TWISTED - CHAPTER 9

REPERCUSSIONS I

Recap CHAPTER 8

Jade looked at Delilah, his tormentor. Indeed, not all women are to be messed with. Some of them are more venomous than the fierce snake. He had bitten more than he could chew. Why would she show up just when he had begun to put his life together? How had she even found him? His tracks were well covered. He shook his head. Indeed, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

          “Lyla, are you happy now? You have ruined me. Kill me now and let’s get it over and done with.” He approached her menacingly. That woman did not even cower. She stood her ground and faced him off.

          “My dear Jade, love of my life, the game just got more interesting,” she drawled. She seemed to enjoy Jade’s torture. She stood right in front of him, her head a few inches from his chin. “She’s naïve, eh? I’ll begin with her. No woman will have you and know peace unless I am no longer breathing, Jade. You trained me well; I’ll give you a taste of your own medicine.”

          Jade ground out, “If you so much as get close to Bech, I’ll…”

          “What? What more can you do to me than what you did to me five years ago?”

          “What did I do to you, Delilah? You enjoyed it as much as I did, didn’t you? You screamed my name every time. You had me every time you wanted me.”

          “You used me!” Delilah shouted. “You used my body, my money, my name, and you dumped me!” She dropped her tone as if realizing that shouting was uncharacteristic. “You left me high and dry, Jade. You embarrassed me…”

          “Oh, so that’s what this is about. Your ego?”

          “What?”

          Jade chuckled. “Delilah, we’re even. You used me as much as I did you. It was mutual. I was your boy toy for your ego, and you were my woman. Besides, we agreed from the onset that the affair was no strings attached. You knew the relationship was going nowhere.”

          Delilah was taken aback. “Jade, what are you saying?”

          “Wait, what did you expect? That I would marry you?” Jade barked out a laugh. “You were young, Delilah. Young and bad. You know as well as I do that you forced yourself on me. Oh, come on, don’t deny it as if I took advantage of you.”

          “Jade, you did take advantage of me!” Her eyes welled. This was not how she planned to torture her ex. The voice she had practiced so hard into a drawl broke. “You accepted any amount of money I gave you.”

          “Did I ever ask you for money?” Jade was gaining confidence; he had cracked her frozen veneer.

          Delilah blinked the tears away, and Jade saw the crack widen. She grabbed her purse and stormed out of Jade’s house. It wasn’t long before Jade heard the roar of an SUV engine backing out of his driveway and driving off. Jade sat down heavily. That confrontation had drained him. Why did he even get involved with a child? All these complications… he ran his palm over his face. He needed to warn Bech.

          Bech. Goodness, she had walked in on them just when Delilah had backed him against the dining table. She might think he was having an affair. Oh, Delilah! How could she show up just when he was getting his life together? All these years since he got to the town, no one had taken him very seriously. While women had been throwing themselves at him, his male friends believed strongly that he was sleeping with all those women. The truth is, he had been proposing to them (to flex his testosterone muscles), and they had been accepting readily, but he never dated them, nor did he have any affair with any of them. How the rumours spread that he was breaking hearts everywhere he went was ridiculous, but knowing he was not that sort of person, he only basked in the popularity it brought. Little did he know he would greatly admire a woman like Bech, and much less did he expect Delilah to come and topple things over.

          Goodness, what if Bech had heard the rumours and believed them? He panicked and began to sweat. What if Lily had told her all the unsavoury things she had heard? He got up suddenly, grabbed his shirt abandoned on the dining chair, and made for the door. The banging of the door after him brought him back to secure his apartment with a lock and head for Bech’s house. She had to hear his side of the story.