Chapter 5

Mona's howls attracted the house serving staff to the scene. James totally panicked. He wasn't even looking at Ronica as he pulled off his coat and tossed it to the side along with the other two coats before he dived into the lake to save his damsel in distress.

Ronica was frozen with amazement as James clambered out of the waters with Mona draped in his arms like a fragile princess.

"Call the family doctor now!" he ordered as he put the three coats (Ronica's, his and Mona's) across her shoulders to keep her warm. She was crying pitifully.

"I was just asking her why she didn't bring a coat and she just pushed me," Mona moaned.

"Argh, James, she's lying?" Ronica yelled, sick of Mona's pretence. Of course James did not believe her. He stood up and strode towards her with a determined gaze. To the horror of all who were watching, he cruelly pushed her and she fell into the lake where she struggled to stay afloat.

"Don't you know Mona can't swim? How could you be so callous? Stay there and think about what you've done."

With no hesitation whatsoever, James carried Mona. She grinned at Ronica over his shoulder. A smile only Ronica could see because it was meant for only her. To Mona, she had won.

When everybody was gone, Ronica climbed out of the lake, wet, cold and shivering. Adding to the mess, her phone had fallen in and was probably resting broken and waterlogged at the very bottom. she would be unable to find it without help.

As she passed, everyone was fawning over Mona in the living room at James' behest. They barely paid any attention to Ronica as she slipped past them into the guest room. Within the space of when she left and now, all her clothes had been uprooted and rubbed in the dust so that none of them were wearable. Covering her nose, she dug through her luggage and was relieved to see a stash of hard cash and a physical copy of her flight ticket. She put it in her small purse and hid it under her wet dress. It was all she would now be leaving with.

"Stop!"

She halted at the main doorway. All eyes were boring into her.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to get some cold medicine."

James gave me a long hard look. She could sense a debate raging in his mind. "Stay, I'll send the driver to get it."

"I can get it myself," She said hurriedly. She wasn't going to any pharmacy. She was going away for good. She did not need anybody following her and tracking her whereabouts.

"Well, at least put on something dry," James said with a scowl. Ronica opened her mouth then closed it for want of words. He was not going to believe that she had nothing dry to wear because a vindictive person had dragged them all through dust.

"Oh Jimmy boo, just give her one of my coats."

The irony was that Mona's coats were originally Ronica's coats. Mona took off the white cashmere like a gracious saint. She had everyone fooled by her act. Just not Ronica.

James pushed the coat into Ronica's arm. "Look how Mona is being so good to you when she doesn't need to," he whispered. "How about you grow up too? Anyway, make sure you show up for my father's birthday with appropriate gifts tomorrow. He is finally handing over the family business to me and I don't want any hitches."

No wonder he was being unusually nice. He did not respect her as a person, but he respected the influence she had over his father, Patrick. This wasn't the right time to counter him. She dutifully nodded instead. Better to let him keep believing that she would show up. James hesitated.

"Maybe the driver should take you."

"No! The pharmacy is only a short walk away. I need to clear my head besides, you know. Think about what I've done."

Outside the villa, she reached the nearest phonebox and dialled her contact's number which shehad committed to memory.

"RONICA!" His urgent sultry voice boomed through. "Just what on earth are you trying to pull? What happened to your phone this time?"

"I have some cash and the flight ticket but no phone, no car and I lied I was going to the pharmacy. Please can you come get me?" She spoke hurriedly before the cold frigid air could break her voice.

"Hold on Ronny. I am on my way."

***

It was the next day already. It was Patrick Simmons' seventieth birthday. The man had always had high hopes for Ronica. He had wanted her to get pregnant again. It was all he talked about when he was with her which was why he would not be meeting her on this special day for both of them.

He would fume that she had not shown up to his exclusive birthday party and James had shown up with another woman by his side, Mona. Knowing James, he would not dare tell Patrick who Mona really was, not when his inheritance was still hanging on the line.

While she rested in a comfy bed all the way on the other side of the country, James had no idea that she was about to upheave his life in a monumental way. As monumentally as he had cheated on her with Mona.

There was a knock on her bedroom door. "Come in," she said. A young twenty five ish reporter barged into her room. She looked at Ronica like she was staring at gold or at a rare painting.

"Ronica Risconce! I'm sorry. That's Ronica Simmons now. I am Amy Gold. Oh my God, I can't believe it's really you. It truly was a sad loss when you quit your career to marry James Simmons. Are you really set to return?"

Ronica had sent Patrick Simmons three gifts to abate the hurt of her absence. He would be opening them by now. The first one would please him greatly— a quilt, painstakingly knitted for months by her very own hands.

"The first exclusive I have for you is that I am reviving my music career," Ronica coolly announced as Amy furiously typed away on her laptop.

The second gift would make him wary. It would make his guests wary. It would unnerve James. It came in the form of an eight hundred years old mahogany flute. The marriage gift Patrick had given to her with his own hands to commend her bravery for choosing his son over her career.

"The second exclusive is…," she leaned forward conspiratorially to whisper. Her father in law's hands would be shaking now. It is with impatience that James would rip her third present open and when he sees it…

God! When he sees it.

She wondered how he would react to her serving him divorce papers. That was her third and last present to Patrick Simmons. She began to tell Amy all about her second exclusive.