Closure

/Brian’s POV/

“what was the reason for you guys to come all the way to ruffle my emotions like that” I mumble as I slump on the bed while my mom practically drags my sister out of the room.

“hmm, they left quite early” Elliot sighs in relief as he makes his way out of the bathroom with his phone in his hand.

“wait a minute…” I pause in shock

“you were in there the whole time?” I ask him and he nods with a sly smile playing on his lips.

Elliot looks around the room awkwardly before charmingly lifting one eyebrow as he says “I kinda felt that you guys needed a moment so I just excused you”

“…….by staying in the bathroom?” I ask looking up and down at him snobbishly.

“so the ‘great lengths’ that Elva went to get my location was you?” I ask him intentionally putting air quotes around my words.

“ouchhhhhh……………I just exposed myself” Elliot says scratching the back of his head, something that he does when he feels really guilty.

“how could you do that to me?” I ask him running my hand through my hair as I get up from the bed and start pacing around the room.

“how was I supposed to know that I wasn’t supposed to do that” he feigns ignorance as he takes his seat on the couch in the siting area of the suite.

“hello?” I scoff.

“what was the point of me staying in a hotel?” I interrogate him with a raised eyebrow.

“….to avoid the people that will bug you with unnecessary questions” he answers and I give him a knowing look.

“I wasn’t expecting Elva to come all the way here, more so how was I supposed to know that your mom was going to tag along with her?” he defends.

“spill it…. why did you divulge the details of my location to Elva?” I ask gawking at him.

“I stopped by Kings villa earlier this morning and the plan was to just pick up a few things for you and quickly head out since it didn’t look like you were going to go home anytime soon, but I was caught by Elva who threatened to hand me over to your dad” Elliot says and shudders at the mention of my dad, earning him a glare from me.

“don’t give me that look” he says giving me a sidelong glance.

“you know too well that I am scared of your dad so I had no choice” he defends himself.

“scared cat” I mumble.

“I heard that” he informs.

“I said it because I wanted you to hear” I inform and he rolls his eyes at me.

“sooo what do you think about what your mom suggested earlier?” Elliot inquires and I sigh as I slump on the bed.

“I know that I was supposed to give you guys space, but when Elva sent me a message that she was at the hotel lobby with your mom, I freaked out and just locked myself inside the bathroom because everything happened so quickly and I didn’t know what else to do so……. yeaaaa I heard everything that transpired between you guys” Elliot start rambling, typical of him when he is nervous.

“chill man…. it’s really not that deep” I assure him.

“so what is your next line of action?” Elliot inquires but I shake my head because I don’t know.

“I get that everything happened so quickly and you probably need time to process your emotions and figure things out, but you can’t run away from it forever and sooner or later you will just have to make your own decision if you don’t want to be pressured by your parents into doing what they want” Elliot explains and I nod understandingly because I understand his plight.

“it feels really weird that someone like my mom who is very close to Embers mom and knows what Ember means to me suggested that I should consider my father’s suggestion when she never subscribes to the any of the ways my father imposes decisions on me so why is she doing it this time?” I ask Elliot visibly confused

“she probably subscribed to your father’s damage control strategy because somebody is intentionally fueling the fire of the scandal and it seems that the focus of their cyber bulling is Ember” Elliot informs

“Eloise!!” I groan with clenched fists.

“I am going to support whatever decision it is that you make 100%, but if we were to consider things from your parent’s point of view, Ember is the main focus of the scandal so your parents are trying to create another diversion since what people need is something to talk about and trend with, so in that way Ember can stop getting the bad press that she is getting” Elliot gives an in depth explanation of my parent’s damage control strategy.

“even if my parents want to give the general public something to talk about, breaking of my engagement with Ember and marrying Eden is not the way forward” I express.

“I don’t know if it’s just me that is getting the vibe that despite everything that happened, you don’t want to break off your engagement with Ember” Elliot points out.

“I have not decided on what to do” I answer him honestly.

“why don’t you just have a conversation with Eden” Elliot suggests while pressing his phone.

“Eden?” I question and he nods eagerly.

“Eden and I have not had a proper conversation in three years, if I am not mistaken the last proper conversation that Eden and I had was when she lost her sister” I inform.

“I thought you guys were at the family dinner together two weeks ago” Elliot cuts in.

“The same family dinner that she turned down the offer to marry me?” I ask Elliot and he nods.

“she was way too focused on going against her dad that she ended up walking out on us, so we didn’t say a word to each other” I explain.

“why exactly are you freaking out over having a simple conversation with Eden?” he inquires

“because none of these looks normal” I shrug his question off.

“don’t tell me that you are scared” Elliot says laughing out loud, earning him a glare from me

“for crying out loud, you are the president of Kings Corporation that deals with the difficult Xander Kings on a daily basis so how hard can it be to talk to a lady?” Elliot says in a tone that assures me that he is mocking me.

“a business related conversation and a marriage that none of us wants is something entirely different more so, she completely refused me” I stress but he is still focused on pressing his phone.

“Only God knows if what Elliot is doing on his phone is way more than the conversation that we are having here” I sigh as I take out my phone to keep myself busy.

“she didn’t refuse you, she just made it clear that she won’t stand for arranged marriage which is something that you would have done if she didn’t, so relax” Elliot speaks up after a while.

“so what are you trying to say?” I ask Elliot.

“what I am trying to say is that you have enough reason to join hands with Eden to sabotage this whole marriage plans” Elliot suggests.

“I don’t know how I feel about that” I express.

“well, you will never know until you try” Elliot says looking abnormally excited so I just ignore him as I start to ponder on what he just said, knowing that he must be chatting with his girlfriend hence the excitement.

Elliot leaves me to my wandering thought as I start to process what he just said only for my phone to start ringing and it turns out that the caller is Eden

“why is she calling?” I ask Elliot alarmed

“I may have asked my girlfriend to help you” he answers nonchalantly

“what exactly did you tell her?” I inquire

“I told her that you are shitting in your pants over talking to Eden so she offered to help” Elliot hints wriggling his brows at me.

“thank you for embarrassing me in your girlfriends DM” I say with sarcasm dripping in my tone of voice.

“I’m sorry” he apologizes.

“Just know that I’m still mad at you” I mumble as I move away from him to answer Eden’s call.

“hey” I say on picking the call.

“hy” she says on the other end of the phone.

“how are you” I ask her mentally blaming myself for picking the call knowing that it is going to be a round of awkward greeting.

“I’m fine “she answers

“how is your sister” those words make its way out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

“my dad is insisted that she should get rid of the baby yesterday, then she feels really sorry for dragging you into this mess because you have been really nice to her, but in the end you got hurt by her so she is having a really tough time” Eden answers and my heart sinks.

“anyways, I told her that she shouldn’t stand up to dad and tell him firmly that she doesn’t want to abort the baby if she doesn’t want to because I feel that no one should make that decision for her” she goes ahead to explain.

“I hope she gets what she wants” I reply because it breaks my heart that there may be a huge probability of her wanting to keep the baby but my heart still breaks from thinking about having decisions imposed on her like me

“hey…..” Eden says from the other end of the call.

“I am really sorry about what happened between you and Eden, I know that whatever happened between Adrian and her was unplanned, they both got drunk during Olives death anniversary and it ended in a one-night stand”

“Ember found out about the arranged alliance at the dinner table that night and she didn’t want things to get ugly between me and my dad so she offered to go in my place and I know that she should have told you about it but my sister had no idea that you and Adrian were that close until of recent so she didn’t cheat on you, things were just really behind her control” she explains while I just listen to her

“I know that whatever explanation I am giving you now may not really be what you want to hear, but you deserve an explanation and I can only hope that my explanation will offer you the closure that you deserve” she says

“thank you for taking care of my sister over the past two weeks Brian you are one of a kind” she says before hanging up the call and I sigh because I don’t know if I will be able to move on from this after getting the closure that I deserve.