Plans and mistakes
“And why do you look so knocked out of your body and mind?” Mrs. Eleanor Miller asked her daughter Ellen who was lying on the couch in her room, like someone who had been bloated in a river for days before being rescued.
There was a piece of wet cloth of her temple to keep her temperature down, and a glass of cold water on the chair stood beside her, which she kept on leaning to drink from.
Getting so drunk beyond reasonable action when clubbing was something she never bargained for, but waking up naked under white smooth and soft bed sheets the next morning in a beautiful room was way worse.
There was no way that she could ever tell anyone that something of such happened to her, but the feeling of guilt and hangover sickness was beating her so bad right from her stomach and throat.
The fact that the stranger she had a night stand with had seen her face, and would definitely know that she was a daughter of the Millers family.
‘What if he had taken pictures of her? What if he started to blackmail her? What if he had even kidnapped her the previous night and demanded a ransom from her family?’ were the surfeit of heart trembling thoughts, that her brain continued to painfully beat her to.
Even if she had no strength to say anything to her mother, she still had to reply to her question to prevent unnecessary tantrum.
Ignoring her reality, her mind went back to her fantasy that came true the previous day, as her body could still slightly shudder and shiver, just by the thoughts of what the guy she met had done to her body. The ecstasy he gave her. The toughness of his body against her skin. It was fire!
‘Still, how could she be so stupid? How could she be so careless and let her guards down? What if their sex video leaked in one way or another? Then she would probably just kill herself before her family did.’
“Am I not talking to someone here?!” Mrs. Miller demanded angrily in frustration, jolting Ellen out of the imaginations that already made her body feel aroused.
As much as Eleanor hated that she was somewhat lonely and could not join her colleagues’ underrated party, the only one she could talk to was Ellen who was like a mini version of her. And the closest to her too.
“Can we just talk about another issue, mother? Like the fact that Emma is back in this house, but you can barely see her shadows anywhere around,” Ellen shifted the topic away from her.
She was feeling extremely sick from the bad hangover that was still in her body, and the fact that she had lied to her mother when she asked where was coming from, the next morning looking so rough.
It wasn’t that her mother monitored her life or anything relating to that, but Eleanor found it surprising that Ellen spent the night outside the house. It was because she knew she had any serious friends aside from Hailey.
“It is so annoying to watch, but I have seen her a couple of times from yesterday till today, just staring at her phone. Not just normal giggling, but the ones you get when you are in love,” Eleanor pointed out.
“Are you saying Emma’s got a boyfriend?!” Ellen exclaimed incredulously, and calmed her nerves after a few minutes of exaggerated reactions. It was going to actually be more shocking and weird, if it was Eva who got one.
No one had ever seen her with anyone that she was exactly dating, and she also never looked like someone who was planning for marriage anything soon.
It got really messed up when they all strongly believed that she was gay, to the point that Mark Miller never minded her the most amongst all his grandchildren. They didn’t know exactly why, but he never really liked her as a child. She did what she wanted.
“I just hope she is not dating some disgusting gold digger, that would bring shame to our family. When you see her again, tell her that! No low-leveled guy, and definitely nothing lesser than the standard!” Eleanor reminded sternly.
“And, I heard the maids talk about it this morning, that Dalton is finally taking his wife for a mental check. He should just throw her out and rest on those unnecessary long processes. The craziest part is that he carried her in his . Can you imagine, mum? I really think he has finally lost his mind or she has hypnotized him,” Ellen hissed and rolled her eyes, while trying to picture a scene of Dalton carrying Aria so closely in his hand like the maids claimed.
It felt like maggot would crawl out of her body, if her brother had even a soft spot for her. To her, raising the dead would be easier than that ever happening.
Ellen really wanted Aria to leave their lives as soon as possible, because she knew that things were yet to unleash itself, as the witch seemed to be taking things at a slow pace.
Having no idea what she knew, had seen or heard, she was certainly sure that her brother’s wife would leave no stone unturned to come back at them.
Not especially for the fact that she was now a different person than they have known, that was now bent on throwing everyone out of the house even before they did that to her.
“She has probably lost her mind or gone nuts, which the doctor would finally confirm. But your brother seems to have lost his mind alongside hers too,” Eleanor said with confidence, as she grabbed a bottle of water from the bedside and stood to drink from it.
She barely had a few hours left, to attend a special gathering that she was invited to by evening. Hailey’s mother and every of her own friends that were close to their extremely high social standards, would also be present too with her, being the one to lead everything.
“Mother! Mother!!” Ellen suddenly called out in anxiousness immediately a particular memory flashed before her, leaving her eyes wide open in breath seizing shock, “What if she had really lost her mind, or had had a kind of brain concussion?”
“What do you mean? How is that any of your bother n…”
“It is, mother. Remember what happened months ago. Dalton must never find out else he would be so mad we never told him. Things could get out of hand.”
“It wasn’t that much of an issue,” Eleanor forced a chuckle, now feeling tensed up a little.
“It was, mother. It definitely was. We have to stop her from getting a test,” Ellen chickened out.
**********
Aria went to the library after eating a light breakfast when she was sure that Dalton was far away from the house, making sure not to forget to lock the door behind her.
She was kind of bothered about the test he mentioned the previous day, but was more concerned about finishing the last part of her painting. The next step was to sell it to an auction house.
It wasn’t a wise idea for someone who just woke up and started painting after years, but it was possible if she had the right connections and money.
She would use money to pave the way to where her art was going to be sold, for the highest price ever than what the gallery could even bargain for.
Her plan was to sell the painting to the highest bidder of the auction house, with an agreement that money would be refunded by her if they do not end up making more than they paid, and they also get to keep the painting too. It was a fair deal to them.
Literarily speaking to anyone who would have heard of what she signed for, it was a terrible idea, and she knew it too. But she definitely knew what she was doing.
Lest she forgot, Aria picked up her phone from the wooden table beside her, took a fine picture of the art and sent it to Collin with a tag ‘Auctioning it.’ As soon as she was done with everything, she switched off her phone and left the painting to dry.
While she was getting ready to sell a painting with crazy thoughts in her head, she got a call from the private investigator that she had paid to check out some incidents.
They were all related to the near-death accidents she had escaped, whenever she had gone out of the mansion with or without the family by chance.
Rather than getting divorced hastily without getting to the root of the matter, and getting the perpetrator to pay for their sins, she decided to remain in the house for just one more month, to make sure the entire Millers paid for her past misery.
Speaking about paying. She would make sure to get a huge amount of alimony that would repay her for everything, including the company that Dalton had talked about before the press.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.
And she was not going to wait till the five months of marriage elapsed, but going to make sure it would also be one of her compensations for mental trauma.