Page 23
Story: His Ring, Her Rules
Who asks these kinds of questions? My pals are nuts!
Their inquiries made me so ashamed that I became crimson, and then they started their drama again, saying, “Vivian is falling in love.”
I’m not in love! …Or maybe I am? No, no, I’m not in love! I am not sure what will happen if I fall in love with him and tell him, as he can make a big deal out of a kiss.
But would he ever love me back, even if I fell in love with him?
“You are worthless!” My father’s scream rang in my ears, and tears started to well up in my eyes.
My brother said, “You are nothing but a burden,” and a tear fell from my eye.
My mum added, “We have to buy you medicine so you don’t get worse, and then we’ll have to take you to the hospital and pay the bills. They are so expensive these days.” More tears started to pour.
“Stop wasting my money. You’re good for nothing. You just waste my money,” Father said.
“Such low grades? What will everyone think? Why can’t you be like your brother and stop being a disgrace?” he yelled.
“Sometimes it seems like God sent you into our lives just to get back at us. You are a punishment for us,” Mom stated.
“Stop smiling. What are you so happy about?”
“Everyone said, “You don’t deserve this family’s name! You’re not worth it.”
“Can’t you be quieter and stop being so rude? Your father will be ashamed to call you his daughter,” Mom said. I was already weeping.
“Why send you to school? You don’t even study right, and you’re just wasting your father’s money.”
How can someone love me? Why would anyone love someone who is useless?
I can’t expect Jaxon to love me back, and it would be best if I didn’t fall in love with him, either.
I adore him, too.
I walked to Jaxon’s door at 10 at night because I wanted him to talk to me.
I knocked again and didn’t get an answer, so I carefully opened the door and found the room vacant.
He has to be in his office.
I was going to close the door, but something on the nightstand made me stop. A frame for a picture. Why didn’t I see this before?
Because I’m a curious person, I went over and picked it up.
Jaxon’s image showed him as a teenager with his arms around the shoulders of a girl his age.
I gasped when I saw the picture of the girl. For a second, I believed it was me, but then I saw that it was someone else who looked like me. Was she my doppelganger? She had the same hair, eyes, and facial form as myself.
Who is she? Is she Julia?
She didn’t look precisely like me, but for a second, anyone could have thought she was me.
I took the picture frame and headed to Jaxon’s study. As usual, he was working when I got there.
When he noticed me, he turned his focus back to his laptop, but then something must have hit him because he turned his head towards me and got up right away.
“Where did you get that frame?”
“I went to look for you and found it in your room,” I said.
“Is she—” I couldn’t finish my statement because he took the frame from my fingers and looked at it closely.
I eventually enquired, “Is she Julia?”
He turned around and went to his desk, where he kept the frame in the drawer.
I murmured quietly as I walked closer to him, “She looks like me.”
“Please, tell me…is she Julia?” I pleaded again, and he finally looked at me.
“Yes,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“And why does she look like me? Do you know? For a second, I thought it was me.”
He looked down and wouldn’t answer me.
Then, like a flash of lightning, it hit me: “Is she the reason you married me? Because I look like her?”
His eyes met mine, and a whirlwind of feelings surged inside them.
“Please tell me, Jaxon! How long will you keep it a secret? I know that merging the company wasn’t your only goal,” I begged.
His face shifted from calm to furious, which terrified me, but I didn’t show it.
He stepped up to me and grabbed both of my wrists. He gazed at me like he could see straight into my soul.
“And what about all those secrets that are buried inside you?” he said, making me quiver beneath his piercing gaze. “Because I know you are not the Vivian Hayes that the world knows you to be.”
I felt a chill go down my spine. “What are you talking about?”
He grinned wickedly and said, “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Clara Adek.”
My mind and body stopped working. How the hell did he find out about it?
“Am I right, Clara?”
“Don’t call me that!” I yelled.
“Why? Isn’t that your name, Clara?”
“That’s not my name! My name is Vivian Hayes!”
“Lie; you’ve been lying about yourself for the past seven years. It’s hard to believe that you’ve been running your business under a fake name, Clara.”
“Please stop! I don’t like that name. Please don’t call me that.”
“You never heard me call you that before. And trust me, from now on, that’s all I’m going to call you.”
I was already crying. No one has been able to discover this for seven years, yet this man accomplished it in less than four months. Wow.
I asked him, “How did you find out? I did everything I could to keep it a secret.”
“I think this is going to be a long talk. We should sit down, right?” He smiled.
He pulled me to the couch and had me sit down next to him, so I had to do as he said.
He questioned, “Why are you crying?” as he saw the tears on my face.
He seemed worried and reached in to wipe my tears with his thumb.
He said to himself, “Oh, God!”
“Clara, stop crying.”
I brushed away my tears and looked down, sniffling. I don’t know what will happen if he knows it now.
He repeated, “Look at me,” but I remained gazing at the floor. He carefully put his hands around my neck and moved my head towards him, raising my chin with his fingers.
He eventually added, “I’m not going to tell the media about this.” His voice was calm, and I felt a wave of relief rush over me.
I looked into his eyes and knew he wasn’t lying.
I mumbled, “Thank you.”
“But why did you do all this?”
“First, tell me how you found out about this.”
He sighed and said, “I’ve been suspicious of you since the day I came to invite you to my parents’ house. You got so nervous talking about your parents. If they had died, you could have easily admitted it, but they are still alive.”
After we got married, I heard you and Jonah bickering in your office one day.
“But that was just a regular talk.”
He smiled and said, “That’s where you’re wrong. It wasn’t a normal conversation. The great Vivian Hayes, or should I say the great Vivian Hayes Dante, who is one of the most ‘humble’ people, was refusing to meet someone who had been trying to reach her for years. Isn’t that strange?”
I mentally slapped myself in the face for being so dumb.
He asked, “They were your parents, right?” and I slowly nodded.
“And that girl, Rose, was—”
“I said, “My niece,” and that was all I had to conceal.
“And you knew that.”
“Not at first, but when she told me her full name, and I asked about her parent’s name, I knew she was my niece. That’s why our eyes looked so much alike.”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“And now…why did you change your identity?” he said.
“To be honest, my reason for changing my identity isn’t that big. It wasn’t big enough for me to leave my home, which is why I’m not telling you.”
“Do you think I will find your reason funny?”
“Maybe…”
“Stop the drama and tell me.”
“I was tired. I was tired of my family. They always made fun of me for being useless, a burden to them, and wasting their money. For six years, I heard the same things over and over again. I wasn’t a stupid 12-year-old girl who could ignore what they said. At fifteen, I decided to run away a few years later. The only reason I was still with them was for money.”
Jaxon looked at me with interest, so I kept going. “They didn’t treat me like a maid, but they also didn’t treat me like their daughter. They took care of me, but only because they didn’t want me to get sick enough to go to the hospital and have to pay the bills. I had a place to live and food to eat, but I never got any attention.”
I finally got into college, and as soon as the last exams were over, I left a letter for them and ran away from the hostel. I had already saved up a lot of money, so I used that. Later, I changed my whole identity so that the cops or my family wouldn’t be able to find me easily. I changed my look a little; I used to have platinum blonde hair, but I dyed it and took off my glasses. I did everything I could to stay away from them. Then, I finished my studies while working a lot of part-time jobs. Once, the cops found me, but they couldn’t make a 21-year-old girl go back home; I was old enough to make my own decisions.
Their inquiries made me so ashamed that I became crimson, and then they started their drama again, saying, “Vivian is falling in love.”
I’m not in love! …Or maybe I am? No, no, I’m not in love! I am not sure what will happen if I fall in love with him and tell him, as he can make a big deal out of a kiss.
But would he ever love me back, even if I fell in love with him?
“You are worthless!” My father’s scream rang in my ears, and tears started to well up in my eyes.
My brother said, “You are nothing but a burden,” and a tear fell from my eye.
My mum added, “We have to buy you medicine so you don’t get worse, and then we’ll have to take you to the hospital and pay the bills. They are so expensive these days.” More tears started to pour.
“Stop wasting my money. You’re good for nothing. You just waste my money,” Father said.
“Such low grades? What will everyone think? Why can’t you be like your brother and stop being a disgrace?” he yelled.
“Sometimes it seems like God sent you into our lives just to get back at us. You are a punishment for us,” Mom stated.
“Stop smiling. What are you so happy about?”
“Everyone said, “You don’t deserve this family’s name! You’re not worth it.”
“Can’t you be quieter and stop being so rude? Your father will be ashamed to call you his daughter,” Mom said. I was already weeping.
“Why send you to school? You don’t even study right, and you’re just wasting your father’s money.”
How can someone love me? Why would anyone love someone who is useless?
I can’t expect Jaxon to love me back, and it would be best if I didn’t fall in love with him, either.
I adore him, too.
I walked to Jaxon’s door at 10 at night because I wanted him to talk to me.
I knocked again and didn’t get an answer, so I carefully opened the door and found the room vacant.
He has to be in his office.
I was going to close the door, but something on the nightstand made me stop. A frame for a picture. Why didn’t I see this before?
Because I’m a curious person, I went over and picked it up.
Jaxon’s image showed him as a teenager with his arms around the shoulders of a girl his age.
I gasped when I saw the picture of the girl. For a second, I believed it was me, but then I saw that it was someone else who looked like me. Was she my doppelganger? She had the same hair, eyes, and facial form as myself.
Who is she? Is she Julia?
She didn’t look precisely like me, but for a second, anyone could have thought she was me.
I took the picture frame and headed to Jaxon’s study. As usual, he was working when I got there.
When he noticed me, he turned his focus back to his laptop, but then something must have hit him because he turned his head towards me and got up right away.
“Where did you get that frame?”
“I went to look for you and found it in your room,” I said.
“Is she—” I couldn’t finish my statement because he took the frame from my fingers and looked at it closely.
I eventually enquired, “Is she Julia?”
He turned around and went to his desk, where he kept the frame in the drawer.
I murmured quietly as I walked closer to him, “She looks like me.”
“Please, tell me…is she Julia?” I pleaded again, and he finally looked at me.
“Yes,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“And why does she look like me? Do you know? For a second, I thought it was me.”
He looked down and wouldn’t answer me.
Then, like a flash of lightning, it hit me: “Is she the reason you married me? Because I look like her?”
His eyes met mine, and a whirlwind of feelings surged inside them.
“Please tell me, Jaxon! How long will you keep it a secret? I know that merging the company wasn’t your only goal,” I begged.
His face shifted from calm to furious, which terrified me, but I didn’t show it.
He stepped up to me and grabbed both of my wrists. He gazed at me like he could see straight into my soul.
“And what about all those secrets that are buried inside you?” he said, making me quiver beneath his piercing gaze. “Because I know you are not the Vivian Hayes that the world knows you to be.”
I felt a chill go down my spine. “What are you talking about?”
He grinned wickedly and said, “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Clara Adek.”
My mind and body stopped working. How the hell did he find out about it?
“Am I right, Clara?”
“Don’t call me that!” I yelled.
“Why? Isn’t that your name, Clara?”
“That’s not my name! My name is Vivian Hayes!”
“Lie; you’ve been lying about yourself for the past seven years. It’s hard to believe that you’ve been running your business under a fake name, Clara.”
“Please stop! I don’t like that name. Please don’t call me that.”
“You never heard me call you that before. And trust me, from now on, that’s all I’m going to call you.”
I was already crying. No one has been able to discover this for seven years, yet this man accomplished it in less than four months. Wow.
I asked him, “How did you find out? I did everything I could to keep it a secret.”
“I think this is going to be a long talk. We should sit down, right?” He smiled.
He pulled me to the couch and had me sit down next to him, so I had to do as he said.
He questioned, “Why are you crying?” as he saw the tears on my face.
He seemed worried and reached in to wipe my tears with his thumb.
He said to himself, “Oh, God!”
“Clara, stop crying.”
I brushed away my tears and looked down, sniffling. I don’t know what will happen if he knows it now.
He repeated, “Look at me,” but I remained gazing at the floor. He carefully put his hands around my neck and moved my head towards him, raising my chin with his fingers.
He eventually added, “I’m not going to tell the media about this.” His voice was calm, and I felt a wave of relief rush over me.
I looked into his eyes and knew he wasn’t lying.
I mumbled, “Thank you.”
“But why did you do all this?”
“First, tell me how you found out about this.”
He sighed and said, “I’ve been suspicious of you since the day I came to invite you to my parents’ house. You got so nervous talking about your parents. If they had died, you could have easily admitted it, but they are still alive.”
After we got married, I heard you and Jonah bickering in your office one day.
“But that was just a regular talk.”
He smiled and said, “That’s where you’re wrong. It wasn’t a normal conversation. The great Vivian Hayes, or should I say the great Vivian Hayes Dante, who is one of the most ‘humble’ people, was refusing to meet someone who had been trying to reach her for years. Isn’t that strange?”
I mentally slapped myself in the face for being so dumb.
He asked, “They were your parents, right?” and I slowly nodded.
“And that girl, Rose, was—”
“I said, “My niece,” and that was all I had to conceal.
“And you knew that.”
“Not at first, but when she told me her full name, and I asked about her parent’s name, I knew she was my niece. That’s why our eyes looked so much alike.”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“And now…why did you change your identity?” he said.
“To be honest, my reason for changing my identity isn’t that big. It wasn’t big enough for me to leave my home, which is why I’m not telling you.”
“Do you think I will find your reason funny?”
“Maybe…”
“Stop the drama and tell me.”
“I was tired. I was tired of my family. They always made fun of me for being useless, a burden to them, and wasting their money. For six years, I heard the same things over and over again. I wasn’t a stupid 12-year-old girl who could ignore what they said. At fifteen, I decided to run away a few years later. The only reason I was still with them was for money.”
Jaxon looked at me with interest, so I kept going. “They didn’t treat me like a maid, but they also didn’t treat me like their daughter. They took care of me, but only because they didn’t want me to get sick enough to go to the hospital and have to pay the bills. I had a place to live and food to eat, but I never got any attention.”
I finally got into college, and as soon as the last exams were over, I left a letter for them and ran away from the hostel. I had already saved up a lot of money, so I used that. Later, I changed my whole identity so that the cops or my family wouldn’t be able to find me easily. I changed my look a little; I used to have platinum blonde hair, but I dyed it and took off my glasses. I did everything I could to stay away from them. Then, I finished my studies while working a lot of part-time jobs. Once, the cops found me, but they couldn’t make a 21-year-old girl go back home; I was old enough to make my own decisions.