“Jared,” James tried again. “You’ve got to stop with your obsession over Ellie. It’s irrational, unreasonable and it’s not going to help our cause.”
“I’m not giving up on Ellie,” he raised his eyes obstinately at him.
“And how do you think you’ll manage that with Edmund Farriss in the picture?” James raised his voice in equal ire.
“Is that the only reason you have for not allowing me to pursue the woman I have feelings for?”
“Only reason?” James threw his hands up in disbelief. “It is enough reason. We need Edmund and the Governor in our corner. And we would never get that if you’re hell bent on trying to dissolve one of the most anticipated marriages in the media. Can you honestly tell me that that’s not going to happen? Have a publicized disruption and an angry mob of social elites at our doorstep?”
Jared stayed silent, not knowing how he should answer that. He understood the importance of freedom – particularly to the people he knew, he had lived with, who he had witnessed suffer at the hands of powerful men such as Governor Callum. But he was no martyr. He had not chosen his fate. In fact, he was doing his damndest to live it to his best. Why should he have to be so sacrificial? To surrender the one thing he had begun to love, the one person he felt who could give him some sense of normality to his life, the one woman his body craved to possess?
CHAPTER 13
Evelyn burst through her bedroom, heading directly to the balcony.
“Would you stop brooding like that?” she sulked. “Anyone would think you had broken up with Edmund.”
Ellie rolled her eyes up at her. “Why are you here, Lynnie?”
Evelyn pouted her lips. She hated her pet name. She felt she had long outgrown it but her family insisted on calling her by it and there seemed very little she could do about it. She clumsily pushed aside Ellie’s outstretched legs resting on the ottoman and sat down excitedly across her.
“Let’s go camping,” she declared. “Liam and Kayla are already on board. I’ve already spoken to Edmund and he is happy to take some time off from work. So, how about it?”
Ellie looked at her with disbelief. “You spoke to Edmund behind my back?”
“Oh come on, Ellie,” Evelyn breathed out tiredly. “If I had left it to you, you would have just preferred to mope about the house like you’ve been doing these past few weeks.” She picked up her sister’s hands. “What is going on, Ellie? Is it the pre-wedding jitters?”
“No… it’s only… I haven’t been feeling well,” she mumbled.
“Are you pregnant?” Evelyn asked a little too eagerly.
Ellie huffed with indignation, giving her a gentle kick.
Evelyn made a face at her. “I’ve noticed though that you and Edmund rarely are together except when you’re making a social appearance. Do you even kiss?”
“Of course we do,” Ellie replied quickly. She gathered her long dark hair and knotted it at the top of her head with trembling fingers. “But we’ve decided to leave the sex until after the marriage.”
Evelyn snorted a laugh. “You’re kidding me, right? You were living together while you were at university. Why would you even want to regress to celibacy all of a sudden?”
Ellie stood up impatiently. Her sister had a terrible habit of annoying her when she least needed it. “Abstinence,” she corrected. “And because I grew a brain. I matured, Lynnie. There are some things you need to leave for marriage. Otherwise, what is there to look forward to?”
“That you will be starting a new chapter in your life with the man you’re in love with and hopefully, live it out till old age?” Evelyn shrugged. “It’s an alternative reasoning to your otherwise absurd viewpoint on celibacy- just in case you want to reconsider the sex issue.”
Ellie waved her hands in the air erratically. “Why are we discussing my sex life?”
“Because it’s none of my business and it’s always interesting when it’s someone else’s business we’re talking about,” she drawled lazily. “Besides, we’re sisters. I have a right to nose about.”
“Really?” Ellie frowned, crossing her arms across her chest.
“Anyways,” Evelyn dismissed her casually. “You haven’t given me an answer. Are you coming camping or not?”
“To the cottage up in the mountains? No,” Ellie replied flatly.
“Very well,” Evelyn stood up. “At least I tried. So it’s just the six of us then.”
“Six?” Ellie asked. “I thought it was only Liam and Kayla.”
“And Edmund,” Evelyn ambled to the doorway. “And Jared and Tara Ryder.” She stalled at it. “I like him- Jared. He seems really nice. I thought this trip would help me get to know him better. And if things go well, who knows?” She bit her lips and then walked out of the room, leaving a frozen Ellie back alone on her balcony.
*****
Jared threw in another jacket into his bag. Evelyn had called in two days ago about a camping trip to the mountains. Great. It was going to be fun walking into the forest freely without having to crawl under the wire.
He should be nervous spending three days alone with wealthy brats, having a social conversation about people and business he cared less about whilst pretending to enjoy it at the same time. But he had already been briefed and reminded repeatedly to keep a good ear out for anything that would help in their plans for democracy. It irked him that he didn’t know much of those plans. He didn’t have a choice. At the moment, he had to simply trust James on what he was doing. However, he would slowly let it be known that he would have to be given more access to those plans well in advance if they wanted him to play any part of it. All in due course, he thought as his eyes raked over the room in case he’d missed something.
He caught sight of Ellie’s stole he had neatly knotted to his bed post and he picked up the ends of it, letting it run over his palm. Then there was the matter of Ellie. This was also going to be three days with the woman of his dreams. He would probably have looked forward to it had he not known that Edmund Farriss was going to accompany her to the mountains.
A knocked rapped on his door. But before he could call out his permission to enter, James stepped in.
“They’re here,” he announced.
Jared zipped up his bag quietly, watching the other man from the corner of his eye.
James walked up to him slowly with his head lowered. He glanced at his bag hesitantly, trying to avoid eye- contact with Jared. “Listen, I know that you didn’t like what I had to say about Ellie Callum. But it was meant for your own good and for the freedom we’ve long been planning for. You don’t understand the hope you’ve inspired in us. To be able to dream that such democracy can now be even plausible. We’re depending on you to help us bring us nearer to making that dream a reality and that can be onerous sometimes. I’m sorry about that.” He rubbed Jared’s shoulders affectionately. “I hope though that you will at least consider our plight if you’re deciding to continue to pursue Ellie. You don’t have to worry about your family when you’re making that decision. They are now my family too. I’ve grown to love them and I cannot think about living the rest of my days without them. I’ll accept your decision whichever it is you make.” He gave Jared a small smile of approval.
Jared watched him hobble to the doorway. He had all this wealth and luxury and yet here he was weary from the troubles of the common man. Where did he get the strength to endure such a burden? The problem wasn’t even his. He had all to benefit from the corporations and nothing to lose. So why was he willing to risk everything for people he didn’t know? The old man didn’t know them like the way he did. He didn’t breathe the same air, endure the same fears, and live the same hardships. Why didn’t the man just mind his own business?
“Thank you,” Jared muttered before he could leave the room.
It was enough to stop him. He turned slightly to give him a small nod. It was the first time he had ever thanked the old man for anything.
*****
Jared threw his bag onto
the roof along with Tara’s and then got about tying them securely to the rack. His skin prickled with sensitivity, his nerves inciting a rush of adrenaline through his body, exciting him, making him aware of Ellie’s presence right behind him. It took him an immense dose of self-restraint to ignore her and even more to pretend that that was not her sweet scent streaming to his nose. She smelt of lilacs, his lips thinning out in a straight line, thinking. She always smelt of lilacs.
“Thank you for coming along,” he heard Evelyn say to Tara. “I was really hoping you would.”
“I’ve never been to the mountains,” Tara replied. “I can’t say I’m not excited.”
A car honked behind them and they turned to find Liam and Kayla had driven into the driveway.
Another social elite couple, Jared recalled. Liam was a magazine editor and he’s girlfriend a model.
Kayla waved at them excitedly from her window. “Let’s go, people!” she screamed at them, her mouth in a wide smile as she protruded her head out of the window.
“Well, I’m bust driving,” Edmund said. “How about you taking the wheel off my hands?” he asked Jared.
It was the way in which Edmund had smiled that told Jared that there was more to the offer than politeness. His mouth had lifted at a corner; his eyes were narrow and shifty. Jared had seen them before and it usually sparked a sense of caution inside him.
“Of course,” he replied, giving out his hand for the key.
Edmund dropped it into his palm. The smile had disappeared but those eyes narrowed and remained as they were, pinned on him, studying him closely. “I’ll join Liam and Kayla. I probably might get some sleep in it without being disturbed by Lynnie’s endless nonsense.”
Evelyn would have been offended had that not also meant an opportunity to sit beside Jared.
“You coming Ellie?” he asked, expecting her to join him.
Ellie swallowed. “I think I’ll stay. Tara will be sitting alone in the back and she is our guest, Edmund.”
He nodded. “Very well,” he said, giving her a quick kiss on her cheek before walking away towards Liam’s silver SUV.
Evelyn beamed. “Great then. Shall we go?”
“How about we sit together, Evelyn?” Tara blurted quickly. “I needed to ask you a few things.”
“Oh,” Evelyn muttered disappointedly. She wished she could tell the woman to keep them to herself till they reached the cottage. And she would have, had she not been the obviously fond sister of the man she was pursuing. “Yes, of course,” she replied half-heartedly.
Jared lifted an eyebrow at Tara and she smiled at him as she opened the car door to the rear seats.
He turned to Ellie who had paled from the change in seating arrangements. She moved hesitantly towards the front door and slithered into the vehicle reluctantly.
Jared let out a deep breath. He was doing his best to ignore the fire racing through his veins, burning for the woman across him. And Tara wasn’t making it any easy on him at all.
*****
Jared gripped the wheel tightly, his body very aware of the woman beside him. Evelyn’s occasional questions eased him a bit, digressing from his thoughts of how his body was involuntarily reacting to her. Not surprisingly, Tara had nothing much to say to Evelyn.
They had left the fine upper class suburbs of Sector 8 and its immaculately maintained landscapes and were now heading into the more remote area of the sector. Jared diligently followed Liam’s SUV, his eyes focused on its silver hatch door. He frowned as he tried to deduce why Edmund had given him the key to his vehicle. He wouldn’t have dwelt on it at all if he had not caught that little smirk on his face. Edmund had assumed that since he had come from Sector 8 Central, he would not have known how to properly operate a vehicle. And he would have been right had James not given him those non-stop driving lessons four months ago.
A hand gently brushed his thigh. “Slow around the bend,” she whispered.
His feet immediately let go of the accelerator, slowing the vehicle down, carefully maneuvering around the large curve in the mountain.
He gave her a short glance and smiled. “Thanks.”
She blushed. “There’s a huge series of bends in the road from now onwards before we reach the next proper stretch. I don’t know why I am always nervous around it.”
“It’s alright to be nervous. It keeps you attentive and careful,” he assured her. His eyes narrowed as they continued to circle up the sides of the mountain. He tried to keep as much as he could to the wall of the mountain. He glimpsed down at the forest canopy on his side, the shrub layer of the forest invisible beneath its denseness. If he wasn’t careful, it would certainly be a long disastrous fall to its floor. “I can understand why though,” he muttered, also understanding why Edmund had made that quick dash for Liam’s SUV.
He glanced at her again. Her fingers were clasped together tightly, but she sat stoically, her eyes bravely set upon the view outside her window. She had faith in him. And this was making it terribly difficult for him to ignore her. How was he to ever let go of her if she continued to win his heart like this? He had wanted to clasp her hand the moment she had touched him lightly on his thigh. Her hand had burnt his flesh, spreading a heat wave through his veins and to his entire body. His vision of her touching him in more ways than that, washed over him. He didn’t know if he would ever have the strength to turn away from her now.
Her phone buzzed. Ellie searched for it in her bag, trying her best not to make her twitchy nervous fingers obvious to the man beside her. She somehow was always in a state of fluster when he was around her.
She found her phone and switched it to holo mode. Edmund’s hologram projected out of it and she held it up so he could get a better image of them.
“Are you guys okay?” he asked.
“We’re fine, Edmund,” she answered, trying not to look at Jared.
“Do you want to take a rest when we reach the stretch? I’m happy to swap with you then, Jared,” he offered.
Jared didn’t want to swap. He was doing absolutely fine in the driver seat next to Ellie.
“Yeah, that would be great,” he said aloud, his mouth drawn into a tight, grim line.
“I’d rather not stop, Edmund,” Ellie said quickly. “Why don’t we all meet at the cottage?”
His image hovered in the air quietly, watching her. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes, please Edmund. Let’s just get there as soon as we can, shall we? I hate it when we travel in the dark.”
“Ok,” he nodded. “We’ll see you all there then.”
He switched off. Ellie bit her lip as she raised her eyes to look at Jared. He was still busily focusing on the tail-lights of Liam’s truck.
“I don’t like travelling in the dark,” she muttered.
“I heard,” he said.
“That’s why I didn’t want to stop.”
He nodded silently without looking at her.
She tapped the phone in her hand, feeling slightly awkward as she turned back to stare outside her window.
Jared braced an elbow against his window, his hand veiling the small smile he couldn’t resist any longer.
*****
Jared slowed down, pulling the vehicle to a stop by the front steps of the moderately large cottage. It was a beautiful grand wooden structure in the middle of the dense forest, high up in the mountains. He admired it as he stepped outside the truck.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Tara whispered to him.
“Aha,” he said simply.
“To think they have the money to put something like this up and only for a retreat, while kids starve back home,” she sighed.
Jared grew quiet, contemplating her words. “Tara, about Ellie…,” he began but she interrupted him.
“Let’s leave it for now. We can always talk about it later,” she smiled at him and joined the women now gathering on the veranda, eager to get inside.
Ellie fumbled for her key before turning it in
the front door.
Jared pulled down the bags from the roof rack of Edmund’s vehicle. Liam and Edmund came over to help with the luggage.
“Why is it that women can’t live without their accessories?” Liam complained as he tugged onto another. “We’re in the middle of a god-damned forest. Who the heck is going to see them here?”
“You,” Edmund grinned. “You should be lucky Kayla even makes that effort. I’d be happy to tow any extra bags for Ellie on those grounds.”
Jared frowned. The man just spoke as if his engagement was a one-sided affair.
Edmund huffed as he picked the bags up. He walked in stride with Jared towards the house. “That was some awesome driving considering you just broke out of Central,” he muttered under his breath.
Jared’s jaw tensed. So he had been right. Edmund was testing his worth on joining his new clique of friends. “Yeah well, I lived in Central but that didn’t mean I didn’t keep in touch with my father.”
They walked over the threshold and dumped the bags in the middle of the living room.
“Keeping in touch is good,” Edmund gave him a small clap of approval on the back as he turned around to return to his truck.
“Edmund,” Jared said, before he could leave. “What if I didn’t know how to drive? Weren’t you afraid I’d have risked everyone’s lives? Ellie’s?”
Edmund put his hands on hips as he tried to catch his breath. “I don’t think you’re that stupid.” He glanced over at Ellie busy in the kitchen with Tara. “We should get the rest of the stuff before it gets dark. And it does get awfully dark here.” He gave him a sly smile. “I’ve heard people go missing in these forests to never find their way out again. Have you been in a forest before, Ryder? I would hate to leave you behind in one of these.”
CHAPTER 14
The first night was terrible. Jared tossed and turned sleeplessly on the living room couch.
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