House of Thorns – Episode 12

HOUSE OF THORNS

Tales by Eve

Episode 12

 

“Mmm hhmm hmmm” Tricia cleared her throat to let them know of her presence. “Hello sis” Valerie greeted, shocked to find her sister still awake. “How are you Mr Leonard?” Tricia asked instead. He nodded abashedly and lay down on the large bed.

“I wanted to be sure Mr. Leonard was okay, didn’t know you’re nursing him already” she scolded her sister after she had pulled her out of the guest room. “What were you doing hugging him like a lost lover? He has a wife Valerie!” she schooled her some more.

“Of course I know sis. Even though I have always liked him since the day I first saw him, it has never crossed my mind to see him beyond who he is to me, a colleague I’m interning under” she told her sister honestly.

“Then you should be careful how you get close to him at a time like this. I think something is hurting Mr Leonard, and I don’t want you to get him wrongly assuming you’re hitting on him. See, I almost thought so myself. We really haven’t been able to establish the reason he got himself so drunk” she advised her sister

“Okay sis. But he already told me why he was so distraught. He caught his wife pants down with a man in his matrimonial home” Valerie informed her sister.

“What!” Tricia screamed before she remembered it was already so late in the night. She was lucky her mum had travelled to join their dad whose journey had been extended by one month.

The two sisters checked on Leonard again and when they saw him sleeping peacefully, they returned to the sitting room where they sat and talked about Leonard’s predicament all night.

When Leonard woke up the next morning, he had a terrible headache. The hangover was way bigger than what he had expected. Tricia assessed him and decided it was best he returned home to trash out issues with his wife, and take that day and the next off from work.

Even though Leonard didn’t know exactly how he was going to face his wife, he thanked Tricia profusely for being considerate enough to allow him stay off work for two days, for something that should have ordinarily not been the company’s issue of concern.

Since his car was still at Mcmorrit Holdings, he joined the two sisters on their way to work and got his car. “Thank you so much for all the care you showed me last night” he told Valerie as he got into his car. Tricia had already hurried off as soon as the car stopped at the private garage

“It’s alright. I’m glad you’re better, and I’m hoping you’d be able to sort things out with your wife ASAP. I do not intend to school you, but you see, getting yourself drunk yesterday because of what happened in your house wasn’t the solution to your woes, it even added to it! I’m hoping that you won’t do that again” she told him calmly, her left hand on her hips and her right hand gesturing as she spoke.
She looked every bit a mother who was querying her son for some wrong he had done.

“Yes mummy” he joked and they both laughed heartily. They bid their farewells and Leonard was on his way to his house, his heart pounding wildly, unable to tell what he’d meet at home this time.

Leonard parked his car outside the compound, ready to make a run for it, if the need arose and walked in stealthily. He paused in his track as he listened to voices screaming in his house. This time, he could tell the two voices in his house.

“What did I ever do wrong to deserve what you’ve done to me? Why did you st@b me so badly in the back? I have always seen you as nothing but a sister since I knew you. Even when my husband said so many awful things about you, I failed to trust him for the first time. I trusted you, and that’s why I did all you asked me to do. And in the end, it turns out that you were snitching behind me all the while” Vivian was crying.

“Oh please Vivian, don’t go acting as if I’m the worst person on Earth. This life is all about interests. You fight for yours and I fight for mine. You were stup!d to have chosen to believe me instead of Leo. And like he told you, we have known from way back, and those pictures you saw are old pictures of the times we shared, from my archives.” She told Vivian.

“Oh no! My husband wasn’t dating the CEO? The pictures aren’t actually evidences of infidelity?” Vivian cried in shock. She had been angry that she hired someone to set her up, under the guise of helping her get her cheating husband back. Turns out her husband hadn’t actually been cheating!

“Of course not. He was too clean to cheat on you, and since I didn’t know how else to get him away from you, I needed to make you push him away, and in the process, I was lucky to have you work beyond your script, thereby losing the pregnancy. But you see, I had to make you appear as a cheat before him to be able to make him stay away from you as well, so I arranged for Jeremy.

Common Vivian, don’t blame me for going this far, you should also blame youself for being too stup!d to agree to have a man in your home as a way of getting your husband’s attention. I agree that Jeremy shouldn’t have hit you, but you made him so angry.

Why were you making him feel as if he repulsed you when a lot of women willingly offer their body to him in exchange for his services? Or how did you think I got him to do this job? Why are you looking at me like that? Well, I used what I have to get what I wanted. I slept with him for two whole weeks to get him to agree to do this job” Mary told her as if she was talking about a great achievement.

“You’re the most despic@ble being I’ve seen in my entire life, Mary. That could only mean Leonard was right about you all along. Obviously, that’s why he didn’t end up with you. And from all indications, he can never be with you!” Vivian told her, looking at her with so much contempt.

Mary let out a cynical laughter and looked at Vivian pitifully before she spoke again.
“Let me be kind enough to give you this information. This time, it’s not any form of scheming, I have nothing to scheme for again, after all. Leonard is lost; he’s been taken and there’s no way any of us can have him ever again. As I speak with you, the two rich sisters will be fighting over who keeps him. Sorry Vivian, but Leonard can’t also be yours as well” she told Vivian, feeling happy that she could at least drive a permanent wedge between them.

Leonard couldn’t hold it any more. How dare Mary talk about him as if he was some piece of article that could be transferred to anyone at will. “Thank you Mary for admitting that you have nothing to scheme about again. And since you’ve been sleeping with that lout for two weeks, how about you continue with him and allow me have peace with my wife?” Leonard asked Mary as he came into the house, shocking the two women.

When Mary was escorted out of Mcmorrit Holdings the previous night, she had gone to her house to make plans for the next move, but when she called Vivian over to her house to see how she could make her do her biddings one more time, she was shocked to find out that Vivian had somehow gotten wiser.

She had clearly told her she wasn’t ready to do anything extra to get her husband back. She was going back home to wait for her husband to return home,and if they couldn’t sort things out, then she’d know that she had allowed Mary ruin her.

“When you called me Mary, I felt you had something to say about how to get Jeremy tell my husband the truth, but since this plan of yours still involves me doing something extra, please count me out” She had told Mary and walked out.

As she approached her house, she saw a car driving out of the parking lot and since she couldn’t recognize the car, he felt whoever it was that came with the car must have visited their neighbour. If only she knew it was her husband being taken away.

Mary was running m@d with imaginations of what could be going on with Vivian, she knew Leonard would never be able to return to Vivian, but something about the way Vivian took the fall, made her feel unsatisfied, so she had come to her house that morning to open the can of worms, and to make Vivian see just how f0olish she had been.

She had known that Vivian would call her names and even curse her, what she didn’t know was that Leonard would over hear her clearing Vivian of all the allegations she and Jeremy had managed to heap on her head, and what’s more, he was still addressing Vivian as his wife, acting so cool, almost as if he didn’t see Jeremy going all the way with her.

“Did you hear me when I told you to leave my wife and I alone or you’d need me to throw you out myself?” Leonard asked Mary, as he shook her vi0lently.

And when she stood there, looking at him without making a move, Leonard pulled her like a garbage bag and threw her out of his house.
And by the time he got inside the house again, Vivian was kneeling and crying. “I’m sorry darling. I should have listened to you. I should have known better, but I let Mary manipulate me so easily, making us lose so much. Please forgive me” she cried.

Leonard looked at his wife, her mouth still swollen from the slap Mary had talked about earlier. He was so furious that she had allowed herself be treated so poorly and cruelly by Mary and her cohort, but he felt pity for her.

He walked closer to her, pulled her up with the intent of kissing her to let her know he had forgiven her, but as their faces got closer to each other, he found himself giving her a hug instead.

Leonard couldn’t kiss his wife, something about the way she looked at him made have a flashback of the time he met him wife beneath that good for nothing lout. He shuddered inwardly as he held his.wife, who appeared like a stranger to him.

Vivian hadn’t expected her husband to forgive her so easily, so even though she could tell that he was having a problem holding her in his arms, she was content with the fact that Mary didn’t truly have her way with him.

*TO BE CONTINUED