I was on my way from my motel room to the location of a shoot for a local magazine one evening when my cellphone started vibrating in my handbag. I reached into my handbag and pulled it out and peered into the screen. It was an unknown number calling, so I bounced the call and shoved the cellphone back into my handbag. I guessed that it was probably Daren. For the past weeks, he had been trying to reach me ever since I cut him off after his mother had embarrassed me. For a while, the calls had seized, so I wondered why he was suddenly calling me up again. I didn't care, I was out of town anyway, so it wasn't like he would come find me. My shoot was taking place outside California, so I had been at the location for two days now.
After I broke things off with Daren, he had bugged my phone, begging me desperately, over and over, asking me to give him a chance to make things right. When I confronted him about his mother's claims, he had admitted that he indeed had been planning to get married to me.
"Why?" I had asked him in disbelief. Hearing it coming from him directly sounded even more unbelievable than it had sounded coming from his mother. "We've only been dating for barely two months now. What made you think that you and I would be so compatible?"
"June, I just know! I loved you from the very moment I set my eyes on you, and with every moment I spent with you, I became even more sure. I love you June." He had given as his reason.
"Well, if you truly loved me, you would have been more honest with me about yourself. At least, about your family. That way, I would have been ready for anything. But you left me in the dark, and now your mother thinks that I am a gold digger!" I said to him. "You didn't even give me a heads-up, you just went on to plan a wedding all by yourself without even getting my consent first."
"June, I was going to get everything ready so that I could convince you better. I had it all planned out, my mother just messed up my entire plan. Please, June. Give me another chance." Daren had pleaded, but I wasn't having it. It wasn't just about him or his botched wedding plans. It was the hate that I sensed from his mother towards me that scared me the most. I still couldn't understand why I had felt so much hate from her, but I definitely didn't want to stick around much longer to find out. I didn't want to have anything else to do with Daren or his intimidatingly rich family, especially not his arrogant and hateful mother. I did like Daren, and I had sincerely enjoyed our time together. He had been such a sweetheart and hopeless romantic. But I didn't love him enough to risk my sanity, by going against his mother. So I told him. I broke things off with him and told him to stop reaching out to me. But I don't think Daren got the clue. He didn't stop. He kept coming to the restaurant in the guise of a customer, and when I ignored him, he kept trying to talk to me. One time, he snuck into the kitchen just so that he could to get me alone. That incident scared the life out of me. My manager, Haru, decided to restrict Daren from coming into the restaurant, even as a guest.
When he couldn't see me at the restaurant anymore, Daren started to wait for me outside the restaurant, and he would often follow me home, trying to talk to me even when I kept avoiding him. My friends had to escort me home every time and stood up for me against Daren. At some point, I became too uncomfortable to keep living alone, fearing that Daren might break into my room one day. So I had to move back in with my parents.
Daren's attitude began to seem obsessive and it scared me a lot. He had kept bugging my line with phone calls, and when he saw that I wasn't picking his calls, he started calling me up with strange numbers. I answered the first few times because I thought they were business contacts, but when it kept recurring and they were all from Daren, I stopped answering strange numbers all together. This made me loose a number of good modeling gigs I would have gotten.
I endured it, hoping that Daren's mom would realize just how much I was sacrificing to stay away from her son. But to my surprise, she showed up at my workplace again one evening. This time, she came in. As I was still on duty, she asked Haru for permission which he willingly gave, and even offered us his office to discuss.
When we were alone in the office, Daren's mom, Mrs Rockshire pulled a piece of paper out of her handbag and placed it on the desk in front of me. I looked down at it, it was a cheque, a blank cheque, signed and stamped. My eyes widened as they flew back to her face, and for the first time I noticed how weary and desperate she looked.
"There. That's a blank cheque. Write on it any amount you want and it's all yours. I have just one request." She said, then she reached her hand across the desk and took mine. Her hands were cold and very soft. "Disappear." She said.
"What?" I asked in surprise.
"I want you to disappear. Get away from here, go anywhere you want. Just hide away and promise not to ever return. Daren must never know where you are. Please, just disappear." She said to me. She looked so pitiful, but I didn't feel any form of empathy towards her. Instead, I felt anger and rage. I shook her hands off mine, then I stood to my feet.
"Mrs Rockshire, with all due respect ma'am. Do you have no conscience? Do you know what I have been through just because of you and your son? I have lost a lot just trying to stay away from your son as you had instructed me. But here you are, without even acknowledging my sacrifices, and now you want me to disappear? Do you think I have no life? Didn't you think about my life here, my family? Did you even consider it? Or you think that your money can do everything?" I lamented.
"That is why I am offering you a new life! You can have any amount of money and go and start a new life anywhere else you want, somewhere Daren can never find you!" She said, trying to convince me.
"No! I won't disappear!" I fired at her. "My family are all here in California. My career is here. This is the best place to achieve my biggest dream. Everything that matters to me are all here! Where else do I want to go to? And I can never stay hidden, not from Daren or anybody at all. My dream is to become a top model, to grace the biggest billboards and walk every single runaway that matters. So no, I can never hide. Keep your money and your goodwill, you'll be needing it more than I would." I said and turned around to walk away, but Mrs Rockshire quickly held onto my hand, rising to her feet too.
"You don't understand! Daren will never move on if he keeps seeing you! If you can't do this for me, do it for Daren. Do it for the bond that the two of you shared." She cried. I shook her hands off again.
"I have no obligations to respect that bond anymore. Both you and your son have made sure of that." I said to her, and watched as her eyes hardened. Her pitiful face transformed into a dark scowl.
"If you won't leave willingly, I'll make sure you leave the hard way!" She threatened. I glared at her, not sure whether to be mad at her or feel sorry for her.
"Do your worse." I bit out at her, then I turned around and walked out.
She did do her worse. By the end of the evening, Haru served me a sack letter. There was no explanation, but I knew it had everything to do with Mrs Rockshire's visit. He couldn't even look me in the eyes as he served me the paper.
My friends, Lyn and Sandra were mad at me. They were angry that I didn't tell them who Daren really was, and they accused me of making them mistreat him.
"You didn't mistreat him girls, he was literally stalking me and all you girls did was make sure I was safe. You did nothing wrong!" I tried to reassure them.
"Tell that to his mother who is threatening to sue us for harassing her son." Lyn said. "She wants us to stay away from you, else she'll make do with her threats."
"You should have at least told us the truth, that he was the heir to Rockshire." Sandra grumbled.
"Tell me the truth Sandra, if I had told you that honestly, would you have gone against him? Would you girls have stood up against him to protect me?" I asked them.
"Well, now we'll never know. If you had told us, we would have known." Sandra shrugged.
I left my job that day, disappointed, betrayed and hurt. But I couldn't blame my friends or manager. They were only trying to protect themselves. My rage was towards Daren and his mom. For a moment, I considered going back to Daren, just to get back at his mother, since it seemed like she desperately wanted us to be apart. But the dread of being with an obsessive partner scared me much more than the desire for revenge. So, I moved on with my life. I found a new job and kept on taking up small modeling gigs to get on with my life.
For a long time, I didn't hear from Daren or his mother. So I felt relieved, thinking that I had moved on from that phase. But now, suddenly again on my way to my shoot, a strange number was calling me, and I could feel it strongly in my gut that it had everything to do with Daren and the drama that came with him. I was running late to my shoot, and the ringing of the cellphone was getting on my nerves. I ignored it as I rushed into the location. The shoot had already begun, and I prayed that the director wouldn't loose his temper on me as I cautiously approached him. I flinched when he suddenly turned around and our eyes met. I smiled nervously, and he flashed me a big warm smile, stunning me completely.
"Miss Daniels!" He called to me cheerfully. "You are late."
I had expected him to say that, but I hadn't expected him to say it like that.
"I'm sorry sir. I got stuck in..." I began to explain, but he interrupted me.
"No! No, no. Don't worry. No need to apologize." He said. "You've been exempted from today's shoot."
"Me? Exempted to from the shoot? But why?" I asked frantic. Was this why he had been playing cool? Because he wanted to let me off the job?
"Your fiance asked that we exempt you from the shoot today. He would like to see you. You can go ahead, He's in the tent over there." The director said, pointing me to a tent at the distant end of the field, then he walked away to continue with the shoot, before I could even say anything.
I stood where he had left me, staring at the tent which he had pointed out to me. I stared at it for a long time, contemplating on the next action to take. If the man in that tent had claimed to be my fiance, then it was definitely Daren. My heart began to race at the thought that Daren had stalked me all the way out of the city. I wanted to run away, get away from there as quickly as possible. Then it crossed my mind to report him to the people on set. I could tell them that the man in the tent was a stalker, and had been tormenting my life for a while now. But then, I knew how that would play out the moment they found out that Daren was the son and heir of Rockshire. Finally, I decided to face Daren once and for all. If there was a time to put a stop to his constant stalking and harassment, then it was now!
Making up my mind, I began to walk towards the tent, rage in my steps. I was determined to give him a piece of my mind, not minding what would follow.
I entered the tent, expecting to find Daren, but he was nowhere in sight. There was someone in the tent, but it wasn't Daren. He was some stranger I had never seen before. He was wearing a black suit with nothing beneath but his skin. His thick black hair looked richly oiled to the point it looked moist. It was carelessly styled, but somehow it still managed to look so perfect.
The stranger lazily lifted his head, and I found myself staring into the sexiest set of grey eyes that I had ever seen in all my life. His face was perfectly sculptured, with vivid features and a perfect jawline. He looked so fine, I almost swooned. He was sinfully handsome.
He flashed a sudden smile at me, revealing a perfect set of white teeth, and I felt my heart stop beating for a moment.
"I'm...I'm sorry. I think I'm in the wrong tent..." I stuttered, as I began to turn around to leave, but his sonorous, smooth baritone boomed, stopping me in my tracks.
"Oh no, my love. You are in the right place." He said. I slowly turned around to face him again, and he smirked at me.