow.
“We don’t need to do anything. So what if they find us? What are they going to do? Force you down the aisle? They can’t do that legally. They have to march you to give notice, then keep an eye on you for four weeks. That’s before they try to drag you down the aisle. Highly unlikely now. Are they going to march you to have an abortion, so you’re not tied to me anymore? They can’t do that either. Are they going to kill me? Unlikely. Dean and you both go on and on about killing and how Anthony has it in him to eradicate problems, as you call it. They won’t. I barely believed it before you got pregnant, but now—even more of a hard no, Ells.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate them.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate the love of a mother, either. You told me she didn’t want this for you, right?” he asks. I nod in response. “So, there we go. You’ve given it to her. As soon as the truth comes out about us, she won’t let any of them kill me. I’m the father of her only grandchild. The thing is, as soon as the deal is off in their eyes, Adrian and Amelia are headed straight to the police, right? What good is killing me going to do? Nothing. They’re already fucked, Ells. Their secret’s out, they might as well let you have your happiness in the aftermath. I don’t for one second think either of them will be quite that cold. And if your parents let Dean’s try to kill me, then they deserve prison even more.”
I sigh and sink myself onto the closed toilet seat lid. I believe Anthony could be that cold. In the heat of the moment, I think my dad could. But with his only child standing there, with his only chance at a grandchild, I don’t know if he would have it in him.
“There is always the possibility that Dean might not tell them anything,” Matt says.
I scoff.
“Don’t forget that he’s been seeing Quinn behind your back, well, not behind your back, but whatever. He may have been playing the saint in his parents’ eyes, Ells, but he’s nothing but a sly liar. At best, this whole incident can make them grow the fuck up and allow you both to be with who you want, and we’ll keep brushing their crimes under the carpet. At worst, it all comes to a head and everyone, but you and Dean, loses out.”
“Dean loses out as well,” I mention. “You forget that with Amelia’s crime, Joanna’s suicide plus my dad extorting them makes them look weak and thus, their reputation goes down the drain. No one will want to use the company after that. Even if in the thick of it, Anthony hands over the reins to Dean because of his reputation, that stink will linger. The company will go poof , and everyone loses.”
We stare at each other as my hands make a fake explosion.
“Do not sit there after all of this and tell me you’re regretting running away, Ella. Please don’t do that to me.”
“Don’t call me Ella. That means I’m in trouble.”
“You are. I know you.” He drums his leg, which means he’s getting annoyed, but he stays seated on the side of the bath. “And I know you’re sitting there thinking about whether you regret this or not.”
“Fuck you.”
“Ella.”
“Before today, it was just a game of money and houses, Matty. Now it’s real. This is serious—”
“Serious? Ella, for fuck’s sake, your near-mother-in-law committed multiple crimes. Let’s list them, shall we? Abuse of position as a teacher. I assume this happened before the student turned sixteen, so let’s add child abuse to that list, too. Emotional abuse. Oh, and the big ones, Ella. Statutory rape, or if you’re going to be finicky, sexual assault because the student is a male in this country. Potentially paedophilia, because we don’t know when this started. He was a child, Ella, age of consent or not. Let’s not forget the morals of this, too. She manipulated him into, I assume, thinking he loved her and vice versa. She is not worth the shit on your shoe. How the fuck can you stand there and think this is okay? If you agree to marry him, then you both are covering up for a woman who deserves to rot in prison.”
“Matt—”
“Let’s then get to your father, shall we? Extortion, blackmail, covering up for her crimes. He also deserves prison, and you’ll be covering up for them—”
“Matthew—”
“No, Ella. It is black and white. Now you know the truth, you need to understand the implications. I don’t understand how Dean can sit there and be okay with that. If you walk out that door, on me, for him, for your money, then you will be telling me you’re okay with what they’ve done. If you regret this, you’ll be telling me that this – us – has all been for nothing and is meaningless.”
“Matty—”
“You know I’m right.”
I know he’s right. It was different yesterday when all I knew was that my family would lose everything. That was morally grey because all I knew was an innocent notion of leaving my family jobless, homeless and with nothing if I didn’t walk down the aisle today. It was easy for me to justify.
But this is different. If I agree to throw everything away and marry Dean like I was meant to, then I would knowingly be defending a woman who deserves prison for what she did. I’ll be covering up for my dad’s blackmail as well. All my money, my penthouse, all of it, is dirty.
But it’s bigger than that as well. While morally black and white, it throws so much into the air. I don’t care about Amelia and Anthony losing everything. There’s still the case that my parents don’t really deserve to lose their livelihoods. Dean loses everything too. But he would gain his freedom to marry who he wants, just like I would.
“It’s not just black and white like that, Matt. My family and Dean will lose everything—”
“Why do you suddenly care?” His hand starts drumming on the wall now, and his tone gets sharper, but he stays sitting.
“They don’t deserve that—”
“It might not be as black and white to you, but to me, and anyone who isn’t in the middle of this, it is. You have been a puppet so your dad could have money. Secrets, crimes, whatever… your dad agreed to keep quiet about a teacher manipulating her pupil into an affair so he could have some money in the bank and a nice life.”
I look at him and shake my head.
“And you’re okay with that?”
“No, I didn’t say that!”
“So, why are we having this discussion?”
“Because for five years I’ve had this hanging over me and in one afternoon it’s just been dumped on me like it’s nothing!” I yell.
“Well, at least you knew before you walked down the aisle, huh? Now you can stand there if they come and tell them to go fuck themselves!” Matt sighs, standing up from the side of the bath and walking into the hallway.
I look down at my engagement ring from Matt and twirl it around my finger.
“You know why no one wanted to tell you, Ella?”
He appears in the doorway again. He runs a hand through his curls, I can see the anger seething in his eyes. The last time I saw him like this was when he walked out on me when I got the date for my wedding to Dean. Yet again, it’s my selfishness that brings it out in him – or at least my attempt to be selfless that doesn’t work.
“They didn’t want to tell you because they all know how bullshit it is. Dean didn’t want to tell you because he knew as soon as you’d find out, you wouldn’t go through with it. The fact that he already knew about us before today goes to show it. As soon as he found out about us, that cemented it in his mind. When he worked out that you were with me, he knew you’d walk away as soon as you found out about the truth. And don’t you dare tell me you wouldn’t have, Ella, because I know you like I know the day of the fucking week.”
I stay silent. We both know I don’t need to answer.