12. Three loud shrills

2342 Words
Diana stood frozen to the ground, as she gawked at the small video intercom screen, whereby she could see the small live surveillance footage of the person standing right in front of the door of her house. Having crossed the driveway in which Emily’s Prius was parked and also having walked the entire ten feet long walkway towards the door of the house, was Adrian, who stood holding a beautiful full bouquet of flowers in his hands, wrapped in a brown sheet, making it look simple yet pleasant. Diana’s eyes bulged out of her sockets and her heart raced rapidly inside her chest, as she realized that Adrian had reached her home as well. “What the hell should I do?” she wondered, as she waved her hands in anxiety. “How did he even find my house?” She wondered biting her finger in her mouth that shocked her and brought her back to her senses. “Of course just how he found the salon, he must have found the house as well.” Diana concluded. “But what should I do now? He is here!” she cried, running a hand through her hair. “Should I call the cops?” She concluded and took her phone out of her pant’s back pocket but stopped and bit her lower lip, hard and vigorously. She breathed in deeply and tried to think the whole situation through. “Wait! What would the cops do? Who am I kidding. First off, he hasn’t done anything to hurt me yet and secondly, it is Adrian Sarmiento. The police would probably arrest me for calling them on Adrian.” Her heart beat rapidly inside her chest and her entire body trembled with fear, as she only worried what might come next. She sighed and turned around to find a solution but only bumped right in to her Aunt and Polly and the two also stood behind her noticing her anxious moves but when Diana turned around and bumped in to them, just like the poor girl, the mother daughter duo also jumped up and screamed in fear, joined by Diana as well, who also screamed back. The three loud shrills, resonated together even more loudly, were definitely heard by Adrian, who stood right outside the door of the house. He c****d an eyebrow and leaned forward, planting his ear closer to the door to clearly hear the commotions happening inside the house. The three women continued screaming, until Diana was the one to realize that their loud yells could be heard by Adrian standing right outside the house. She immediately shut up and placed her finger over her mouth, shushing her aunt and cousin as well and with the other hand she gestured towards the door and then towards the intercom’s screen, making the two mother and daughter also shut up immediately. “s**t!” Emily whispered and Diana nodded back at her. “What is he doing here?” Emily asked and Diana shook her head back, remaining just as oblivious and lost as her aunt. “I have no idea.” She whispered back and Polly walked to stand next to the intercom’s screen. “Gosh…” she mumbled lowly. “He really is handsome.” She stated and turned to look at her aunt and cousin, who looked between Polly and the screen. With his ear closer to the door, Adrian felt suddenly startled when he heard Polly’s voice and immediately straightened up, looking at the bell, next to which a small black dot appeared and he immediately felt conscious that there was a camera watching him and next to the camera was a small red light that beeped, to show that the audio option on the intercom was active. He cleared his throat and the suddenly sound coming from the intercom, startled Diana, who walked towards the intercom and looked closely at the button panel. “Umm, hello? It’s me.” He waved his hand, with a small smile puckering his lips, as he looked right in to the camera and his voice was transferred right from outside and direct in to the house, through the intercom. Diana’s eyes bulged out in sheer horror, as she realized that the audio on the intercom was open and Adrina could hear everything that she was talking earlier and also heard their loud screams as well. This made her scream in pure horror and she immediately pressed the mute button on the intercom, turning off the mic on both sides. This made the red blinking light go off even on the outside and Adrian retracted himself back a little wondering what was actually happening. “Wait… it was just…” he pointed towards the darkened red button, that had just turned off and felt flabbergasted and extremely annoyed at just how the light had went off right after he had spoken in it. he had never been this humiliated in his entire life. This made him loosen up his tie around his throat, that swell with anger, as he tried to swallow down the lump of angst down his throat and turned his hand that held the bouquet down as well, no longer holding the bouquet and uplifting it anymore, something that he thought showed his enthusiasm, He then turned around and began walking away from the door, along the tall shrouding bushes, that were entangling with each other and grown up by Emily, to keep the pesky neighbors off her lawn. He continued walking but stopped by the very end of the walkway and breathed in anger like a bull. Hiding behind the bushes and camouflaged, was Jared, his position made him stand in a blind spot of the intercom camera and the three women, who gawked at the small display screen, couldn’t tell what was Adrian doing. To them he just stood by the end of the walkway, having walked away from the house. “Gosh! You must’ve made him feel humiliated.” Polly informed her cousin, making her eyes go wide and look back at Polly in confusion. “Humiliated? How? I didn’t even do anything!” “Don’t you know that when you turn off the mic from the inside, you also turn off the red blinker.” She smacked Diana’s shoulder, making her wince in pain. “Ouch! Why would you do that?” she complained, rubbing her shoulder and the two turned away from the screen, finding Emily standing behind them but lost in her own thoughts, looking somewhere in a deep void. “Mom! What are you thinking…?” Polly walked towards her mother but she only shushed her daughter and shoved the two girls away from the intercom screen and instead walked ahead and gawked at the screen very keenly. “He didn’t leave.” Emily pointed out and Diana also leaned towards the screen, standing on Emily’s left side and over her right was her own daughter, who also leaned forward and gazed at the screen. “Yeah! He didn’t.” Polly stated and all the relief that Diana had felt with Adrian walking away, dissipated and was instantly covered by anxiety. “But why is he not leaving?” she cried and Emily shook her head. “There is something that is holding him back.” She commented, making both her daughter and niece look at her in quite the inquisitiveness. “What do you mean, Mom? Like a gum got stuck to his shoe that is holding him back? Cause if it did, then it was his own gum. I have stopped spitting gum on the walkway…” Polly mumbled lowly, afraid that her naïve acts of spitting the chewing gum in the walkway may have been caught by her mother yet once again and she would get a good earful by her Mom. “I wasn’t talking about that you i***t… wait…” Emily began explaining herself but stopped in the middle when something hit her. “…What? Did you spit gum in the walkway again?” he mother yelled at her and grabbed and twisted her daughter’s ear, making her wince in pain. “Wait! If you weren’t talking about the gum then what were you trying to say?” Diana demanded and Emily let go off her daughter and turned towards her niece. “He told you that he was here to fulfill some promise he made to Ross?” Diana nodded simply at Emily’s question. “Hmm! And you clearly told him that you didn’t want to do anything with him and you don’t want to leave Los Angeles?” “Yes! I made that quite clear to him.” “How was he like to you in the past?” Emily asked that question out of the blue, making Diana scrunch her nose in disgust, as she was reminded of the terrible way with which Adrian treated her. “Horrible!” she concluded his treatment towards her in just one word. “And yet, he showed up at the house, even after you rejected him at the salon. And he doesn’t even love you or is an old flame of yours. This only means that he wants you… no… actually he needs you.” “What? Okay! I am totally lost.” Polly commented and Diana sided with her cousin, just as oblivious to her aunt’s dictations. “This means that he isn’t here for some stupid promise. That is just a pretext that he had made and come up with only to hide his real motive.” “But what could be his real motive?” Diana required and Emily lifted an eyebrow with a mischievous smirk, “Well, we would need to find that out.” “But why should I care what he needs or wants? My job is to chase him away and…” Diana began explaining her true feelings but Emily held her shoulders and pulled her back to the real world that was tough and agile. Emily was a sagacious woman, who held great astuteness. She knew the realities of the world and the fact that no one, especially someone from a walk of life, as Adrian, for whom money and power were the only two things that ever existed, would go to such extents for someone as mere and meek as Diana, who held no place in the real and quick world. “Aren’t you curious to know? Why is he being so persistent and why does he want you?” Diana shook her head, refusing to pay any interest to Adrian and Polly couldn’t help but weigh her opinion in. “Actually, if you come to think of it… then Mom is right. Why would he come after you…?” Polly mumbled lowly, feeling bad for sidelining her cousin and leaving her all alone. In the past Polly would always side with Diana and disagree with her mother’s treatment of her cousin but this time, even Polly couldn’t resist the thought and not be curious to know what Adrian was up to. “I mean… what would he really want from you?” Polly mustered up her courage and patted Diana’s shoulder, also trying her best to invoke some sense of curiosity in her cousin. “Like what could be benefit by wanting you, if he didn’t even ever love you. or did he?” Polly inquired, still holding out the hope that the handsome billionaire might be interested in her cousin but Diana shook her head vigorously. “In the past, he made it clear not just one but multiple times that he found me distasteful for many reasons.” “Oh!” both Emily and Polly mouthed simultaneously, having the option of love canceled out. “Well then he wouldn’t want you for your makeup skills.” Polly pointed out and Emily nodded. “Exactly! This only means that he is after you for some reason and even after feeling humiliated he didn’t leave. He walked away in anger but he is still there. It shows that there is something that is holding him back. A person who is kind, doesn’t act or force himself to be kind. He is showing signs of a greedy person, who wants something and also wants it to come to then with ease and when it doesn’t come with ease, they would act out of anger and throw tantrums but still stick to it.” “So, shouldn’t we make him more angry?” Diana suggested and both Polly and Emily smacked their palms on their forehead. “Gosh! Why are you so dumb?” Polly shook her head in sheer disappointment. “It’s fine!” Emily shrugged at her daughter and then turned towards Diana, attaining her entire attention and focusing solely on her niece. “Listen, you can only make him mad when you also share the same power as him and see him eye to eye.” “He is Adrian Sarmiento, I can never share the same power as him.” Diana stated, feeling belittled within her own self and Emily simply smirked back. “Now can you really not?” “How can I?” Diana shrugged and Emily simply leaned towards her niece and whispered lowly in her ear. “By finding out what it is that is making him come for you, only then you would be able to make a power move.” Emily leaned back and crossed her arms across her chest, leaving the ball in Diana’s court, who turned her neck towards the intercom and stared at the screen, where Adrian stood with his back against the door and held himself back from leaving, pointing towards the possible that Emily was somehow right. Diana couldn’t help but feel curious her own self and ponder hard about why Adrian would want her. ---------------------------------------------- What do you think Diana would do now? Thank you for always reading and supporting my work <3
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