The next morning, Choice got dressed to go to her store, went down to the living room, and caught the sight of Raymond in the dining, enjoying a steaming cup of coffee.
Beside him, Gerard, his assistant was seated on a seat, his head bent in concentration over his laptop.
Ray wore a tailored, charcoal grey suit, coupled with a crisp white shirt. His dark hair, cropped close to his head, added a touch of ruggedness to his otherwise refined appearance.
"Good morning, Gerard." She greeted.
He barely noticed her presence until she greeted him.
His head snapped up, his eyes falling on her, momentarily, then back on the laptop screen.
"Good morning, ma'am." He responded.
Oh, how Choice disliked the barrier of formality that Gerard had chosen to put up between them.
"Please stop according me as ma'am; please learn how to call me Choice." She asked.
He simply nodded. He couldn't look at her and he had a strange uneasiness that didn't go unnoticed.
"Where are you going?" Ray asked, his voice brimming with authority, but perhaps a faint urge of possessiveness too.
Choice turned to face Ray, hesitant to reply to him, but did anyway. "To run my business."
Ray scoffed. "Hmm, okay."
She regretted giving him an answer.
He was such a jerk.
She noticed the mischievous smile on his lips as her fierce gaze collided with his. She turned away and walked out the door. Ray kept that smile from disappearing, holding his coffee mug close to his lips.
Choice reached outside and was met with a sight that sent a jolt of anger coursing through her body: Her sewing machine, her beloved tools laid on the ground, crumpled and discarded like so much trash. The fabrics of her clients were all strewn about like confetti at a party no one had been invited to. "That jerk!" She seethed, between clenched teeth.
"R...A...Y!!!"
She screamed out his name in anger and dashed back into the house to the dining, where he sat.
"What's my working tools doing out there? What have you done?!" She screamed at him.
Was he for real to pull such a stunt? What was he? Heartless?
Ray stared at Choice who was standing there waiting for him to say something, tension mounting every passing second, time ticking like a bomb 'tick! tock!', when suddenly, he rose from his chair, slipping his phone into his pocket.
"Psychos aren't entertained here." He said, his tone even, but heavy with meaning. "As much as I hate calling you this, I don't want my wife going out there, mingling with people with different kinds of diseases and bringing them into my house."
"And who do you think you are to control my life, what do I tell my customers?!" She yelled.
Glaring at Ray, her voice trembled with barely contained rage, the words erupting from her like shards of glass.
"I don't have time for this and don't even dare go against me, I have eyes everywhere," he snarled at her, unflinched by her reaction.
The clatter of Max's footsteps against the floor announced his arrival, but he only witnessed a bit of the drama.
"You're the biggest jerk of the century!" She yelled.
Okay. Was that the same sweet Choice from last night? Max thought.
The poised, elegant woman he had met last night had been replaced with a woman possessed with fury, the opposite of her former self.
Piecing together the fragments, Max knew Ray must have stepped on a last nerve there.
He must have done what he said over the phone last night.
Stopping her from leaving the house until he figured out what she wanted from them. That way, he could keep a close eye on her.
'I'll kill her myself if she turns out to be a spy'.
A crease appeared between Max's brows as he mentally replayed Ray's words.
He had thought that Ray was overthinking things which steered him to being controlling, but reconsidering, he knew that with a life like theirs, one had to think a lot and be cautious.
Ray's behaviour must have crossed a line, but was it for a good reason?
"I'm watching you," Ray said, his voice cold as he uttered one final warning, and walked towards the door.
Maxwell opened the door for him to step out and followed after Gerard. The door swung shut with a quiet, almost anticlimactic click, leaving only the lingering silence behind.
Choice stood, staring blankly at the door. She had never felt that helpless in her entire life, she unstrapped her heels and walked towards the staircase, each step a heavy echo of her defeat.
Stupid.
She felt stupid. What was she thinking, letting a man take control of her life?
But Ray was not just any man. He was the big boss.
She paused halfway, having the thought of leaving. She knew where Ray had kept the marriage documents; she could destroy the evidence and never get to see him again.
She thought of running away, after running after him for a whole week.
What if he intended to torture her to the point she couldn't take it anymore?
He would win.
He can't win.
She won't let him win.
When her back did hit the door in Ray's bedroom, she had an idea. She remembered an old saying, a mantra that her mother used to whisper to her in times of trouble:
'When life gives you lemons, make lemonade'.
Her store, though beloved because it was inherited from her mother, had always been cramped and suffocating, a far cry from the luxurious space of the rooms in the mansion. More than thrice the store's.
Where she had once seen nothing but ruins, she now saw opportunity. No more cramped spaces, no more barely scraping by to pay the rent.
A wide smirk stretched on her face. Maybe her life doesn't totally suck after all.
***
The car cruised along with Gerard controlling the steering, a subtle hum by 'Sade' playing in the background. Maxwell was seated beside him in front while Ray had the back seat to himself. Gerard navigated his way towards the airport for the flight to South Africa for the magazine shoot as the three men sat within the confines of a weird silence.
"Ray, don't you think you're being too hard on your wife?" Maxwell asked, breaking the silence.
"Mistake wife, Max." Ray corrected.
"Anyway, she's still your wife. If you asked me, she deserves better." Max thought to say.
"Do you think I enjoy what I'm doing to her? I just want to make her beg for an annulment." Ray said.
"But boss, Manager Max is right. What if she's the right one that's gonna pin you down? You'll just let her go like that?" Gerard said, hesitantly.
"I don't fall in love. That's impossible. Even if I make the mistake of falling in love, it'd never be with her and enough talk about her, it irritates me." Ray declared.
He needed a wife before any one of them.
A profound truth that even Ray could not deny.
He leaned backwards on the seat to get a few minutes of sleep before they arrived at the airport.
His declaration hung in the air, like smoke in a tightly closed room.
The two obeyed.
He was the big boss, after all, and his orders were final.
Maxwell and Gerard shared a glance, their eyes speaking volumes in the silence.
God, Ray was hopeless.