An Interview with Mr. Ex

Chapter 8: Meeting The Devil

Chapter 6: Meeting the devil

(Present - Jade and Jared meeting at Jared's house)

(Jade)

It was Wednesday, and Jade looked at her watch with a frown and stood up from her cabin. Today was the day she had to go and meet the devil. She had to walk inside his lair, willingly, and had to face his devilishly handsome face and her heart faltered at the thought of it.

I hate this. Why God, Why?

Megan walked in, her hand around her husband's waist. She looked at Jade with guilt on her face. Jade sighed.

"What are you still doing here? Your appointment is at three. He is a very busy man, Jade. We can not waste his time." Isaac Brent, Megan's husband, looked at her with a frown on his lips.

Jade nodded with a tight smile as she pushed her diary, her recorder and everything else inside her handbag and stood up.

"Going." She said and walked away with a frown. He was the reason for all this hassle and annoyance. If it wasn't for him she would have happily stayed in her cabin and worked and then gone home to her beautiful boy.

Isaac was the one who went and asked Jared Wilson for this damn interview—there were so many men and women around, why did he have to find the exact man who was going to be her utter demise— and now here she was, stuck in a rock and hard place.

If he wasn't her best friend's husband she would just have gladly kicked him in the nuts, but he was her best friend's husband and Megan wanted a kid for so long, so Jade was not going to do anything to jeopardize it.

I am such an amazing friend. She thought to herself.

"Is it already time?" Nate wrapped a hand around her and pulled her closer. She snuggled to him and looked up at his handsome face.

"Yes. I hate this. I hate Megan." Jade said to Nate and he ruffled her hair.

"Don't do that. I need to look professional." Jade said to him and he smiled. His kind eyes looked at her with concern and worry.

"You don't need to worry, Nate. I will be fine."

"I don't know what Meg is thinking in her insane brain!" Nate looked angry, as well. "You can cover the Gala at Mercy Memorials, Jade, and I can do the interview with the asshole."

"At least, I can pretend to be polite. You won't." Jade said with a soft sigh as she pulled away. "I need to go. I am already too late to meet the devil. Wish me a hell of a lot of luck. I need it." She said as she looked up into his warm brown eyes.

"You will kill it, and if you can, kill him, too."

"Do not give her ideas, you moron." Megan said as she walked towards Jade. "Wait, come here." She said as she pulled out a compact from her purse. She dabbed a fluffy powder brush into the compact powder and after dusting the excess off, she started stroking Jade's cheek with careful concentration, as if she was Vincent van Gogh and Jade was her masterpiece. "Do you have your lipstick?"

"I am fine the way I am and it is not like I am going there to seduce him."

"You need to look professional. And you are not going to seduce him, but if he get seduced in the process, I will call it a success in my book." Megan said, and Nate bumped his fisted palm to his forehead.

"Eight years of you and I still cannot comprehend the ways your brain works."

"Alright, if you have done prepping me, shall I go now?"

"Break his leg, I mean... break a leg." Megan grinned viciously and Jade waved at her and Nate before she entered the lift. The guy who worked on the floor above her gave her a small smile. He always had the same coffee cup and the same smile. His routine almost relaxed her. She should follow her routine, as well. She had done this a hundred times, she had done it all without a smidge of error.

"Hello Steve." She said and he gave her a nod. "Hey Jade. How are you today?"

He was an accountant, and he always wore crisp shirts and shiny shoes. She liked how everything about him was comforting and predictable. Routine. She reminded herself once again. Routine.

"Uff." She said. "It is one of those days where you want to pluck all your hair off."

"That bad. Here. Have my coffee." He said as he handed her the cup with a tender smile.

"You sure, Steve?"

"You deserve it. I can get another one. Go kick ass. You can." He smiled. Steve had always been so kind to Jade. Meg said it was because Steve had a crush on Jade, but Jade didn't think so. It was basic human decency. Some men are still decent and good and it was the only reason the Earth was still living. Or it would have long been destroyed.

"Oh, thank you, thank you." She said as he walked out towards his car.

She walked towards her old truck that had seen better days, gratefully sipping on the hot elixir. The coffee did cure some of her tension and headache.

She started her truck, entered Jared Wilson's address on her phone and started driving. The closer she got, the harder her stomach twisted and turned.

Professional. Smile. Fake it till you make it. You are not a rookie, Jade. Routine. You know how to do this.

Jade stopped her truck in front of the mansion and took in a big, deep breath to calm her nerves. The security guard peered at her and then nodded when she showed her ID. "You can go. Mr. Wilson is waiting for you."

She drove in and parked her truck in the driveway, that looked so out of place in this luxurious house and got out with trembling legs.

She grabbed her bag and leaned against her truck for a moment, willing herself not to lose it before it had even started.

She looked up at his mansion and her lips twisted with disdain. It was so big, the house as if he was compensating for something.

She knew it wasn't his 'thingy' he was compensating for, because it was-

Stop. This is not the territory you want to traipse in right now.

Back to the house. The bushes adorned the side of the pebbled walkway and trees ran along behind the house almost willing to touch the sky. Everything around the house looked like it was planned to intimidate and intrigue anyone who ever dared walk into his house without an invite.

The whole house was majestic and scary. Just like him. The mansion reminded her of its owner. Arrogant, proud, and unforgiving. Unforgettable, as well.

He had always been different. Difficult. Complex puzzle to solve. He had always been hard to understand, hard to forget or get over.

When they were struggling at first, newly married just after college, he had promised her that one day they wouldn't be like that.

"I will go far in this life, Jadey, you will see and we won't have to count every penny. You will have everything you want. I will make sure of that. You will never want anything in your life." He would pull her to him and she would willingly surrender herself in him.

"I have everything I want, right here." She would laugh, but he would not. He would tell her that they would have a palace fit for royals and she, his Queen, would rule it, as well as his heart. She would laugh and smile at that and he would grab her around her hips, pull her closer to his lean body and kiss her with kisses that would make her feel like a billion bucks and more. She hadn't needed the money, the palace. She had just needed him and he had just thrown her away without...

Stop, dammit. You i***t, this is not the time to think about him and his kisses and his manhood. Are you out of your mind?

And here he was, enjoying his dream, his life and his supposed-to-be Queen was still living in a two-bedroom flat.

Do you think you are going to maintain your facade of calm, cool, collected self once you see him? You are trembling just from looking at his damn house!!!

Yes, he had wanted everything to be perfect, unique and big and though her love for him was so big that it sometimes swallowed her, he wasn't satisfied with it or her.

He blamed her for something she didn't do, she would never do, and then he heartlessly moved on. It was all so merciless and calculated. He did love, just like how he did business.

She shrugged and tried to clear her head. Thinking and rethinking the past wasn't going to help her. Not now, not when she was standing at the edge of a tall, tall cliff, ready to take a head dive.

Stay sharp. Stay alert. And do not think about his kiss. Or look into his eyes.

Here, she needed to be clear-headed and sharp. She couldn't show even a little bit of weakness or, like a shark, he would be there, smelling her fear and using it in any way he could.

4 years and 7 months. That was how long she hadn't seen him face to face.

His world was so different from hers and the differences were so glaringly obvious. Her world included a low rent, two-bedroom flat, a beat-up truck that refused to obey her at every chance it could get and a monthly salary that could fill their stomach and life perfectly, but never big enough to fill their bank account. It made her realize how incompatible they both were. They had always been incompatible.

It was a mistake to marry him in the first place, but she couldn't regret it—though he had hurt her beyond any words— she wouldn't. Not ever. Even though her love story had collapsed and burned, it was something that made her burn brighter. It was like an ember, to start her dream. To flame her fire.

She told herself it was just because she had learnt a valuable lesson from him, that she had grown into an amazing woman because of what he had done, but she couldn't lie to her conscience. Or herself.

Yes, of course, he had hurt her, but it was not just that. She still...

Still, sometimes, she lay awake, sleepless and restless at nights, when everything would feel so pointless and tiresome, and she would then think about him and wonder and long. She would wonder if he had ever thought about her. Wonder if he was thinking about her right at that moment, right at that instant, just as she was thinking about him.

It was so wrong, so stupid, but she couldn't help herself. Her heart, her heart had belonged to him, then and even after he had so heartlessly stomped on it, the heart, that stupid thing had refused to accept the obvious and move on.

She wore a professional smile on her lips as she knocked on the intimidating wooden door that felt smooth beneath her hand. Oak. Polished oak.

Polished. Just like him. To every bit. I am not polished. I am still rough around the edges.

"I'm going to do just fine. I have done it a thousand times with snobby, haughty, narcissistic rich men. And I was fine then. I will be fine now." She assured herself with a stern frown.

But then you weren't married to them. Her inner mind provided helpfully.

Like I don't know that. Thanks for that tidbit.

"He must be in the library. Sorry." He said as she walked in. "I will call Mr. Wilson and inform him."

Jade nodded and waited at his steps, biting her nails—it was something she did whenever she was extremely nervous. It was just her for today and she hated that, as well.

She had to do a cover on him first, with some basic questions to get to know him—oh, she knew him, alright—and then tomorrow she had to follow him and learn a little bit more about his life. After that, there would be the formal interview. On live TV. She had to coach him about how to react to viewers' questions, as well as hers, and it was pure torture.

He might probably already know that, judging by the hundreds—she might be exaggerating, but only slightly—of interviews he had given after his first application had hit the market and reached first place for new innovative apps.

The security guard talked on his phone, said something and after a moment, he motioned her to the door. "You can go."

She took her steps, slowly, cautiously. Her heart thumped violently as she entered the mansion and she could almost see him, walking here, head held high, proud and happy.

She was happy for him, happy that he got exactly everything he had once wanted, but it hurt that she wasn't by his side when he finally found his dreams. That he had not wanted her enough to share his dreams with her.

Not now. Head high. Spine straight. You are here for your job.

The door opened and her heart stopped for a moment.

He was tall, lean and handsome and he was wearing a suit, but his dark blonde hair was hanging on his forehead, unkempt and wild as if he had been running his fingers inside it for ten minutes or more, and he didn't look as polished as he looked in the magazines.

The magazines she had painstakingly collected and hidden under the mattress, away from Cole, like it was some dirty secret. It was her dirty secret, of course. Even Megan didn't know about that. If Megan had known that tidbit, no way in hell she would have let Jade come here.

He looked like the Jared she once knew. Her Jared. The one who would laugh with his eyes, only for her. Away from her, he was always closed off and aloof, but he was full of fire and passion, like a glorious burning sun when he was with her. Megan would often complain to her how impassive he was, but Jade would just shrug it off.

He was like a brain memory—like the information about him was stored in front, just so that it could be easily retrieved and lived again.

Her body vibrated.

Lust...

And she could still feel the same pain, fresh, as it was years ago and it still hurt.

___