Chapter 44

~Jennifer (Jenny)~

Everything was definitely not going according to plan. Eliana and Alistair were still very much in love, and it was as though every attempt I was trying to make to break them apart was failing, as it only made Alistair love her more.

What had I not done to fuel Alistair’s jealousy and anger towards Sam and Eliana? I had done practically everything I could think of, but yet, the only name on his lips remained Eliana Venator. What was it she did that made him cherish her despite everything? Her family killed his parents, but he still overlooked all of that for her sake. Did she cast a spell on him, or feed him a witch’s love potion? What was so special about Eliana that he looked past her flaws and wanted only her in his life?

Maybe it was the sex. Maybe she fucked him with styles no one had given him before. While most people hold the belief that the best way to a man’s heart is to feed him with good food, some people say that the best thing to give to a man for him to forever cherish you and hold you dear is good sex. Perhaps, in the case of Eliana and Alistair’s love story, the latter prevailed.

Either way, I had to find a way to tear them apart. I never lost a battle, and I wasn’t prepared to lose for the first time, especially since this was a crucial matter that I needed to deal with urgently, before every opportunity passed and I couldn’t deal with it again.

Alistair had spoken like he knew exactly what to do to stop the rumours concerning Eliana and Sam’s alleged affair, but he hadn’t shared his thoughts with him till now. If he couldn’t confide in me about it, maybe he was beginning to suspect me.

Damn! I should have tried harder to control my facial expressions. I should have acted like I felt sorry for him, instead of putting ideas in his head about Eliana and Sam. Sometimes, declaring your opposite intentions actually works out in your favour, but I had thought that it was too much of a risk for me to go on with it.

Right now, I was in his office, helping him oversee some documents before mailing them to his personal lawyer. I couldn’t even concentrate on the documents I was supposed to be proofreading, as my head was so filled with thoughts concerning how to break apart Eliana and Alistair. Why was the universe so tricky and unfair? Why couldn’t I just be with Alistair, while Eliana could be with Sam? That’s how things would have originally been had the universe not be so sketchy in her dealings.

I was convinced that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. All I was doing was simply restoring order back into the universe. I was doing the right thing, and irrespective of the methods I used to achieve my goal, it didn’t matter as long as order was restored back into the world. The universe was unfair, and someone needed to put things back in place. If no one was up to the task, I was, and nothing was going to make me relent in my decision to separate Eliana and Alistair.

The only thing likely for Alistair to do was to convince Eliana and Sam to debunk their dating rumours. While Sam would never agree to do that, Eliana, on the other hand, wouldn’t mind. If she debunked the claims of her alleged relationship with Sam, that would earn her Alistair’s trust, and my plans, and all the things I had already done would go to waste, as they would become inseparable, filled with love and trust for the other.

Right now, I was the one holding the cards, but like every other game of cards, you could feel you’re winning, while someone could take you by surprise and end up making you a loser. That was not going to happen with me. I had one final card; it was destructive and would put an end to all this love nonsense finally, but I wasn’t sure if I should use it.

Not only was it going to break every trust Alistair had in Eliana, it was going to taint Eliana’s image and break their relationship for good. I was tired of playing nice, but I wasn’t sure if I was willing to ruin both of their lives, instead of just watching them go their separate ways calmly, because of jealousy and lack of trust. If I also did that, Alistair may lose trust in every woman, but I didn’t really care about that. Even if he never loved me back, it was all good as long as he wasn’t with any other person.

I heard the sound of a notification, and looked up from the documents I was going through. It was Alistair’s phone the sound had come from, and he had apparently forgotten it on his desk when he left in a hurry to have a meeting with the shareholders of the company.

I heaved a sigh, sure that it was Eliana who had probably sent him a message, talking about how much she missed him and all those stupid things that was said at the beginning of a new relationship. With anger in my heart, I was prepared to delete the message before Alistair could even get a chance to read it.

Maybe this could also provoke another quarrel in their relationship, I thought, as a wicked grin crept onto my face. She’d be angry that he hadn’t responded to her message, and he’d say he never saw it. She’d think he was lying about it, and he’d think she had probably sent the message to someone else. Either way, the trust they had for each other that was already dwindling, would crumble more, till they’ve lost all their faith in each other and decide to call it quits.

I picked up his phone, and unlocked it, thankful that he hadn’t changed his password again. Before now, Alistair never used a lock on his phone, but probably now that he had Eliana’s nudes and flirty conversations which were for his eyes alone, but I had seen of course, his password had been changed over and over again over the last couple of weeks.

Presently, his password was ‘princess’. It was once ‘Eliana', then ‘Beautiful', then there was a time it had been ‘ElianaVenator'. I always knew when his password was changed, thanks to my super vision abilities. No, I wasn’t stalking him. I just needed to be up to date in case my plan involved doing something with his phone, and right now, it did.

To my greatest surprise, it wasn’t a message from Eliana. It was an email from a delivery company, telling him his package would arrive in three days time. I tapped on the email, running my eyes all over it, and when I saw what the package was, my mouth opened agape.

The package was an 18-karat white gold Arpeggia diamond three-row engagement ring worth a million dollars. It was an elegant band fit for a queen, and I could guess instantly who it was for.

Fuck! While I had been taking things slowly, Alistair was ten steps ahead of me. So, this was his grand plan. If he got married to Eliana, the whole world will be aware that she was now a married woman, and they had thought wrong to think she and Sam had anything to do with each other. It was a perfect plan that would destroy all the plans I had.

I had been the one to turn on the entertainment channel on Alistair’s television, knowing fully well that Eliana and Sam were hot topics of discussion at the time, I had also left the magazine on Alistair’s desk, hoping he’d find it. I was friends with the publisher and I paid heavily for that column to be released, just like I had created a group chat and forwarded the link anonymously to Alistair to join in the group chat.

All of that hadn’t made me get any reaction from Alistair, and even when Sam had tried to make him feel jealous, we still hadn’t gotten a negative reaction from him. All this while, he had been planning what to do, and we had just been wasting our time trying to show him why he must leave Eliana, when his mind was set on having her and no one else.

I must say, what he had in mind was incredible. It would forever shut rumour mongers up, and there would be no way I could possibly ruin his relationship with Eliana again. I had to do something fast about it. At least, I had gotten wind of his plans before the ring got delivered to him. It seemed like the universe was finally on my side.

I picked up my phone, and dialled Sam’s number. We had to go ahead with the last straw that would break the camel’s back, no matter who got hurt in the process.

He picked up his call, and responded in a drowsy tone. “Hey, what’s up?”

“There is fire on the mountain,” I told him.

“What fire?” He asked, uninterested.

“Alistair is going to propose to Eliana,” I replied, dropping the bombshell.

“What? When?” He asked, finally sounding interested in the conversation.

“I have no idea, but he ordered for an engagement ring, and it’s going to arrive here soon,” I said.

“If he asks her to marry him, you know she is definitely going to say yes to his proposal,” He said.

“Of course, I know. That is why we have to move forward with the plan,” I said, in a tone that depicted urgency.

“What plan?” He asked.

“The final blow,” I replied.

“What? Are you crazy? If Eliana finds out about it, she is going to kill me,” Sam said.

I rolled my eyes, irritated. “Eliana is not going to find out, and even if she does find out, we are going to make sure we come up with a lie that will make her believe in you,” I said.

“Jennifer...”

“Sam, you can’t say no. We have already come so far, and you can not just back out of our deal. This is going to be the last time, I promise you. We have been taking things slowly, but we stand the risk of losing every chance we could possibly get again if Eliana and Alistair get married. We have little or no time left to carry out our plan. This is the only thing we can possibly do,” I explained.

I heard him sigh. “You’re not wrong about everything, but how am I going to get Eliana alone?” He asked.

“Have you told her about your admission into the university?” I inquired.

“Yes, I told her yesterday, and she seemed really happy for me,” He revealed.

“Of course, she’d be happy for you. Here’s what you are going to do. You’d invite her to celebrate with you at your house,” I said.

“She’d ask why I can’t just throw a party or take her out, and why it has to be at my place,” He said.

“That’s easy. Just tell her both of you cannot afford to go out because you might be captured by a reporter. Trust me, she’d agree immediately, because she definitely doesn’t want to get on Alistair’s nerves,” I said.

“You’re right, and I could tell her that I’d throw a party later, and this one just needs to be for both of us, since it might be the last time I’d get to speak to her one-on-one in a long time,” He suggested.

“Exactly. Do not overdo it though. Act normally with her, because it’s all over for us if she has the tiniest bit of suspicion. When everything’s set, give me a call. I’ll be hanging out at a bar close to your place, and I’ll come by immediately to finish the job. I can’t trust another person to do it for me. What do you think?” I asked.

“I think it’s a perfect plan, and I’ll get on with my job as soon as I end this call. We are going to strike the last match that will end anything there is with Alistair and Eliana,” He said, full of optimism.

“Yes, we are. You can have Eliana back, and I’ll get back Alistair. We can then say goodbye to each other, and call this a closed deal,” I agreed.

“Yeah. I’m going to hang up now,” He said.

“Do not make any mistakes,” I told him, and hung up on him.

There was no way in the world that I was going to let Alistair and Eliana get married. Today, it was all going to end. I didn’t care if the game I was playing had taken a dangerous and deadly turn, it did not matter to me as long as I separated them from each other. They were never meant to be, and the sooner they realised that, the better for them, because I, Jennifer Stuart, was never going to stop until Alistair and Eliana were no longer together, and I didn’t care about who got hurt in the process.

Eliana Venator would never know what hit her. She was doomed the moment she decided to fall in love with what was originally mine, and for that, she was going to definitely pay.