HATE OR LOVE: Devils In Obsession

That Man Will Ruin You

Eve.

Three months later who would have guessed there would come a day I’d witness a wedding between my dad and my aunt? You still believe anything is impossible?

I swear i was almost on my feet, ready to object when the priest raised the question if there's anybody who has objections to their union. For one —my mother, her cousin, Keaton's late wife— had just been buried a few months ago.

How could dad do this? To say I’m disappointed is an understatement.

I raised a toast to them in the reception hall after giving the generic speech I had Crandon prepare.

I returned to my seat, glancing at the next table occupied by Flavian and his family of five, including Penelope... his ex-wife, and their teenage daughters, Jennifer and Ruth.

Funny how they were divorced but still close. The conversations around the table were mostly their voices. Penelope’s family owns several law firms across Europe.

Penelope comes from a family that has long term business ties with waldorf family, the EC didn’t approve of their marriage because of that. The Harrisons are the definition of loyalty, the EC wouldn’t want a marriage to ruin that. So even if Flavian was laughing at her jokes, it didn’t mean they would end up together again.

I clenched the glass in my hand subconsciously until it shattered in my bare hands. I finally drew his attention to me, everyone’s eyes fixated on me but he was my main focus. Yes my hand was bleeding, but I could care less. Why do I have to see his smirks while his wife gets to see his beams? Which side of him is real? the one he shows to me or the one he shows to her?

What is this? Why am I… confused?

“Mommy, you’re bleeding!”

Christopher tugged at my gown as he stood beside me with a napkin.

“I’m okay sweetheart…” I said, still staring at Flavian, anticipating his approach, searching his eyes for concern. I saw nothing...

Danielle ordered a servant to bring the first aid box to her. Eventually I followed her into a guest room to get my injury treated.

“You’ve succeeded… You won… Are you happy?” I sat on the bed, glaring at my palm that was full of splinters. My blood was getting wasted.

She didn’t reply but glared back, then unboxed all the equipments needed to treat my wound.

I can’t believe this is the same woman I once looked up to more than my own mother. She helped me deliver my child.

Knock* knock*

We turned our glares to the door to find a female bodyguard entering. It wasn’t my bodyguard, but when she raised her brows at me, I knew it wasn’t Danielle’s either.

“Who are you?” Danielle inquired.

“Mona. Flavian sent me here for her.”

Mona nodded toward me. Danielle shifted her gaze back to me meaningfully.

“Go wait outside.”

“The order was to stay four steps away from her.”

“New orders. Get out.” I rose to my heels, taking a step forward. She left in the same second.

“You’re so much like him,” Danielle said as I plopped back onto the bed and gave her my hand.

When I didn’t respond, she chuckled. For the first time, I realized how wicked it sounded.

“That’s why your mother never liked you.”

Yes, my mother never liked me, she loved me. I couldn’t care less about the nonsense she was vomiting.

“Her own flesh and blood turned out like the very man who r a p e d her.”

I gritted my teeth as she picked out the glass shards with precise care while also squeezing my wrist so tightly that blood flow slowed down.

The man who r a p e d my mom? She knew him… I dared to ask, but this person wasn’t the kind, sweet aunt I grew up knowing. This person was now my wicked stepmother now.

“You never really asked me about your biological father. Aren’t you curious?”

“I would have known a long time ago if I gave a f**k. f**k!!” I cursed at the top of my lungs when she dabbed a cotton ball soaked in methylated spirit all over the cuts and bruises.

“A father lusting after his daughter… That was how you were born,” she uttered so casually as she applied some medicine on my palm.

It didn’t take me much time to understand the scenario. I couldn’t even be that shocked. For my mom to be married to a man like Keaton, whoever dared to cross boundaries couldn’t have been a nobody. There had to be a drive to such madness. What I felt now was irritation. Anger was bubbling inside me, and Danielle had just made herself the perfect target.

Not senseless enough to see I couldn’t snap her neck the way I had daydreamed since the day I read about her affair with my dad in my mom’s diary.

“So it was my grandfather who r***d my mother? What part did you play in this to know so much?”

“That man was my uncle. She was my cousin.”

“And…”

I couldn’t understand where this conversation was going or why she was dancing around the truth instead of giving a straight explanation.

“Eve, what happened years ago between you and Flavian…”

Was that a question?

After a while of wrapping gauze around my palm, she reached for my other hand as if to check it too, Instead, she held both my palms while making eye contact.

The resemblance between my mother and this woman had been erased by the makeup she wore. She should never take it off… I might just skin her face, especially that beauty mole under her eye. My mother had two, one under her eye and the other beside her lips.

“That’s none of your concern.” I snatched my hands from her hold, hostily.

“Did he r**e you? I see the way you look at him… Is that a grudge you have for—”

“Stop talking!!!” I seethed, now on my feet, moving in hasty steps to leave the room, for her.

“That man will ruin you. Don’t let him defile you any longer.”

Oh, she cares for me… I’m touched. Deeply. I paused at the door to remind her of the advice I had whispered back at the hotel.

“Think whatever you want. If you breathe even the slightest hint to your lovely wedded husband or any living being…” I grinned, tilting my body slightly so she could see the warning in my eyes clearly, “just know that you’d be dragging yourself and your children into a mess with the EC. It’s one thing that I have a child with Flavian. It’s another that my aunt and now stepmother—helped me deliver that child. Offenses like that are punishable by death.”

“Hmm… Is that so…”

I was out of the room the moment she started speaking again.

Mona the bodyguard was standing in the distance. I wanted to think she probably heard something, but the room Danielle had brought me to was soundproof. That’s why she picked it out of every other room... to toy with my head. I hate to admit it, but she almost had me there.