James Interview
"Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us on our show tonight, themed; Time with the Hawards. As you are already aware and may have seen or read on social media, the Haward family recently was faced with a family scandal, as someone considered one of their own turned out to be a con artist. Today we will be getting some insight into what happened. Here with me now is Mr James Haward as our guest," the host said, smiling at James, and he returned the smile.
"We will take a quick commercial break and go right to business when we are back. Stay tuned," she added.
After the commercial break, the host addressed the audience again and started with the interview.
"Welcome back everyone and Mr Haward, you are welcome to our show. Are you ready?" asked the host.
"I am ready when you are," replied James calmly.
"Great. Very few people know you as a Haward. The lovely audience will like to know why you have chosen to hide from the public?" asked the host.
"Well, treasures are hidden until they are discovered, right?" James said, with a smile, and they all laughed. "Well, the thing is I have a preference for lying low," he replied.
"Okay, for your next question, tell us about your childhood. What was growing up for you like??" asked the host.
James looked up at the ceiling as if in considerable thought and soon replied to the question.
"Well, growing up with my siblings, of which Jason was part, was not bad. Jason was, however, very distant from the two of us. We were just three, myself, Jason and our little sister. I never understood why, but now I do," James said, raising his eyebrows. "He never saw us as family," he added and continued.
"As a child, I recall, aside from being distant from all of us, he always wanted to take credit for everything. He was brilliant; I won't deny that we loved him for that. He was very helpful when it came to our assignments and things like that," James narrated and giggled, talking about the assignment.
"Growing up, I had a passion for building stuff. I wanted to be an engineer. Jason was always around to help me figure out what I was missing, and he would then urge me to go show it to our father. Our father will mostly smile at me and next, you will see him rewarding Jason. Jason would then bring the reward to me in secret, telling me it's mine, so I should take it," James narrated. "As a child, I never saw anything wrong with his actions until gradually I realized our dad was becoming distant from us and always happy about Jason instead," he said sadly.
"Wow, that is sad to hear. So it appears, even as a child, Jason already had a hidden motive," confirmed the host.
"Well, we were children and I would often smile and hug him for giving me those rewards. The way he said it was even very convincing. Growing up, he got closer and closer to our father to the extent everything was now about Jason," narrated James.
Mrs Haward was sitting in the audience together with Mirenda. They had come to support James. Mirenda bowed her head, knowing what James was saying was a lie. Everything was rather about him and never Jason. As far back as she could remember, Jason was always alone. They only remember Jason was around when she and James needed his help with assignments.
"We loved Jason and cared so much about him. That is why, even though my mum knew he was adopted, she never once mentioned it to us. She still accepted him as her child. She raised all of us like her children, together with love and care as every mother would do. To the family, Jason is a part of us, or so we thought," James said, with a sad expression.
"Are you saying you knew Jason was not a Haward, but you made him the heir anyway?" asked the host.
"Well, yes, we did know he is not of our blood, but he fulfilled the requirement to be heir, so my mother, out of love, allowed him to be heir," replied James.
"What requirement did he fulfil?" asked the host.
"He got married 24 hours before our father died. In the Haward family, the married son becomes the heir," replied James.
"If he got married 24 hours before your father died, does it mean he knew your father was going to die?" asked the host.
This was outside the list of questions. Mrs Haward frowned but, realizing what that meant, she smiled, Jason would be seen as a murderer.
"Possible and it could also be a mere coincidence," James replied, knowing people would conclude he cared about Jason and hence would not allow him to be accused like that.
"So how did you find out about his fraudulent activities? " asked the host.
"One of our offices in Washington overnight started running bankrupt. He went on a trip to fix it. Well, that is what he made us believe. I managed the business in Florida in his absence. I saw some irregularities in the company's finances. I downloaded a couple of them," James said.
"Hello viewers, what you are about to see is some irregularities that were found in the company's finance statement while Jason was managing it," announced the host, and a report was projected on the screen.
"As you can see, a particular sum of money keeps moving in and out of the company's account with no description. Upon arriving home, I went to see his wife to find out if she had any idea because she was also working for the company," James said and inhaled deeply. "It's quite shameful to talk about it," he said.
"Aside from the fact that Jason's wife started making advances towards me, Jason sent the police over to arrest me, charging me with unlawful entrance," James said. "How is it possible that entering my apartment is now unlawful," he questioned.
The day Jason had James arrested for his attack on Julia, he made them record it as an unlawful entry as he knew reporting exactly what happened would make it difficult for him to have James released the next day.
"I was released from prison and upon returning home, I wanted to confront him, but everything made sense to me when my mother informed me Jason was not my true brother. I showed the report to my mum, but before we could make any decision, Jason was already gone and so was an amount of 10.5 billion dollars," said James, and the audience gasped in shock.
Mrs Haward smiled and Mirenda lowered her head. Yes, some of the things James said were true, but Jason never stole anything. If anything, he even left what belonged to him for them.
"Why would they tell the exact truth here when they had only come to this interview to hang Jason to dry," Mirenda thought.
"We found out recently he was in Orlando, so my mum tried to reach out to him. She wanted us to talk about this like a family, but we heard he had left the place too," James added.
"Wow, that looks like he had it all planned out," said the host.
"Yes, it appears he did. We have been trying to find him, but our mother decided we should let it go and just announced the new heir," said James.
"Jason left after destroying a lot of things but I, James, will fix everything and restore the family to our former glory," James said, and everyone applauded.
"Wow, who would have thought the gently looking Jason was that kind of person," said the host. "You can never trust people," she added.
"Thank you, Mr Haward, for coming to this show to clarify things for us. I hope the family recovers soon from the big hit," the host concluded.
"Before you leave, I would love to introduce you to Mr Haward's mother and sister," the host said, and the camera moved to the crowd and stopped on Mrs Haward and Mirenda.
While Mrs Haward smiled from ear to ear, Mirenda was struggling to keep a smile on her face. The program was over and James gave his contact to the host before leaving. She quickly put the card into her bag, smiling.
James leaves, in the company of Mirenda and Mrs Haward, back to the apartment rejoicing over the success of their plan. James's phone rang upon reaching the 6th floor and he answered the call. He stopped right in front of the entrance door, leaving his mother and sister to enter.
"Hello, I am the host. You gave me your contact number," the host said on the other end of the call, with excitement in her voice.
"Great, I saw a lot of great potential in you, that is the reason I gave you my contact number. I was hoping you wouldn't make the wrong impression," replied James.
"Thank you," the host appreciated.
"You are supposed to own your channel and that is what I will be helping you achieve," James added. "Let's talk more over coffee tomorrow. I will send you the location," he said.
The lady agreed, thanked James and disconnected the call.
"What are you doing? I hope you are not trying to get into the pants of that pretty host?" came James's mother's voice.
"Now that you've asked, yes. But I would prefer to call it barter trade. Thanks to you, I have not had the chance to get laid for weeks now. With my new status, I can get her, her TV channel and in exchange she pleasures me," James said, and walked past his mother into the living room.
Mrs Haward's jaw dropped upon hearing James, and she remained frozen in her spot after James entered the apartment.