THE RISE OF JORDAN RIVERS

DINNER INVITE

Jordan was itching to break the fool's bones, but his sixth royal sense soothed him. They were in the wrong place. The court was not a place he wanted to start a fight. 

Diana could not crack the situation. Her bafflement was not so much banked in why her husband could not slap the girl and avenge her, but in how he seemed fearful of the girl all of a sudden. She could not just figure out her lover’s behavior. And his next action left her in more bewilderment.

Edwin bowed to the girl. His eyes could not even meet hers. His actions portrayed fear and respect, and the sincerity of his actions was portrayed in his words.

“I am so sorry, Miss Anna. Please forgive my actions. I hadn't recognized you. Please, I am so sorry.” His head was still hunched down as he spoke.

Anna, on the other hand, did not even care to spare the fool a glance. Her gaze was fixed on Jordan, and her grin shone over the whole place. 

Once Jordan caught her staring, her smile widened shyly. She cleared her throat before speaking.

“Um, I would like to invite you for dinner. Just a show of gratitude for what you have done for me.” She spoke, and Jordan’s ex-wife widened her eyes in shock and disbelief.

Jordan was about to contend, but Anna spoke again, cutting Jordan short in a soothing way.

“Please, don't say no. It's the least I can do for someone who risked his life for me.”

 Her gesture to Jordan topped Diana’s fury. She could not keep calm anymore.

“Well, would you at least care to explain what exactly my pathetic ex-husband saved you from? Was it from a cockroach scare? For all I know, this good-for-nothing man here is nothing but a poor, homeless loser.” Diana’s fury was immense. No one could explain or understand it.

Edwin was beyond shocked at her lover’s outbursts. He wondered why she was still daunted by her good-for-nothing ex-husband.

“Boys!” Anna called, and everyone snapped their eyes at her. She was seething with rage at how the arrogant lady was insulting Jordan.

“Yes, ma'am!” The guards chorused together as they approached Anna with respect and obedience.

“I have heard enough of this stupid woman’s screeches. My ears are itching, and I cannot take it anymore. Make her shut up!” Carefully edit it, she ordered, turning to stare at Diana, who started trembling after hearing her orders. 

Diana’s impudent eyes shifted to her lover as her convulsions increased. She was extremely scared of what Anna’s guards could do to her. She wanted Edwin to come to her rescue. Make the guards stop. Defend her as he should. But Edwin’s posture was in contrast to her wishes. He remained mute and still.

In a flicker, a heavily resonant slap coalesced with an outcry of pain and disrupted the cool environs as Diana slammed to the floor. Her eyes were streaming with tears as her cries increased. Her pain and shame would not let her stand. She lay flat on the side of her belly as tears flowed.

The guard who slapped her walked back, and Anna walked forward until she was standing before her face.

“You are all talk, yet you can not take even just a single slap?” Anna spoke, mocking the terrified-to-hell woman.

Diana did not respond but continued crying. Her vision was blurry to the point that she could no longer see the face of the girl who reduced her to dirt.

“I do not know why you detest this man so much, but for me, he is my guardian angel. I am alive this minute because of him. Now, if you don't stop making all this unnecessary fuss and this crying too, I will ask my sweet boys to shut you up! Perhaps for good. Do you want that?” Anna dared with a dreadful voice that reverberated with no tinge of a hoax.

At this point, Diana knew better than to ask for another slap, or maybe something worse. She swallowed all her pain and hiccups and sucked back her tears.

“You are at least bearable when you are absolutely mute!” Anna jeered at the defeated Diana as she turned around.

She walked to Jordan, who was still in awe of her. She held his hand and led the way for them. The battalion of guards followed suit, and none spared a glance at the couple behind them as they disappeared out of the court gate.

Only after the army was out of their sight did Diana amass the little ounces of bravery left in her and pull herself up from the floor. She was all dirty, and she felt disgusted with herself but more so with her lover.

“What kind of a man are you, Edwin?” She sneered.

Edwin’s face was still hunched, but upon hearing her squeals, he jerked up, his eyes full of anger. He stared at her not with love but with rage.

“Well, I have taken all the insults, beatings, and the embarrassment of my life. I have no space left for your muteness, Edwin! Speak up already. Why the hell did you allow those people to humiliate me this way, and you did not even move a muscle about it?” Diana added.

“Well, I do not care about your loser ex-husband, Diana, but that girl? I just wish you were wise enough not to start any trouble with her.” Edwin said, not having any pity for her pregnant lover after all the slapping she had received.

Diana was drawn into more puzzlement. Her anger rose higher, but her curiosity beat her anger tenfold.

“Care to explain why you are almost peeing on your pants just because of a mere stupid girl who feels like she has it all just because she has some army of shitty guards with her?” Diana screeched again, and Edwin’s fury almost flared from Diana’s obliviousness of the real situation.

“Well, just to put some sense into your dumb brain, she is no ordinary girl! She is from a family that no one in their right senses would want to mess with! With what you have done, you'd better pray to the heavens that things will end right here. Else, Diana, you have just dug our graves!” Edwin’s voice was filled with rage and rancor.

Diana’s eyes widen with shock after her unapologetic husband’s coarse-grained words. Her breath stopped for a minute as she tried to digest the situation. One thing she did not want to believe was that her useless ex-husband could cross paths with a girl of such pedigree. Everything hung like a heavy cloud in her head. Her entire being was a whirlwind of conflicting sentiments.

But she remembered the girl’s constant words that Jordan had saved her the previous night. Maybe she thought it all wrong. That was their first encounter. They were not in a relationship like she thought. All the same, she had been insulted and humiliated for the first time in her life. Someday, somehow, she would get revenge on the girl. Or the duo.