Chapter 39 — The Boy With Love

“They may fire me with the way you keep making me miss office hours,” Jake said to Susan as he had lunch with her at the Pelazio Hotel restaurant.

Susan smiled. “Relax. I bought your company.”

Jake laughed. “You can’t be serious.”

Susan arched a brow and made a side head gesture.

“Wait. You actually are serious?” Jake added.

Susan chuckled. “Yeah, I am serious. And I need you to be the new managing director. Your old boss is under strict orders to educate you on all that you need to know. So, what do you say? Do you accept the offer?”

Jake’s expression had the look of surprise mixed with unbelief. “Wow. This only happens if someone is in love with you. Are you in love with me, Susan?”

Susan laughed. “So shocked,” she said. “What if I am?”

“You—you—you play hard to get like nothing can go through you. And always, it’s difficult to get a reading on you.”

“Maybe I like it that way. But I read you, and your heart is sincere enough.”

Jake shook his head. “Why are you doing this?”

But she couldn’t tell him. “Friends do this all the time, Jake. What are you talking about? I have the resources. And I am trying to make your life comfortable. Look at Beatrice. I am benefiting nothing from her flourishing and expanding business, save for her friendship of course.”

“But you hardly talk to any of us,” he said. “In fact, sometimes, you’re barely at home.”

“Which is not the point. The point is that I am not the kind of lady that would restrict my friends to hard labor, not when I have the means to make their lives comfortable.” And so she concealed the truth.

Jake gave her a studying look. “Well, at least, you know how I feel about you.”

“That I do know, and trust me, I am not using you in any way, neither do I intend to mess with your feelings. You may have everything. But all I ask is that don’t leave me to live in that house alone, neither should you do anything to destroy our friendship, because trust me, I’ll do everything to make sure we remain friends for a lifetime.”

“Now I wish you were closer,” Jake said. “I would kiss you.”

Susan stretched over the table, Jake leaned forward to kiss her. They broke the kiss and sat back down.

“You know, I can’t stress this,” Jake said. “Guys should do all this.”

“What’s the saying,” Susan said. “What a man can do, a woman can do better.”

They both laughed.

“That’s debatable,” Jake said.

“I agree,” Susan said. “Besides, I’m not like all ladies. My kind, we are distinct.”

“Your kind?”

Susan nodded. “Yes. My tribe is a hunting tribe. So, naturally, we were built to be tough.”

“Tough! So nothing makes you sad?”

“Tough has nothing to do with being sad. I do get happy, like now. And sometimes, I am sad or raving mad with anger.”

Jake nodded. “I see. Do you cry? I think that’s what I should have asked.”

“No. I don’t cry.”

Jake was stunned. “Ever?”

“Nope. Never.”

“Come on, Susan. Don’t mess with me. No human is made of stone, or has a heart like that of stone. Well, unless terrorists. Wait. Those guys even have soft spots. They just seek to hide it.”

Susan grinned. “Actually, I am made of stone. Carved from it actually. I have a heart of stone. And that’s when I love, I love to the fullest. And when I hate, it’s hate filled with purity.”

“Purity?”

“Yes. Because my love is more dreadful and destructive than my hate. I may hate a thing, but I’ll never lay a finger on it. But when I deeply love something or someone, there’s every tendency that they are bound to be destroyed.”

Jake was stunned, and Susan knew he found this interesting.

Maybe, it was the fact that he didn’t believe anything she told him, or because he was bound to forget. But was he really to forget?

“Okay,” Jake said with a smile on his face. “You’re made of stone. What else don’t I know about you?”

“Those terrorists you so speak of, I’m more lethal than they are,” Susan said.

“Woah.”

“Yeah. And you see this concept of stones, technically, man belongs to the dust because God made him from it. So, you are made from dust, and I am made of stone.”

Jake laughed. “Wow. Our beliefs. Your ideology is crazy.”

“It’s facts, actually. But it’s nothing personal. Like I said, I would do anything to protect our friendship. Meaning when I stand from here, you are bound to forget.” Susan locked her gaze with him. “I wish you knew who I really was. I wish you knew how much I really wanted to have and love you. I just don’t trust my feelings and powers around you. Sure, I could kill you, and I could bring you back to life. But the thought of hurting you hurts me. That’s how precious you are to me, Jake.”

“What are you saying, Susan?” Jake asked with concern written all over his face.

“I am mad. I am madly in love with you, meaning I could kill you, and I don’t want to hurt you. I could hate you just to keep you alive, but that wouldn’t alter a thing. It would just be me living in denial.”

For a mad raving powerful being like Susan who could call down lightning, move with the speed of light, kill and bring her victims back to life, there was no greater moment of peace she found than when around Jake. And why she found his presence slightly comforting, she knew soon, she would have to satisfy the urge to kill, one she had deliberately been ignoring, all to impress one man who would definitely forget all she had said here about herself.

Maybe, it was meant to be so. After all, she wasn’t one to joke with friends.

Susan sensed a presence, she lifted her head and looked past Jake, her eyes locked with Vivian’s.

On Vivian’s face was the look of worry.

“We need to talk,” Vivian said from a distance, and Susan heard her quite clearly.

“Just a second,” Susan whispered, and returned focus to Jake. She flashed him a charming smile, and he forgot all she had just said.