The Price of Freedom

Chapter 6: Deny. Deny. Deny.

DINAH

I’m supposed to go wedding dress shopping with Jacob today, he says he wants to make sure I don’t dress too slutty. I’m not too concerned since he let me wear that rag in front of his parents at the engagement party.

I could also use this time to buy Serena’s birthday gift before I forget. She’s been wanting this cute dress she saw in a store window and I’m getting it for her.

There’s a boutique at the mall I’m supposed to meet Jacob at, he said nothing but the best for his future wife. I just wanted to gouge my eyes out when he called me and told me to meet him there. I don’t care how much the wedding dress costs, it means nothing to me if I’m wearing it for the wrong person.

I’m on my way to meet Jacob now, but all I can think about is Liam. Ever since he left my office, I haven’t been able to forget about him, we’ve been texting, but I’ve asked him to keep his distance. At least until I’m able to figure out how to stop this wedding.

When I arrive at the boutique Jacob already has a few dresses picked out. They were nice, but it’s like I thought, they were very revealing in the chest area.

“Don’t you think these are a bit much,” I ask him as I’m trying one on.

He starts to eye me up and down “I think it looks great,” he says as he slaps my ass.

I flinch at the sudden contact, and when I turn around to face him, he has a smug look on his face.

“Don’t ever touch me like that again!” I scowl at him.

He inches closer to me turning me around to face the mirror. Jacob places his hand around my throat while the other one holds me down by the waist.

“What did you think I wouldn’t find out about you and Liam getting all cozy?”

Oh, f*****g s**t he knows I’ve had s*x with Liam. Deny. Deny. Deny.

“Who’s Liam?” I ask pretending I don’t know who he’s talking about.

He tightens his grip around my throat, “don’t lie to me Dinah, I saw the picture of you with him at the charity game.”

Oh, thank god he’s only talking about that picture.

“I have your mother wrapped around my finger, who do you think showed me the picture. She called me to apologize for your behavior.”

It was getting harder for me to breathe as his grip tightened, I tried to claw at his hand but he wouldn’t relent.

Thankfully, the attendant knocked on the dressing room door, “hi, how’s that dress, do you need any help?” Jacob let go of me, letting me fall to the floor gasping for air.

Jacob walks out to let her know that this is the dress he wants, going ahead and paying for it. Tears are running down my face as I take the dress off and place it back in its garment bag. I walk out of the dressing room and the attendant notices my tear stained face.

“Ma’am, are you alright can I get you a tissue.”

Before I could answer Jacob comes up and answers for me, “she’s just overwhelmed, she loves the dress.” He says as he kisses my temple making me flinch.

We finally exit the boutique but before I could walk away from him, he pulls me in for a hug, “remember this, if you let him touch you again you will regret it.” He pulls away and smiles down at me, gives me a quick kiss on the lips and then walks away.

I silently make my way to the store that sells the dress Serena wanted, I buy the dress along with a pair of matching heels, and a scarf that caught my attention.

The entire way home I drove in silence, all I could think about was how I would have to see Jacob again for Serena’s birthday on Saturday. How if I didn’t find a way out of this arrangement, I would have to marry him. How if I ran away Serena would be stuck in my place.

I needed to convince Serena to leave with me, there is no other way. I can’t leave without her and I refuse to let her marry that psychopath. I just hope she’s more receptive this time.

I get home and went straight up to my room and locked myself in. I refuse to come out and face my mother after what she did, I’ll just lock myself up until Serena’s party. That’s when I’ll put my plan into motion, that’s when we’ll leave this place behind.

I call out of work for the next few days, or at least until the bruising around my neck subsides. He even managed to bruise my eye; I got a broken blood vessel that left a small bloody spot on my eye. I didn’t want to scare anyone so I called out sick and said I’d work from home.

They never have a problem when I called out sick, because to be fair most of the time, I made sure to finish my work.

No one really questioned me being locked in my room, Serena just thought I was sick, and Lily was busy with the preparations for Serena’s birthday party.

******

The day of Serena’s birthday party arrived and thankfully the bruising somewhat faded, but I would still have to wear the scarf I bought. Luckily the spot on my eye got smaller so I don’t think anyone would notice unless they looked really hard.

I decide to wear a simple black spaghetti strap dress and the scarf I bought, I ended up looking like a flight attendant.

My plan is simple enough hopefully, I need to convince Serena to leave with me tonight during her party so no one will notice. I packed a few bags and I have been steeling some of her clothes as well.

Serena will be 18 tonight so legally Lily can’t keep her inheritance, and she can’t force Serena to marry Jacob. I’ve been transferring my money into a separate account that Lily can’t have access to just to be safe.

We just have to leave to make sure that they can’t hold anything against us. We’ll be staying in a hotel for a while, and once it’s safe I’ll be getting us an apartment somewhere.

I walk across the hall to Serena’s room to let her know of my plan. When I enter, I see she’s wearing the dress I bought her, I figured I would let her enjoy it for the day before everything came crashing down.

“Serena you look beautiful,” I say as tears start to pool in my eyes.

The dress was a short turquoise spaghetti strap covered in sparkles, she looked like a young woman now. I always just thought of her as my baby sister but she’s grown up so much and here’s the proof.

“Thank you Dinah, I love the dress so much!” She screamed.

“Happy birthday babe, you deserve it,” I say as I pull her in for a hug.

“So, can I talk to you for a second?” I ask.

“Sure, what’s up?” She responds as she sits back down at her vanity putting the finishing touches on her makeup.

“I’m not marrying Jacob Bennett Serena,” I start, looking straight at her so she understands the seriousness of the situation. “Neither of us are, we’re leaving tonight.”

“I thought we already talked about this D, we’re not running away, we’re better than that.”

“I can’t stay Serena, he’s abusive,” I plead. “And this is just us being engaged; I can’t imagine what he’ll do once we’re married.”

“What are you talking about Dinah? What did he do to you?”

I pull off my scarf and show her the fading bruises he so generously left me with. I see her turn around and look at me in shock. She get s up from her seat and stands in front of me inspecting my bruised neck. I can see tears starting to well up in her eyes as she begins to understand our situation.

“That son of a b***h did this to you?!” I nod embarrassed at the fact that I let it happen. “Look at me Dinah, this isn’t your fault, any man who hurts women hates himself so much that he needs to take control of another’s life.”

“Serena, we have to leave, tonight.” I say hoping that she’ll agree. “I already packed my bags, and I have one packed for you, but if you want to take anything else pack it and leave it in my room.”

“So, we’re really doing this? What about mom?”

“We can’t tell her anything, she was the reason Jacob got upset with me. Lily called him and showed him a picture of me with Liam.”

“Why would she do that, is she insane?”

“Jacob said she wanted to apologize for my behavior,” I shrugged.

“Ok so when are we leaving, and how are you planning on getting our things out?”

“We’ll leave around 9p, and you’ll be distracting everyone downstairs while I take our things to my car waiting in the garage.”

“Ok so what kind of distraction are we talking about?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” I wink at her.

“Also, we may have a tiny problem,” she says as she squints her eyes and measures her tiny problem with her fingers. “I invited Sacha tonight, and maybe Liam, and Melo and Raul.”

“What why would you do that??” I scream.

“They were nice, and they deserve to have some fun every once in a while.” She responds trying to justify her actions.

I pinch the bridge of my nose trying to figure out if I should tell them the party is cancelled, but this could just work in our favor. After all, having 4 professional athletes could be a useful distraction.

“Fine. But you’re in charge of them. And keep Liam away from me, we saw what Jacob did with just a picture.”

“Yes, of course.” She responds. “We better get down there, the guests are starting to arrive and we don’t want to make mom suspicious.”

“Yeah ok, I’ll go greet the guests and say you’re still getting ready. You finish packing and place your bags in my room, then meet me downstairs.”

She nods in agreement and wrap my scarf around my neck again before I head out to do what I said.

I make it downstairs helping with preparations while greeting some guests, and I feel uneasy all of a sudden. I turn around to see the dark green eyes I’ve come to hate so much.

“There’s my fiancé.”