What had he been thinking coming to Ava’s house on the spur of the moment without first checking to see if she was around or not? Derek wondered as he stood foolishly outside her house, knocking for what felt like an eternity.Nobody was home. Of course, nobody was home. It was a Monday morning, after all, and Ava must have gone to work. She had mentioned fleetingly some days back that she had a new project that she was about to start, and so she was obviously going to be busy putting everything in place to kickstart the project.His coming here wasn’t going to be in vain, Derek decided. If he left now and didn’t tell Ava all that he needed to tell her, he was going to lose his nerve and postpone explaining his side of the story until heaven knows when again.So he got out his phone and put a call across to her. She answered the phone on the fourth ring, sounding out of breath. Also, the place she was in sounded very noisy.“Hello, Derek.” She said into the phone. He wondered if it wa
There were a number of paparazzi who had followed Ava home. They were all yelling out different questions as they viewed for her attention, but she had in her headset and was ignoring every single one of those questions. She looked very tired, pissed off and irritated, and Derek understood exactly how he felt. When he was in his last year in college and he, Steve, and Damien had had their falling out, he understood why most celebrities hated the paparazzi. Back then, he lost his privacy as the paparazzi followed him literally everywhere, shoving cameras in his face, and trying to force him to talk, whether he wanted to do that or not. The annoying thing was that there was nothing that he could do about them until they chose to go away on their own. After everything died down, he had made it a point of duty to disappear and remove himself from the public eye because he absolutely hated having his privacy invaded by total strangers, who would most of the time, twist the truth to suit
"Okay. I’m all ears. I hope there’s no problem though.” Ava said.“No, no. There’s no problem. Well, for starters, I wanted to tell you that everything that that guy, Andy, who has been trending on the gossip channels, said is true. I know that Denise has been giving some silly interviews trying to deny his story, but he’s telling the truth. As a matter of fact, I've been wanting to tell you everything myself, but I didn't know where to start.” Derek said.“I’m not sure I'm following you. What guy Andy are you talking about? I’m lost.”“Oh … I assumed … you haven't seen the news?” Derek asked in confusion. It was all that everybody had been talking about, so he just assumed that she had heard all about what Andy had said.“Um, no. I didn’t turn on the television throughout yesterday and I’ve been avoiding going on social media because I didn’t want to see any of all that … you know, Denise badmouthing me when in reality she’s the one who wronged me alongside you. I mean, it’s been yea
“Really? You were attracted to me when we hadn’t gotten married yet?” Ava asked him. “Of course, I was, although I did my best to keep that fact hidden. The last thing I wanted was to get sued for sexual harassment or something. You see, back then, I didn’t fully know the type of person you were yet, and for all I know, you could have been looking for a way to make yourself some good cash. No offense to you, but such thing had happened before with Steve and Damien, and I wasn’t about to let it happen to me as well, plus as I said before, I didn’t know you that well.”Anyway, to cut a long story short, as I told you one day when we got talking about love and whatnot, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of falling in love ever again, because I felt that it made one weak and vulnerable, as well as opened one to serious pain. So when we got married, and I noticed that I was beginning to look forward to seeing you smile more than normal, or was beginning to enjoy spending time with you, I got s
“So you never cheated on me with Denise.” She asked at last.“I never cheated on you with Denise or with anyone else for that matter. I was faithful to you throughout our marriage.”“Barry was fathered by another man.”“Yes, he indeed was.”“But you thought that you had cheated on me with Denise and that was why you ended our marriage,” Ava stated. Hearing her spell it out like that caused Derek to feel so much regret and he also felt a trifle foolish, but he answered anyway. He had known from the onset that this wouldn’t be a palatable discussion.“Yes.”“You valued her feelings more than mine …”“What? No … no. I didn’t want to admit what I had done … or what I thought I had done. Plus there was the fact that I felt like I was holding you back from what you really wanted, which was to have children of your own, and the fear that we were going to make each other miserable along the line since we wanted different things. That was why I served you the divorce papers. I didn’t want to d
“Um, not exactly.” He said, handing his head as his face flushed.“Hmm. What do you mean by not exactly?” Ava asked, narrowing her eyes at him.“Well, I couldn’t stand the sight of her after you disappeared. But she was carrying my child, or so I thought at the time. I couldn’t exactly cut off ties with her, because I was afraid that what happened to you could also happen to her and I would be responsible for it. So I told her to go stay at my parents's house until she gave birth so that she could be monitored at at all times.And then, she gave birth to Barry, and I fell in love with him the second I set my eyes on him. He was a wee little thing and looked so helpless. Denise on the other hand, seemed so frightened by him and did not seem to want anything to do with him, and neither did she show even the slightest sign that she was happy she was now a mother.We chalked it up to postpartum depression, but as the weeks and then months passed, I realized that she didn’t give a single d
What if he had confessed to her the fact that he thought he had had sex with Denise, and had gotten her pregnant? Ava knew the answer to that question, and that was that she would have left immediately.But what if he told her exactly how it happened … that he had blacked out and found himself in bed with Denise, but did not know how he had gotten there, and did not actually have sex with her of his own free will, but had been under the influence.She may probably have thought he was looking for a way to absolve himself of any blame, and it was highly unlikely but maybe, just maybe, she would have been persuaded to forgive him … if there was sufficient proof that what he was saying was true.What if Denise did not hatch this plan with the man who got her pregnant to blame the pregnancy on Derek? Would Ava and Derek have remained married, with Ava trying her best to get him to fall in love with her, while he, on the other hand, continued to avoid her and refuse her affection?Would she
On the ride back home, Derek felt as light as a bird. He hadn't realized just how much it bothered him that Ava didn’t know the exact details of how everything that led to their divorce happened, but now that she knew and didn’t hate him for him, he was a very happy man.Leaving her house was no mean feat because of the presence of the paparazzi who did not show any signs of leaving at all. As soon as they sighted him coming out of the house, they gathered around like a swarm of locusts, vying for his attention as they bombarded him with questions.The only question he did answer was to affirm that everything that Andy said was true. Then he finally got into his car and his driver pulled away from Ava’s house.He was worried about her staying in the house alone, because of all those gossip-hungry fellows who were camped outside the house, so he left his bodyguard with her, even though he could see that she wasn’t exactly happy about it.Some of the paparazzi began chasing after his ca