UNTAMED DESIRE (A sequel to DESIRE IN DENIAL) – Ima Udott
Episode 13
They were so engaged in the kiss that they didn’t notice the smoke that had begun to engulf the house.
Hannah was the first to regain her sanity as soon as she opened her eyes. She immediately pushed Jared away as she saw the smoke.
She didn’t know exactly where the smoke was coming from, all she could think of at that moment was her baby as she screamed his name and ran to the room.
Jared was confused on what to do. The lights were blinking, some tripping off. He immediately detected that the fire was caused by electrical malfunction.
He rushed to the entrance door and tried opening it so that Hannah who had ran back with her baby could go outside while he tried to put out the fire, but the door was stiffen. So, he ran to the window.
“Where’s your fuse box?” He asked, while hitting the window.
“At the corridor,” she shouted, also trying to push open the window.
“And your fire extinguisher?”
“It’s also hung at the corridor,”
The fire was becoming visible. It was burning from the electrical wires on the wall.
Jared was finally able to open the window. He took the baby from Hannah and told her to jump outside.
As soon as she did, he handed the baby to her and told her to dial the emergency number and then ran back inside.
“Jared! Please be careful,” Hannah shouted.
Though the house was now engulfed with smoke, Jared was able to get to the corridor where the fuse box was.
He said a quick prayer before switching off the main switch at the fuse box and went ahead in search of the fire extinguisher, in case the fire didn’t go off.
When he found it, he quickly pulled off the pin, aimed it at the circuit breaker box and began to sweep it, then moved to the wires and did same.
Before the firefighters arrived, Jared had completely put off the fire. They were able to open the door. Rushing into the house, they met Jared hanging back the fire extinguisher. He was sweating.
All they could do was congratulate him for his bravery and advised Hannah to get a good electrician to help her identify the electrical device or devices that caused the power surges.
When they left, Hannah thanked Jared for his help. She wondered how she would have survived if Jared hadn’t visited her that night.
She looked at her baby who was now fully awake and thanked God that nothing happened to him. She felt she would not have lived if anything had happened to her child.
“It’s either someone tampered with your circuit breaker box or the electrician did a bad connection,” Jared said to Hannah.
“I don’t think the electrician did a bad job because he’s a trusted person,” Hannah said.
Jared looked at her, “You trust so easily. Anyway, we’ll get to find out by tomorrow. Meanwhile, we can’t stay here tonight. The smoke isn’t good for you and your baby,”
“Where are we going to?”
“My house. I would’ve suggested a hotel since you’d wanna protest coming to my house, but it’s already too late.
You needn’t worry about Brenda, I will take care of that. Please come with me, I promise you and your baby will be fine,” he pleaded.
They got to Jared’s house, after about an hour drive. As soon as Jared got inside, Brenda rushed to him and hugged him, professing how much she had missed and was worried about him.
As soon as she sighted Hannah, she became shocked and shifted backward. Jared noticed her reaction and asked her why she was shocked.
“I thought…I..what?” She stuttered.
“You thought what?” Jared asked.
“What’s she doing here?” she asked Jared. She couldn’t hide her resentment.
“Her house isn’t safe at the moment, so she’d be here till everything is fixed,” Jared replied.
“What happened?”
“Fire outbreak. Brenda, can you not ask me too many questions again because I’m tired, I need to rest,”
“Whatever!” Brenda said and walked briskly back to Jared’s room.
Jared helped Hannah to the room she had initially occupied. Nothing had changed in the room.
“We have an unfinished business to finish,” Jared said, looking at Hannah.
She didn’t need to ask him what the business was, she just smiled and told him good night.
He walked up to her, pecked her baby on his cheek and also pecked Hannah, but on her forehead before he replied,
“Goodnight”
Getting back to his room, he stopped halfway when he heard Brenda talking angrily to someone on the phone.
Though she was whispering, but be was close enough to hear her, so he decided to eavesdrop on her.
“If you did as I asked you, how the hell did she survive the fire outbreak?…shut the f**k up… don’t tell me to calm down… how can I pay you for a job, only for you to mess things up for me?…I said shut up…”
Jared walked into the room and she suddenly ended the call and sat upright, not able to look at him vis-a-vis.
“Who were you talking to?” He asked very calmly in a way that convinced her that he didn’t hear her conversation.
“It’s my stupid driver. I don’t know why he’s always so careless with everything. He just called to tell me he was rubbed some minutes ago…”
“Oh, that’s so bad. I hope he’s safe?” Jared asked, pretending not to have heard her previous conversation.
“I don’t care whether he’s safe or not. All I’m concerned about is my car. I won’t forgive him if anything happens to my car,”
“Calm down. Everything will be fine, okay? Let’s go to bed, I’m really tired,” Jared said, turned off the bedside lamp and pretended to be asleep.
Meanwhile, a lot of things ran through his mind. It was now clear to him. He remembered what he had told Hannah earlier about her circuit breaker box being meddled with.
He also remembered the shock on Brenda’s face when she saw Hannah. He wondered why a woman would be so heartless to the point of staging another woman’s death.
He thought of how Hannah would have survived if he didn’t visit her and decide to spend the night with her.
She would have gotten home, exhausted as usual and definitely would have been deeply asleep before the fire outbreak.
There’s no way she and baby Jared would have survived it. The house would’ve been destroyed by the fire and she and her baby would have been inside.
He became scared of Brenda all of a sudden and concluded that she didn’t deserve to be alive.
As an FBI agent, he was taught not to raise an alarm after the discovery of one culprit.
Rather, he should follow up the culprit so that he would be linked to all the other accomplices and then, arrest them all at once, even if it’d take him a year or years.
He was going to find out who Brenda was talking to on the phone and how many other people she had engaged in planning for Hannah’s death.
Brenda on the other hand breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that Jared didn’t hear her conversation, so she thought.
She was boiling within her and wishing she didn’t pay the man whom she had sent to set Hannah’s house on fire.
She was going to meet with Cecilia first thing the next morning and get new ideas from her since this one didn’t work.
Meanwhile, she was going to teach that man a lesson of his life since he thought he could outsmart her and eat her money without succeeding in the job he was sent to do.
Early in the morning, Hannah had already woken up and prepared to leave for work.
She met Jared at the sitting room. He seemed to be on his way out too.
“Good morning, Jared,” Hannah greeted him.
Jared looked at Hannah and imagined his life if she had died. He didn’t know when he walked up to her and hugged her for a long while before he replied to her greeting.
Hannah was confused, but she believed he had a reason for doing that and she didn’t want to disturb him on his reasons.
“I will drive you to work today, and I will pick you up after work. I will also make sure I go to your place with a trusted electrician and check the cause of the fire outbreak…”
“Thank you so much Jared, you can help me with fixing the electricity, but you need not take me to work. I have a cab driver who picks and drops me everyday. I’ll call him,”
“I’m not asking if I should pick and drop you, I am telling you what I will do. So there’s no need of calling your driver today, please,”
Hannah noticed that Jared was becoming overprotective and she wondered why.
“Jared, is everything alright?” She asked him.
Jared had chosen not to tell her about the conversation Brenda had. He was taught to keep secrets until enough shreds of evidence were gathered.
“Sure, everything is fine. Just do as I say, please,”
And so, he drove Hannah to work that morning. Kevin sighted them through the window.
He watched as Jared helped Hannah to carry her bag and the baby’s bag into the house.
Before Jared left, he pecked Hannah on her forehead as he did the previous night and Kevin looked with interest.
As soon as Jared’s car was out of sight, Kevin strolled to the sitting room to meet with Hannah.
Hannah greeted him, but he didn’t reply to her. He looked at her and gave an awkward laughter that made Hannah wondering what she had done wrong this time.
“I need to see you in my room after you’re done with my dad. Get to work immediately,” he ordered, before leaving.
As instructed, Hannah knocked on his room door after she was done taking care of his father’s needs.
She had put her baby to sleep and laid him on the bed in one of the guest rooms where Kevin had instructed her to stay whenever she wanted to rest.
“Come on in,” Kevin said.
As soon as she entered his room, he stood up from the bed where he was smoking and drinking, walked past her and locked the door.
Anticipate episode fourteen
