Chapter 42
“Shall I ring for the food?” Asked Felix.
“Would you guys like to eat first before we talk?” Asked Yasmin.
“We are not hungry,” said Derek. “Say what you have to say quickly so that we can leave.”
Yasmin sighed. “Excuse us, Felix.”
“Of course, madam,” he said and bowed before leaving the room.
Yasmin chuckled. “Felix does have a flair for theatrics. Please, sit down.”
Rachel sat close to Yasmin while Derek sat beside her. She knew he wanted to put some distance between him and his estranged mother and she couldn’t blame him.
“Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we? All I want to know is how are you still alive?” Asked Derek.
“I need to start my story from the beginning so that you can understand my reasons,” said Yasmin, patiently. “I met your father for the first time about five days before our wedding.”
“What?” Derek whispered in surprise.
“Yes. We never dated or got to know each other and I was not given a choice as to whether I wanted to marry him or not. I was traded like a commodity by my father because he too did not have a choice. My father came from a long line of jewelers and he inherited his family business from his father. It was a thriving business with branches all over America but somewhere along the line, the business started to face a serious financial crisis. You see, my father had a gambling problem and after he had gambled away his personal income, he began to mess with the business money.”
Rachel glanced at Derek to gauge his reaction and she was glad to see that he was listening to his mother’s story intently.
“My father became desperate,” Yasmin continued. “He didn’t want to lose a business that had been in his family for centuries. He had intended to pass it down to me but that wasn’t going to happen if he couldn’t keep it afloat long enough for me to inherit it. After asking around for an investor, a friend introduced him to billionaire businessman, Jeremy Fraser. Daddy begged Jeremy to invest in the business and bring it back to life for my sake. Jeremy agreed to revive the business but on one condition – that I became his wife. At the time, I had just graduated from college and I was working as an intern at a law office. My dad was a desperate man and Jeremy used his desperation against him. He had no choice but to agree to Jeremy Fraser’s terms.”
Yasmin was quiet for a few seconds, trying to compose herself before continuing her story. It was clear to Rachel that even after all these years, the woman was still affected by her past.
“I was so upset, my mother was livid, and my father was ashamed and remorseful. He just couldn’t see a way out and Jeremy wouldn’t help him unless I married him. I made my father set up a meeting between Jeremy and me with hopes of convincing him to let me off the hook. When I met him at his office and told him that I wasn’t interested in marrying him, he threatened to pull out his money from my father’s company and that when it finally collapsed, he would buy it and I would not have an inheritance or a dime to my name. It was cruel, but that was Jeremy Fraser for you. He was a cruel, manipulative, and heartless man.”
“That does not sound like my father,” said Derek.
“Of course, not,” said Yasmin with a sad smile. “You never go to see that side of him, did you? Anyway, I married him five days after our first meeting. I felt so helpless, it was as if I was giving ownership of my life to someone else. Jeremy was extremely cold to me after we got married, he barely spoke to me and we were like two strangers living under the same roof. I became pregnant three months later and I hoped that it would make him affectionate toward me but I was wrong. He was as cold as ever and barely spoke to me at all. Not long after, tragedy struck when my parents died in a car crash on their way from a party. Jeremy swung into action immediately and bought my father’s company and then added it to his conglomerate. That is the business that you know as JF Jewels, but it used to be known as Harriton Jewels.”
It was a lot of information for Derek to take in and he wasn’t sure if the room was hot or if it was this revelation that was making him sweat. He took off his jacket and draped it on a nearby chair.
“I was devasted. I had lost my parents and my inheritance in a single swoop and I was trapped in a loveless marriage. When you were born, Jeremy poured all of his love and attention into you, ignoring me more than ever before. I was miserable – it was as if I was invincible to him. I couldn’t understand why he had married me if he hated me so much. For years, I suffered silently while throwing grand parties at our mansions, traveling to exotic locations on vacation, and spending money lavishly. None of those things filled the void inside me, and it became worse when I discovered that Jeremy had a string of mistresses that he had stashed away in different parts of the country. So, while I was pinning for him and wishing that he would notice me, he was busy shagging multiple women and living his best life. I felt betrayed, used, and I sort to take revenge on him.”
She drew in a shaky breath and continued. “I started dating different men and I made sure to give the paparazzi a tip-off so that they would know where to find me and take pictures for the gossip magazines. I began to party more than I ever did in my youthful years, I was all over the place. All I wanted was to get back at Jeremy for his cruelty toward me all these years but it didn’t work. He did not say a word to me or ask me why I was disgracing him? Despite everything that I had done, I was still invincible to him! Oh, it hurt so badly that I became depressed. A friend of mine invited me on a trip to a wellness spa in Germany and that was where I met Ivan Yulensky. Neither of us knew about each other before our meeting, so we started our friendship without prejudice. He was a sweet man who had gone to the spa to recover his sanity after a difficult divorce from his ex-wife.”
Her face lit up as she continued to speak about Yulensky. “We were inseparable; we went everywhere together, ate together, and made sure to sit beside each other during group activities. My friend was jealous and excited for me at the same time. By the time my stay at the spa was over, I was sure that Ivan and I were in love with each other. When I returned to the U.S., I knew what I had to do. I went to Jeremy in his home office where he was tapping away on his computer and I said to him, ‘Jeremy, I want a divorce.’ He looked at me dead in the eyes and said, ‘Over my dead body will I allow you to divorce me. You are mine and you will remain my property until one of us dies.’ I was shocked! Not only had he refused to grant me a divorce, but he had referred to me as his property. I was like one of the companies that he had acquired and he wasn’t going to let me go until death do us part.”
“This is insane,” Derek muttered.
“I agree,” said Yasmin. “I felt trapped all over again, so I got in touch with Ivan to tell him what had happened. That was when he came up with the wild idea of us dying in a plane crash. He owned a fleet of private jets and was willing to sacrifice one of them to grant me my freedom. We planned everything within 24 hours and I let everyone know that I was traveling to Bermuda with my Russian lover. I couldn’t confide in you because by then, your father had driven a wedge between us by playing the victim and making you see me as a bad mother and a horrible wife. I came to Bermuda to meet with Ivan and the next day, we boarded his jet for a trip to Jamaica with one flight attendant and a pilot. As we approached the Bermuda coast, the pilot emptied the jet’s gas and let go of the controls. We all donned our parachutes while screaming and sounding scared for the sake of the black box, and then we jumped out of the jet before it crashed. The pilot and the flight attendant were handsomely rewarded and sworn to secrecy. We fled to the Cayman Islands and lived there for one year before traveling to Italy and then touring Europe. We would go out wearing large dark sunglasses and nose masks, we were totally unrecognizable!”
Rachel could feel the other woman’s nostalgia as she recalled these exciting memories.