UNTAMED DESIRE (A sequel to DESIRE IN DENIAL) – Ima Udott
Episode 10
His hands found their way to Hannah’s beautiful face and his eyes hungrily roamed her already parted pink lips.
Hannah did not know when she closed her eyes and surrendered to the charm Jared was using on her.
She hadn’t seen a man this possessive before. When his hands touched her face, she trembled. She didn’t know just how much her body had yarned for this touch until now.
Jared didn’t need a verbal permission from Hannah to explore her, her body reaction to his touch had already given him the permission to go right ahead and he was just about to do that when Brenda’s voice brought them back to sanity.
“Jared? Jared! Where are you?”
Hannah quickly pushed Jared’s hands away and walked briskly to her room while Jared went back and sat on the couch, running his hands through his hair in frustration.
“Jared, I’ve been calling your name like forever! What are you doing here?” Brenda asked as soon as she got to him.
Jared felt he would go bonkers very soon if Brenda continued to get on his nerves. He needed a space. Her presence was beginning to bore and irritate him.
“Jared, I’m asking you a question. What’re you doing here by this time of the night?” She asked again.
“Brenda, what does it look like I’m doing?”
“Obviously, you are tired of me, that’s why you ran away from the room to sleep on the couch to avoid me…”
“I didn’t say that… I have been experiencing sleeping insomnia for some time now…I think the cause is work related… not you,” Jared said.
Brenda sat beside him and caressed his hands.
“I’m so sorry to hear that. I think you need to see a doctor…”
“No, I will be fine”
“Sure?”
“Yeah, sure”
“I’ll stay here with you…”
“No Brenda, I’m sure you must have had a very long day, you need to rest. I promise to join you soon. Go get some rest”
“I’m not leaving here without you,” Brenda said.
This was exactly Jared’s problem with her. She was too stubborn and manipulative. Jared had no other choice but to follow her back to the room.
When he was sure she was asleep, he opened his eyes and began to deeply think of what just happened in the kitchen.
He could see Hannah’s face; her reactions when he touched her; her parted lips, ready to welcome him; her helplessness.
He could also remembered the unusual connection he had when he touched her; how he struggled not to touch her but his hands and heart seemed to have had an agreed decision to betray him.
He didn’t need a soothsayer to tell him that he was madly in love with Hannah. He had done things with different ladies, he had dated them; the fat; the slim; the tall; the short; the dark and the fair.
But none of them had ever made him feel the way he felt with Hannah, not even Brenda whom he thought was the best thing that ever happened to him, not until now.
There was something peculiar about Hannah. He began to wonder why he really accepted to act like the father of her baby at the hospital.
He tried to convince himself that it was because he didn’t want her to answer too many questions, just as he told her, but his heart kept whispering to him the real reason behind his actions.
But then, what if he hurt her? This was the question that scared him the most. He didn’t want to hurt Hannah and that was why he felt he wasn’t good enough for her. He couldn’t bear to see her heartbroken after what she had been through.
He looked at Brenda who was cuddled in his arm, peacefully asleep. He was going to give Brenda one more chance, it’d be better to go for Brenda since she was already in the picture.
At least if it didn’t work, she wouldn’t be as hurt as Hannah would be, or if she would, she would be able to move on, but Hannah, he didn’t know how she would react if he ended up hurting her, so it’d be better not to hurt her at all.
After a long while of restlessness, he slept off after unconsciously making a decision that he was going to try things out once more with Brenda.
****
Cecilia, after much deliberation, came to a justifiable conclusion that she wasn’t going to harm Melvin and Melissa because she had thought about it and realized they didn’t do anything wrong to her.
She was in fact, the one who had stepped on their toes severally. She was going to make sure she didn’t involve them.
Though she once had a thing for Melvin, but she concluded there was no need fighting for a man who had no single atom of feeling for her. It was a waste of time.
Rather, she channeled her anger on Jared and Hannah. She wasn’t planning to be completely bad and heartless like her father, so she wasn’t planning to kill any of them.
She just wanted them to have a taste of her anger. She wanted revenge. She wanted to see them suffer. She wanted to see them in agony and she was going to make sure she executed her plans. All of her plans.
“If in the process of dishing out my revenge to them, a life is lost, well, so be it…shits happen sometimes… we will all die someday,” she said before she drove out of her house that morning.
***
Hannah decided to start looking for a job, any kind of legal job so she could raise money to take care of herself and her son.
She knew there was no need seeking for a white collar job since she wasn’t educated. She was able to find a cleaning job in one small company, but rejected it when she realized the pay was too poor.
After many days of applying in different companies and homes for the position of a cook, cleaner, nanny, waitress, and other minor positions, she got an email from one of the houses she applied for, inviting her for an interview.
Hannah didn’t delay one bit, she quickly rushed down to the house. It was owned by Mr. Hardings, one of the richest men in that town.
The man was old and blind and mostly stayed in his room, so it was his handsome son, Kevin who conducted the interview.
Hannah couldn’t help but admit within herself that he was very handsome. The house was very beautiful too.
After the interview which Hannah got to realize that Kevin was a very despicable person, she breathed a sigh of relief when he told her she was qualified to work as a cleaner and cook.
She was ready to start immediately, not minding how rude Kevin might be to her. What was more important was the pay, it was very handsome; this was the more reason she was ready to bear any insult Kevin might throw at her.
When she got home that evening, she was very excited. As soon as Jared got back from work, she broke the good news to him. To her, it was a very good news, but Jared didn’t see it that way.
Though she avoided telling him how rude Kevin was to her, Jared was still uncomfortable with her working for a man who had a “handsome” son as she told him.
What if Kevin ended up falling for her? Jared thought as he listened to Hannah talk happily about her newfound job. Hannah didn’t know that his mind was far away.
“What do you think?” She finally asked, after telling him all about the job.
When Jared didn’t respond to her, she called him again and he sat up, startled.
“Huh?” He asked.
“Did you get any of what I said?” She asked when she noticed his mind had drifted.
“Yeah, sure… it’s… it’s good. Congratulations on your new found job”
She knew from the way he sounded that everything was not fine.
“Jared, are you alright?”
“Sure! I’m perfectly fine. How’s my friend, Jared?” He asked.
“He’s fine. He’s asleep already. I’m just so excited that they agreed to accept my baby and I. I trust Jared won’t give me any headache. He’s a good boy,” she replied.
“Well, it’s a good thing. But hey, you have to be very careful. You know I don’t trust most of these guys…especially from rich homes like that…they can be very arrogant and dangerous too. Some are bullies,”
“I don’t really know Kevin, but he doesn’t look like a bully to me. I’ll just try as much as I can to stay off his lane,”
“What time are you supposed to start?”
“7AM to 7PM. You don’t have to be worried about me, Jared. Trust me, I will be fine. In no time, I’ll get an apartment…”
Did she not know that he didn’t ever want her to leave? He asked within himself, while looking at her.
And so, Hannah started working as a cook and cleaner for Mr. Hardings. She immediately started saving up some money for the apartment she was planning to rent.
She would have enjoyed her job if Kevin was out of her way, but she just had to endure because of the money.
One evening when Hannah got home, she went to the kitchen to prepare her baby’s food when Brenda came in.
She had returned from work, not too long ago. Hannah guessed she was famished, hence, her reason for entering the kitchen. Because naturally, Brenda wasn’t a kitchen person.
“What’s for dinner, barbarian?” Brenda asked rudely without even greeting Hannah. Hannah didn’t respond.
“I asked, what’s for dinner. Or have you suddenly gone deaf?”
Hannah still didn’t say anything.
“Anyway, I do not blame you, I blame Jared for bringing a poor, uncivilized and smelling looking thing like you into this house.
Listen to me, I have been watching you lately and from what I’ve noticed, it is crystal clear that you like my boyfriend, Jared.
If you do not want your legs chopped off, avoid Jared. We are planning to get married real soon, so you better go look for a low class man for yourself and your bastard son…”
If Brenda had seen this slap coming, she would have prepared herself ahead. Maybe it’s because she didn’t expect it, that was why she staggered backward and flinched in pain.
She hardly recovered the first slap when another one landed on her left cheek. Brenda had never gotten a slap as painful as this before in her entire life.
Nobody had ever dared to poke her, talk more of slapping her. That was the way she was brought up because she was an only child from a very wealthy and influential home.
“You can lash me with all the insult you can ever think of, I will take it, but don’t you dare insult my son, ever again, you get?
You know, I was thinking that being educated and coming from a rich home is the best thing that can ever happen to someone.
But if this is how you rich and educated people reason, then I don’t think I ever want to be rich and educated.
Even a child’s sense of reasoning is one hundred times advanced than yours. I am now beginning to wonder what you were taught in school.
Let me guess, you were daddy’s girl and even when he knew you had nothing upstairs, he still pampered you till you grew up to become a beautiful gumby.
Now I know why I never wanted to go to school even when I had the opportunity. They raise bunch of retarded and frivolous people all over the world.
This was why I told my sister that going to school was a waste of time and money and I don’t ever and will never regret my decision,” Hannah concluded.
Brenda who hadn’t still recovered from the shock watched as Hannah carried her baby’s food and left the kitchen.
She didn’t bother insulting her further because she knew if she did, she was signing up for a suicide mission. She went back to Jared’s room and began to cry.
Her purpose was to cry her eyes out till Jared returns and meets her in that state, then she’d twist the story to her favor.
As soon as Jared returned, she cried the more so that his attention was arrested instantly.
“Brenda, what happened to you?” Jared asked, surprised.
“Jared, in my entire life, nobody has ever raised a finger at me, but your… your Hannah today has beaten me up.
I was in the kitchen, trying to make dinner when she came in and pushed me out of the way. I asked her why she would do such a thing and she started insulting me.
She called me all sort of names. When I told her to shut up, she slapped me. As if that wasn’t enough, Hannah beat me up.
Jared look at my face. Look at me. Do I deserve any of these? Is it my fault that I am from a rich home? Because it seemed that was where her anger came from…”
“Stay here, I will be right back,” Jared said and left the room.
He got to Hannah’s room and knocked it, when she opened the door, Jared looked at her in rage before he popped up the question.
“Why did you do it? Couldn’t you control your anger till I returned? Why did you have to beat Brenda up?”
“Jared, I’m really sorry I had to slap her, but…”
“Hannah, I respected you. Even if I was told, I would not have believed that you could do a thing like that. I’m highly disappointed in you, Hannah!”
“Jared, can you at least hear me out first?”
“Goodnight,” Jared said and stormed out of the house.
He went back to the room and mopped Brenda’s face, after which he made dinner and they both ate.
Brenda was very happy that she was able to execute her plan. She was going to gradually kill the affection Jared was having for Hannah at the same time, pull him completely to herself.
Because she felt very frustrated that ever since she arrived, Jared hadn’t touched her. She was irritated each time he mistook her for Hannah in their conversations.
He had even whispered Hannah’s name severally in his dreams and she was sick of hearing it. She wanted her man back and as the queen of manipulation, she was going to manipulate his heart and attention back to herself.
The next morning, Jared was about leaving for work when Hannah came out with her luggage and baby Jared inside the baby carrier.
“Good morning, Jared. I wanna tell you I’ll be leaving this morning. I intended telling you yesterday, but you didn’t want to listen to me. Thank you so much for your kindness. I owe you my life time appreciation.
I’m very grateful for all that you have done for me and my baby. I was able to find an apartment, not too far from where I’m working. I will be leaving now,”
