Here's a recap of Chapter 53- THE MISTRESS

Jayden had returned home from his emotional meeting with Miranda, his counsellor from the past, who had asked him to bring Lara for the next meeting so they'd reach the bottom of the entire situation once and for all.
He had asked to speak with Dana and Emma, who had denied knowing who had been his father's mistress.
Jayden had then requested to see Lara, knowing very well that their last encounter in the lakehouse had been a disaster.

Yhup that's where the chapter ended. He has requested to see Lara. Let's see what happens.

CHAPTER 54- HIS GROSS ZIT?

"And then?"

"And then he was like, 'is it you?'" Dana filled Lara in on how Jayden had suspiciously interrogated her concerning his father's mistress,

"And I'm like, 'hell no! I would never sleep with a married man. I'm not capable of doing such a thing to Mrs. B.' "

Lara nodded, attentively taking in the information.

"So yeah," Dana repeated, "he wants to see you."

"Should I go?"

"Yeah, you have to. You'll never know. Maybe he wants to patch things up, who knows?"

***

Lara knocked on his door twice. She didn't know what to expect.

The last time she had visited him in his room, they had been full of smiles and laughter.

A few days to their lakehouse adventure, they had talked about what they would do right after completing their no-sexual-contact thirty-day rule.

All to no avail now.

She was nervous.

And the only moments she had been nervous coming into his room had been whenever she had anticipated his fingers getting lost in her long black hair, his gentle hands stroking her soft skin and his generous arms enveloping her in a warm embrace.

She didn't know how he would receive her, or what even he had wanted from her.

Could it really be to make up with her? After the horrendous argument at the lakehouse?

Would he really want her back?

Jolting her from her contemplation was his low, sultry voice which had commanded, "Come in."

"Here we go, here we go," she whispered to herself, slowly pushing the door open.

As his exquisitely furnished room gradually came into view, her gaze finally located the man she had nearly given herself to in a riveting moment of pleasure. He had been standing beside his king-sized bed with his hands buried in his pockets, gaze on hers- although not exactly welcoming.

"You wanted to see me?" she asked after closing the door and sticking to it like a bee would the flower with the rarest kind of nectar.

Jayden started moving towards her, steps confident in utmost authority as he neared the girl who seemed to have been nurturing an alter ego beneath her skin. One second, she was an angel. The next, the most devious being.

He couldn't wrap his head around the incidents that had taken place in the lakehouse no matter how hard he had tried.

And if Miranda's therapeutical encounter with her was the only way forward to clearly open his eyes on matters with her, then so be it.

He spoke once in front of her, "I'm taking you somewhere tomorrow."

Lara blinked, head tilted to lock her gaze with his captivating ones.

What did he mean? To where?

"Where are you taking me?" she asked.

"To see someone. A friend of mine."

Lara hesitated, "You know I don't do well with your friends... And why?"

"This one's different," he explained, their gazes still locked, "A counsellor."

Lara paused, arched brows raised in confusion, "What for?" What did she need to see a counsellor for? Why did Jayden think that she needed to see one?

She was perfectly fine.

"I spoke to Miranda a few hours ago. Wants me to bring you."

"What did you tell her?" Lara's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets as the thought of some stranger knowing all about her business made her feel highly uncomfortable.

Jayden registered the fright in Lara's eyes and spoke, "Relax, she only wants to speak with us. Analyse a few things. I expect you to be ready at 8am tomorrow. Wait for me in the garden. We should do this quickly so I can be certain of where us goes next."

Then he walked towards his door and opened it.

Turning to her, he announced, "You can go."

"Is that it?" she asked, "That's all?"

"Yes," he flippantly replied, her presence suddenly reminding him of all the hurt and pain he had to put up with recently.

For a brief moment, time seized and they held each other's gazes, both unaware of what the other thought or felt about them.

Jayden standing by the door, waiting for her to leave reminded her of the first night she had overslept in his bed and had risked getting in trouble with his mother the next morning.

That night, he had just come home with his father and his father's businessmen, and his long hiatus had sent her creeping up to his bedroom which in turn, had given her one of the best experiences all thanks to the magic of Jayden's fingers and kisses. The hickeys had not helped her case the following morning.

Nodding, Lara accepted, "Alright," she said as she approached the door he had held open and abandoned his room.

Jayden sighed and closed the door. Tomorrow would be a long day.

***

"Lara, it's nice to have you here," Miranda had welcomed her the minute she had opened the door to the problematic couple.

Now, thirty minutes had passed as they, especially Lara, had begun to ease into the conversation.

"When you met Jayden that first night in the kitchen, what had been running through your mind?"

"Um..." she directed her gaze to the ceiling, "I... was caught by surprise. I acknowledged the fact that he was insanely attractive and... I just wondered how I'd be able to carry on without getting attracted to him."

Miranda nodded and Jayden maintained a straight face, while Miranda continued to ask,

"And you did get attached. What encouraged you to risk your job, your comfort zone for a relationship with your boss's son?"

"Initially, I loved that he showed some interest in me. I assumed people like him went for top models and not their maids."

Jayden shook his head.

Lara went on, "But then, later on, I realised that behind the great physical appearance was an incredible personality. He was caring, funny and awesome to be around."

"Do you feel that Jayden abused his power over you?" Miranda asked.

Lara replied, "Not throughout but, kind of."

Jayden turned to her, "Really, when exactly?"

"At the beginning," she returned his focused gaze, "I had to go out of my way to give you a massage you had asked for and things ended up pretty..." she trailed off.

"We both got carried away," Jayden clarified, according to his memory.

Lara stated, "You started it. Just like you started the one in the kitchen. You said you had gotten me a necklace. You wanted to help me wear it. All of a sudden, your lips were on my neck."

His lips had connected with the soft flesh of her skin, emanating a gasp from her lips that fateful evening.

"So... are you telling me right now that you didn't want any of it? Because then I wouldn't have carried on."

Lara remained silent.

"What are you honestly trying to say?" Jayden asked. "Be clear."

"That in some instances, you certainly did abuse your power, but that doesn't mean I didn't want what we did. I wanted it. I didn't stop you."

Jayden withdrew into his seat, his gaze torn away from hers. He didn't know what to think. Or if they would have to include another subject to their long list of misunderstandings.

Miranda then requested to know, focusing her gaze on Lara, "Tell me what happened two nights ago. The fight."

"Um," Lara carefully began, "Jayden had received a message from an unknown number and... I'm sure he has already told you all about it."

"Did you know about his father's situation?"

Lara hesitated before answering, "Yes."

"For how long?"

"A few months," she replied.

"Why didn't you tell Jayden?"

"It wasn't my truth to tell. And this wasn't information I could easily give to Jayden..."

After a brief pause, Miranda asked, "Why did you... feel the need to bring up his past with Kira which, to my understanding, had nothing to do with the subject of the argument?"

"Good question," Jayden commented.

Lara hesitated, trying her best not to glance Jayden's way to avoid registering his disturbingly-aching facial expression as she confessed,
"I only said those things to make him feel the pain I felt."

Jayden decided to chip in, "That's some special love right there," which made Lara comment,

"You know the maid thing always gets to me. You know it always does but you didn't care. You said your father gave us his blessing because he's fooling around with a maid as well."

Miranda's gaze shifted to Jayden because she had not been aware of that piece of information. She had not even been aware of the details of Mr. Benson's news because Jayden had purposefully omitted it. He had not informed her of his father's infidelity.

And she understood why. She had held the Benson's in high esteem. Sharing damaging information about his father like that was only going to hurt the family's reputation in a heartbeat.

"I apologised for my words," Jayden said to Lara, "They were rash and thoughtless."

Lara turned to Miranda and despairingly went on, "Sometimes I feel I'm not even worthy of being his girlfriend. Any time I'm reminded of my true status, I feel inferior. I can't hang out with his friends. They're all either accomplished or accomplishing something in life. I'm not on that level. I'm a simple maid who's trying to make enough money for school. So when those words had come out of his mouth the other day, they went right through me."

"I'm sorry," Jayden repeated, "You shouldn't be looking down on yourself, Lara. I always tell you this," he wanted to reach out and hold her hand, but refrained from doing so and continued,

"I keep trying to make us work. I wish I didn't have to put in 70% of the effort most of the time. With your studies," he reminded, "I promised that I would let my parents sponsor you once we come clean about our relationship, but you always turned down the offer."

He continued, "And with respect to our relationship, I keep trying to make us work. I put in more than half of the effort to keep us alive. I wish our efforts were on the same page."

Lara nodded, completely understanding where Jayden was coming from, "I'm sorry about the Kira thing."

Silence hung in the air once more by an extremely thick rope. They both had surrendered to the obscure safety of their minds, enfolded by the welcoming darkness saturated in the walls of these safe havens.

Over here, they had their privacy and no boundaries to restrict them of their deepest thoughts.

However, Miranda's voice had extracted them from their hiding areas, "Lara, what do you feel for Jayden?"

Unawarely struck by the direct question, Lara paused for a second, before answering, "I love him."

"Do you think Jayden feels the same way?"

"I believe, yes," she nodded.

Lara wished that the argument had never happened and that they were a happy couple once more. She wished that they would go back to the days when happiness and comfort had defined their relationship.

She wondered if it was possible now.

She hoped it was.

However, Miranda had requested, "Take me back to the night you had shown up in Jayden's room after he had returned from his getaway with Kira."

All of a sudden, the walls in the room started closing in on Lara. The weather was favourably calm but her insides began to heat up like a volcano preparing for its ejaculation.

No, Lara thought. No way in hell would Jayden have told Miranda about the embarrassing moment of the strip show she had done for his attention.

She tried to reassure herself, but Miranda went on,

"What had been running through your mind during that physical and mental state of vulnerability? Do you feel that someone had put you u-"

"Excuse me," Lara barely mumbled before abruptly abandoning her seat and heading towards the door in such a hurried manner that Miranda had begun to wonder if her words had struck a nerve.

"I'm sorry, did I say something wrong..." Miranda's chocolate brown eyes bore worry as she sought Jayden's reply.

Jayden continued to stare at the door that had been left ajar before detaching himself from his seat and excusing himself, assuring Miranda that she had done nothing wrong.

If Jayden had been a minute late, he would have missed Lara who had been attempting to stop a cab.

"Lara!" he called out. He ran to her and immediately grabbed her arm.

"Let go of me," she forcefully pulled her arm out of his gentle grasp.

"What's the problem now?" he exasperated. "You literally just walked out on Miranda. Not disrespectful at all," he sarcastically added.

"You told her about that?" Lara threw the question at him, glazing brown eyes on his dark blue ones.

The wind flirtatiously danced with his soft dark tresses in spins and sensual entwinement and had asked her longer dark-brown ones for a similar session.

Jayden nonchalantly answered, "I told her everything about our history."

"Why would you do that?" she cried, "Did you really need to tell her about my most humiliating experience? You know exactly how I feel about that even when it comes up in our conversations. Why would you tell her about it?"

"I just," Jayden sighed, "I was just speaking. Telling her everything about our past. Answering her questions."

Lara began to applaud, "Congratulations. Hey Miranda," Lara began to mock, "so Lara came to my room in nothing but a robe. She took that off and asked me to sleep with her but like the gentleman that I am, I put the robe back on and told her to leave. Bravo, Jayden, Miranda says. What a gentleman."

Jayden frowned, his handsomeness even multiplying in effect as she continued,

"Thanks a lot for humiliating me."

"The intention was not to humiliate you. And it certainly wasn't worded that way," he said but Lara cut in,

"She must be judging me in the back of her head. From the minute I walked into that office, she had her judgements about the stupidly desperate girl who had been causing Jayden all of his troubles. She has probably nicknamed me Jayden's headache. Or Jayden's gross zit."

"Now you're just being delusional."

Jayden expected Lara to bite back harder, a sarcastic reply perhaps, it was her specialty.

But all she did was to stare at him as tears rapidly began to pool her dark-brown eyes.

They stood there in silence, pain evidently present in his heart and hers. People strolled by and tried as much as possible not to be nosy as they reluctantly tore their lasting gazes away from the couple whose strings were visibly weak and tangled.

Jayden genuinely wanted to wipe her tears, embrace her and put the past behind him. He wanted to hold her and try to make it work again. Make them work.

But his memories wouldn't permit him. His memories, heavy and extremely painful. They pierced his soul with vivid images and words as sharp as a mental dagger that ruined him anytime they emerged.

He broke the ice, asking, "What now?"

Tears trailed down Lara's face as he continued, "Where do we go from here? What becomes of 'us'? I'm tired of this back and forth. I'm tired of this..."

Lara slowly wiped her never-ending tears and frantically nodded. "I'm sorry."

She then turned around to walk away, but he asked, "Where are you going?"

Lara refused to reply, even though she had remained put with her back now facing him.

Jayden asked, "What are we? Does this confirm everything we've been trying to avoid?"

Lara nodded, and he asked again,
"So are we ending this for good? Is this the end of the road for us?"

"I..." Lara gulped.

She turned around, gaze catching Jayden's and after a brief pause, she murmured, "I've actually just realised some things."

"Wanna share them with me?" he asked.

Lara shook her head, "I don't think so... It's personal."

Jayden reluctantly nodded. He felt her slipping away, letting go of the tiny string that barely joined them, and he didn't know if he wanted that.

Lara implored, "So, is this over?"

"You tell me."

"I think it is..." she murmured. Though faint, her words were crystal clear to him.

Jayden dropped his head, hands burrowed in his pockets as every little bit of hope to reconcile came crashing down.

It was officially over.

He lifted his head and nodded.

Lara swallowed the lump of tears in her throat and said, "Before I go, I just want to say I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry about the Kira comments. I did not mean a single word I said."

"It's okay," he said.

She apologised once more, "I truly am sorry for everything."

"I'm sorry for everything as well."

After another moment of silence, Lara turned around and began to walk away when he offered,

"At least let me drive you home."

It was the least he could do at this point. Breaking up did not suddenly vaporise his feelings for her.

"I'm not going home," she informed, even though she hadn't turned around to face him.

He lifted a thick brow, "Where are you going?"

"Don't worry about me," she told him, "You do that a lot."

She started walking away from him and began sprinting, gulping down her tears as she repeated to herself, "You do that a lot."

She needed to get as far away as possible from him because he was never the problem.

She was.

She was his headache.

His cause of pain.

She was his gross zit.

***

Brie coolly glided into the room she shared with Katy.

She had now been returning home from a long day of being away from the house.

She was certainly surprised to have laid eyes on Katy, Dana, and Emma who seemed to have been waiting for her return.

"You've been out all day. Where have you been?" Dana asked.

"What is this? An interrogation?" Brie chuckled as she pulled off her tank top and unbuttoned her tight jeans, pulling it off to be left in her underwear only.

"We need to discuss something," Katy sounded grim, which made a half-naked Brie turn to the three girls sitting on Katy's bed, eagerly waiting for her.

"Why d'you all look so serious?"

"Brie," Katy turned to her, "we want to give you a chance to come clean to us."

"I like it dirty but okay?" Brie chuckled, completely trivialising their subject of discussion as she put on a shirt and tied her hair in a messy bun.

Dana continued with a question that definitely took Brie by surprise.

"Are you hooking up with Mr. Benson?"

***

A/N: So Brie had kept her affair with Mr. B hidden from even her closest friend, Katy. Would she 'fess up to the girls about sleeping with Mrs. B's husband, or deny everything?

What's next for Jayden? What's next for Lara? Find out in the next few chapters. Toodles! And sorry for the long arse wait!