KIMBERLY~•~“I’m going out of my mind, Reiya,” I confessed one faithful evening. I had been thinking nonstop about Jack’s words that sometimes, George found me zoning out. “What’s wrong, love?” She questioned. “You sound more stressed than I am and I am very stressed about the upcoming wedding.” I chuckled. Reiya’s wedding had finally been set for December. Even if it would be very cold, she wanted to have a Christmas wedding. It was her favorite holiday. That meant I was spending my Christmas in New York. She was, for lack of a better word, a bridezilla, and since I wasn’t in New York to help her, her husband-to-be was taking the brunt of it.“Jackson has been here for almost two months and he is already ruining my life.”Reiya gasped. “What did he do?”I sighed. I was exaggerating, but he was messing with me on purpose. “You know how I accepted George, right?”“Hmm.” “Jackson deliberately showed up in George’s house one day, claiming that he was worried something bad happened t
KIMBERLY~•~“Are you very excited to go to school?”“Yes!” Amelia exclaimed, bouncing on the mat. She had too much energy. I could only hope that school was what she thought it would be and wouldn’t get tired of the said school soon.Her enthusiasm was good for me though. “Really? Why is that?” George asked her.“Mommy said I’ll make friends at school.” She repeated what she told Jackson when we went shopping together. “Are you sure you won’t cry when you’re left alone?”Her lips flattened in a thin line as she gave him a disapproving look. I chuckled. “I’m a big girl, Uncle George. Why will I cry?”George’s eyes went wide when he saw the look she was giving him. He turned to look at me and I shrugged. “My bad, Amelia. I underrated you.”Her nose scrunched cutely the way it did whenever she didn’t understand a word. “Under…”“Underrated,” George repeated for her.She frowned. “What does that mean?”As George looked for a way to properly explain the word to her, I looked into the d
KIMBERLY~•~Amelia was basically bouncing in her seat. I’d never seen anyone this excited to go to school.Her enthusiasm brought a smile to my face though.When we pulled over at the school, she rushed to open her doors but Jackson kept them locked. She whined in frustration but he ignored her and got out of the car before turning around to open her door.The smile was immediately back on her face when she got out of the car and stared at the building in front of her.Before she could take off, Jackson picked her off the ground and placed her on his hips. Her eyes widened dramatically! “Put me down, daddy! My friends will think I’m a baby!”I laughed as I gathered her stuff from the car and got out as well. “One, you’re a baby. Two, you don’t even have friends yet.”Amelia gasped. “What? I will have friends today! Put me down!”“If I put you down, do you promise not to run? If you even walk faster than me, then all your classmates will see when I’m carrying you inside the class.”S
KIMBERLY~•~“You never filed the divorce.”Jackson nodded shamelessly.I slapped him. I didn’t know when my hand moved or why it did, but I didn’t regret it. Was this a way to control my life again? What the fuck was this man up to? I was beginning to tolerate him but he just had to fuck with my life again! It was almost like he was mocking me, flaunting that he was still a part of my life.I didn’t know what kind of reaction I expected from Jackson after I slapped him, but all he did was open the passenger’s door for me.My breathing was labored and I really didn’t want to be in a confined space with him, especially not after the bomb he just dropped, but I had no choice. We just enrolled Amelia at a new school. I didn’t want to create a scene and have that stigma follow my daughter around.I glared at him but got into the car anyway, banging the door shut with more force than necessary.He sucked on his bottom teeth and rounded the car to get into the driver’s seat.“Why?” I asked
JACKSON~•~Kimberly wasn’t just angry at me. She was pissed, which was why she could barely look me in the face. I understood why she was pissed and I knew I deserved that. That didn’t mean I didn’t hate it though.I was trying to pull her back into my life. I didn’t know how I managed to fuck everything up every damn time.As she exited the car, I let out a sigh and went back inside the car. My phone rang again and I rolled my eyes, thinking it was Paige again, but it happened to be my father.I answered the call and brought it up to my ear while watching Kimberly at the same time.“Paige said you haven’t been taking her calls.”“It’s only been a few minutes,” I told him. She was so quick to report me to my father anytime something happened. My father didn’t like her as well, especially after what she did to our company, but his grandson was involved so he had to take her calls as well. “I’ll call her back later.”“No need. Just come back to New York. Asher is sick and is asking for
KIMBERLY ~•~ I was pissed as fuck as I walked into the building that I couldn’t even see where I was going and ended up running into George. I let out a huff as my nose hit his chest and I stumbled back, almost falling if he didn’t catch me on time. My phone wasn’t very fortunate though. I visibly flinched as it fell to the ground. George shook his head, helping me to pick up my phone. “Why are you so in your head? Is it because of him?” His eyes darted to the car outside, which alerted me that he had seen Jackson drop me off. That was the least of our problems though. “You seem angry.” He added when I didn’t say anything and just kept staring at him. “Did he do something to you?” I didn’t even know where to start speaking from. I knew it wouldn’t be right to keep the newly found information from him. It wasn’t fair to him. Before I could speak, my phone lit up with a text, and since it was in George’s hand, he was the first to see the text. His jaw clenched and he hand
JACKSON~•~[Paige: Asher is awake and he wants to see you]Since I hadn’t eaten all day, I had gone down to the cafeteria to get something to eat, but after getting Paige’s text, I turned on my heels and headed back upstairs.As I opened the door to the hospital room, Asher’s head whipped toward me. He tried to sit up but I shook my head and walked faster, making sure he didn’t waste his strength.“Dad.” He said as I approached his bed.“Hey, Kiddo. How are you feeling now?”“I feel much better, Dad.” He answered, sitting up anyway. “Mom told me you were free these days. Can I stay with you?”I arched an eyebrow at Paige and she looked away guiltily. There was no doubt she had told him exactly what to say. She wanted to keep me in New York. She didn’t want me to go to California. She didn’t want me to see Kimberly at all. She was certain Kim would never come back to me yet she was taking precautions anyway. I didn’t know why she was so bothered. She didn’t even like me.“You want to
KIMBERLY~•~It had been almost a week and I hadn’t heard from either man. I thought it was quite childish to ignore your significant other after a fight but apparently, George didn’t share the same sentimentsHe avoided me and ignored me whenever I tried to bring up our fight so I just gave up and the only time we got to speak was about work. I hated it. I hated that we had come to this. Despite being hesitant to date him in the beginning, I’d grown to appreciate him. I liked him and I wanted us to work. However, I didn’t see how that would happen if he kept evading grown people's conversation.I exhaled heavily, stopping myself from throwing more shades. I couldn’t entirely fault him. I should have just kept the thing from him until it was resolved. Then we wouldn’t have had to fight.Amelia was also asking about her father, but I could only tell her he traveled for work since I didn’t want to call and ask him what was up. He had left in a hurry and hadn’t dropped a message since th
JACKSON~•~I’d never been a patient man but there was a different degree of impatience running through my veins as Jeffrey drove us to the hospital the sick man was currently at. I’d managed to push it to the back of my mind during breakfast but as soon as the meal was over and Jeffrey knocked on my door, I dipped. I didn’t even have enough time to say bye to my family. Amelia was probably going to rant about how much I didn’t care about her but I could handle that later.Thankfully, the hospital wasn’t very far from my house.When we arrived, I didn’t wait for Jeffrey to properly park before I got out of the car and headed straight for the entrance. I just wanted to get my answers. I wanted to meet the bedridden, cancer-driven man that was trending online.The nurses at the reception noticed me immediately but I didn’t bother to stop even when I saw them secretly bringing out their phones to record me. Jeffrey had found out the ward he was staying in so I went there straight up.I d
JACKSON~•~I had work rivals. There were a lot of companies secretly competing with mine but I didn’t know anyone who would want to go the extra mile to sabotage me like this.Our products have been in use for years. It had been tested and verified and there had been no complaints about our skincare section so the fact that someone out there was claiming that it caused them cancer was saucy.Even worse, a news outlet quickly followed up with the information not bothering to verify its validity. They were playing with fire; the news outlet, the supposed dying man, and the other behind it.If they wanted to bring me down, they should at least use facts, they shouldn’t make up stuff that could be easily disproved.It was the first day of the new year and I was getting calls from everywhere. Almost every shareholder was trying to reach me at the same time. My father had told me to take care of it as soon as possible but how could I work effectively when everyone was blowing up my phone?
KIMBERLY~•~My mom didn’t want me to tell anyone, but Jackson wasn’t just anyone, was he? He was my husband and naturally, I was supposed to tell him about everything going on in my life.He pushed off the wall and approached me. “Cancer?” He asked again when I didn’t say anything, which made me wonder how long he had been listening in on me.“You were eavesdropping?” I accused.He shrugged, not feeling bad in the slightest. “If I didn’t, how would I know that your mom was sick and she’s taking it out on you?” Jackson questioned. “I thought we had agreed to trust each other?”“We did. I do trust you, Jackson.”He sat at the edge of the bed, close to me. “Then why can’t you still tell me anything? I’m your husband, baby. I’m supposed to share your worries.”I sighed. “It’s not like that at all. It’s just jot my secret to tell.”“But it’s your burden.”He was right. It was bothering me and I’d feel bad if he couldn’t open up to me about his burdens as well. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Ye
KIMBERLY~•~Things were beginning to look up for me.Asher had accepted me in his life. The scandal about my supposed nudes was dying down already. Well, a scandal about Chris dating two models at once was making its rounds on the internet so it took the limelight off of me.Chris had looked like a gentleman when we first met on the plane. I couldn’t believe that he was two-timing. Then again, it was the internet and everything could be taken out of context just for a story.Jackson had done his best to erase everything but some people had taken screenshots and even if I knew it was never going to be completely erased off the internet Jackson had vowed to legally deal with anyone who shared it. I was the lawyer in the couple but he was acting like one all the time.The only stress I had at the moment was my mother. I didn’t know if it made me a bad daughter but I was beginning to think she wasn’t sick and was just faking it because she kept using her sickness to manipulate me. If she
KIMBERLY~•~“Wake up wake up wake up, mommy! Santa came last night!”I shut my eyes even tighter and subconsciously moved away from the noise. “Mommyyyyyy!” Amelia started shaking me incessantly.I gritted my teeth as my eyes snapped open. Amelia wasn’t the only one present. Asher was also there and Jackson was grinning down at me.“Merry Christmas!” They chorused, agitating me even further.Jackson was a bastard. He didn’t let me sleep last night and we only got to sleep around two in the morning yet here he was, an accomplice to the little devil waking me up at seven in the morning. I held back a sigh and closed my eyes back.“Daddy says we need to have a good attitude during Christmas.” Amelia continued. “Or Santa will take back his presents.”Fuck Santa. Jackson and I spent days cracking our heads for the perfect presents for the kids yet all the credit was going to Santa.“Wake up, mommy! I want to open my stockings!”With a groan, I opened my eyes again and sat up. “I’m awake,
KIMBERLY~•~I was shocked to see that a new article had been uploaded and a lot of news outlets had run with the information. It was crazy. As soon as Jackson found out Emily was behind it, he reported her to the police. When did she have time to post a second article? Did she have an accomplice?When I traced the original article that contained my supposed nudes, I saw that it had been posted early this morning. Was it a timed post? She was even craftier than I thought. She didn’t care that she was getting arrested. She didn’t care that she would spend a longer time in jail after releasing those pictures. She didn’t care about anything but her revenge. It was crazy.As if I didn’t have a lot to worry about already, my parents were blowing up my phone with calls and texts. I knew opening their texts would annoy me but I did it anyway.[Mom: Kimberly, call me back right now!][Mom (2): what kind of pictures are those? Why did you take them? Don’t you have respect for yourself?][Mom (
KIMBERLY~•~Everything was happening too fast. The messages were traced back to Emily, which made me understand why the blackmailer was so desperate for money. She had been cut off from her family and since she wasn’t working, she had gone broke and needed money as soon as possible.Jackson was quite shocked to find out it was her but he was relieved it was her and not some other person who had evil intentions towards me. He said it was a good enough reason to lock her up since there was no proof of her orchestrating his accident.On our way back to the city, Jackson contacted the police and forwarded the evidence he had to them. I had asked him if he wasn’t going to inform his parents first before taking action but he dismissed it and said he had to act fast before she released another article.It was late at night, but Jackson insisted we return to New York immediately after the wedding was over. It was only an hour's journey but the kids were already asleep.“You’ve endured a lot
JACKSON~•~Someone was testing my fucking patience. I hadn’t been okay with Kimberly’s decision to forget about such a serious issue until after the wedding but I didn’t want to make a big deal about it since it was about her and it was her best friend’s wedding. It seemed like the blackmailer had other thoughts though.Without saying anything, I took the phone back from Kimberly and forwarded the message to my secretary as well as the number accompanied by a message of my own.[Me: take care of this as soon as possible]Thankfully, his reply came immediately.[Okay sir]“What did you do?” Kimberly questioned when she saw that I had pocketed my phone. “Don’t worry about it.” The topic easily got me worked up. The only reason the blackmailer was doing this for me but they were stupid enough to try and create a scandal with fake news. It could be proven wrong but once it was out there, some people were going to believe it no matter what. I didn’t want her reputation to be tainted with
KIMBERLY~•~Jackson and I agreed to take care of the blackmailer after Reiya’s wedding.However, I knew the person behind the screen wouldn’t take too well with getting ignored so I just told them to give me some time to get the money. After telling them I’d get back to them in a week, I put it at the back of my mind and focused on my best friend’s wedding.The days passed by in a blur and in no time, it was her big day. Amelia and Asher had arrived early in the morning. Caro said they were eager to come because they missed us. They were with their father though as I still had to be by Reiya’s side.“You look stunning babe,” I told Reiya when she started looking into the mirror too much. I could tell she was anxious but I couldn’t blame her. I was just as anxious on my wedding day and I wasn’t even getting married out of love.Then again, I think that made my anxiety even worse. I didn’t want to do something stupid and make him regret his choice to marry me.“You think?”“Come on Rei