by Emma Vikes
I had no idea where Marissa was taking me, and I didn’t care.
All that mattered was that I had lost Mike and with every minute I spent in this car, I was moving further away from him.
Somewhere along the way, I recognised that we were headed to my house. By the time I put my head down and raised it a few minutes later, I realised we were now headed towards Marissa’s house. She’d definitely changed her mind and decided to take me home with her.
I didn’t care where I ended up. All I knew was that wherever it was, Mike wasn’t going to be there. My chest constricted in pain as my eyes continued to flood.
Marissa stayed silent; not like there was anything she could say after all. She’d warned me then when I’d told her about my reaction. She’d also advised me when I’d delayed in setting things right with Mike. There was definitely nothing else she could do. I’d lost Mike, and it was all my fault.
She pulled into her driveway and left the engine running. As if on cue, the skies opened up and it began to rain. We both sat there as the windshield became blurry with water streaks; one in complete silence and the other whose sobs were currently being drowned by the rain.
My sobs continued to ransack my body but I didn’t bother too much seeing as no one else besides Marissa was going to hear me in this downpour. The clouds continued to unleash their contents on the earth as I emptied my soul in Marissa’s car.
After what felt like an eternity, I felt Marissa’s hand link in with mine.
I turned to stare at her and met tears pooling in her eyes as well. My pain had truly become hers as well.
“It’s okay, Theresa. You will be fine. I promise,” she said, softly.
She squeezed my hand and leaned over to kiss my forehead before proceeding to encapsulate me in a tight reassuring hug.
“You’ll be fine,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 23
Mike
I FOUND ALBERTA STANDING in front of the door as I drove into my driveway.
“What are you still doing here?” I’d asked after glancing at the time and knowing she was usually gone by now.
“Mr. Gordon, we need to talk,” she’d responded, simply.
For the second time in a week, my heart had skipped a beat in alarm; the first being about a week ago when Marissa had first called me about Theresa. That had turned out to be a ruse though.
Is Alberta okay? I wondered as I rushed to her side.
She’d taken me inside and headed straight to the kitchen. After setting me down on the kitchen seat and pulling out a bottle of red wine and a wine glass, she looked me dead in the eyes.
“I want to talk to you about Theresa, Mr. Gordon.”
If my heart had skipped a beat when she’d said we needed to talk, it had begun to race now that she had mentioned Theresa’s name.
“How...how do you know about Theresa?” I asked, in alarm.
How do I know about Theresa?” She chuckled. “How I know isn’t the question. The question is do you still love her?”
Alberta’s question hit me square in the chest.
Do you still love her? The question continued to ring in my head even as I went on without responding.
I suddenly pulled the wine bottle closer and began to open it.
“You’re not going to answer me, I see. Well, I already know the answer; especially after how you treated her when she came by your office last week.”
I paused. “You know about her visit to my office?” I asked, drawing another chuckle from Alberta.
“Not only do I know about it, I know why you did it. In spite of your rage, you still love her, Mr. Gordon. I know you do. Your feelings for her didn’t conveniently fade away just because you are mad at her.”
“Well, if you know about her visit and our fight, then you definitely know what she did. So, I wonder why we are having this conversation?” I retorted, after resuming my quest to open the bottle of wine.
“She messed up and hurt you, Mr. Gordon. I know that. Even though it’s no excuse, she hurt you because she was in pain herself,” Alberta sounded mournful.
“Yea! Transferred aggression on me because she saw her ex-husband with the girl, he’d cheated on her with? Please spare me the excuses.” I fired back before realising why Alberta had given me the wine bottle to open in the first place.
It was a risky manoeuvre but she’d always known I reasoned better, especially through rage when my hands and mind were also kept busy with another task. I chuckled as I set the bottle on the table in front of me, not bothering with my quest to open it again.
Alberta simply stared at the bottle and returned to looking at me.
“Like I said, Mr. Gordon, there is no excuse for her transfer of aggression. But her pain was much deeper than just seeing her ex-husband.”
The last sentence from Alberta immediately drew my attention. With all the indifference I could muster, I asked. “Much deeper?”
Alberta simply sighed before proceeding to tell me what had happened.
“You already know he cheated on her and had gone on to marry his cheating partner not even up to a year after their divorce. What you don’t know, however, is that a baby was involved.”
I couldn’t mask my concern under indifference anymore.
“What!” I exclaimed.
“When she found him in bed with his partner, she was with child. She’d turned and fled then but unfortunately in her flight, she fell down the stairs,” Alberta continued.
I gasped even as my eyes pleaded for her not to go on and tell me what I was sure came next.
“She lost the baby,” Alberta said, sorrowfully.
“Oh, no!” I gasped again.
“And then about nine months later, she is sitting in the bar of a hotel finally picking the pieces of her life and moving on, and in walks the ex-husband and his cheating partner turned new wife...”
“That is heavily pregnant.” I finished Alberta’s sentence.
“Exactly! Everything she’d ever wanted and everything that she didn’t get to have. Now, here were the two people who ruined her life going on to live her dream; happily married and expecting.”
“It was bound to be two reactions; either she flipped or she withdrew,” I responded, as my logical drive kicked into action.
“There you go. Like I said earlier, it isn’t an excuse, but I understand her pain.”
We both stayed silent for a bit while I processed everything I was hearing. I truly didn’t know this part of the story that Alberta had just told me.
“But that explains just the night before. There was also the morning reaction which in my own opinion was what did me in,” I asked, suddenly remembering the morning episode.
“The trigger remained the same, Mr. Gordon. She had talked with her friend all night and in fact come down that morning to find you.”
“Hold on. You said trigger. What trigger?” I cut Alberta off.
“The position she found you in was similar to how she’d first gotten a hint about her ex-husband’s infidelity; she’d found him on a date with the same woman two days earlier. To worsen matters, you unknowingly used the same phrase he had used then; a phrase that she sub-consciously has come to associate with an admission of guilt.”
“What phrase?” I asked, confused.
“Baby, you are overreacting,” Alberta responded, simply.
“Goodness gracious! That bastard!” I slammed my fist into the table as realisation dawned on me of how Simon had hurt Theresa.
“Her reaction might have looked and seemed amateurish at the time. But this is a woman who had been hurt deeply and lost a child and was still in the process of healing. Her strong reaction emanated from the depths of her pain,” Alberta continued explaining.
“Hmmm!” I grunted.
“However, she’s realised her mistake and is growing sick with fear that she’s used her hand to push you away.”
I remained silent as Alberta continued to stare at me. I loved the woman like my
own mother and knew what she was saying was right. It didn’t erase the anger I still felt though.
“Wait! She’s realised her mistake and is growing sick with fear? How do you know all this, Alberta, as well as the story you just told me?”
“You can come out now,” Alberta announced loudly into the wind, leaving me confused as to who she was talking to.
Suddenly, Theresa came out from the corner with flowers in her hands, alongside her friend, Marissa. It had been a week since I last saw her in my office and still, her eyes were red and sore from crying; and with every step she approached towards me, my heart melted.
I turned then, and looked away.
CHAPTER 24
Theresa
THE IDEA TO TALK TO Alberta had simply materialised from the blues. I’d taken the week off and had been in Marissa’s kitchen as she made us omelettes before carelessly remarking how her omelette making process was eerily similar to someone I knew.
Alberta!
“Who? Mike’s housekeeper? The one you bonded with?” Marissa had responded, absentmindedly.
“The very same.” I chuckled.
I jetted off to go find my phone.
Marissa had followed me in alarm, asking and wondering why I was running off into the house.
“Don’t you see it, Marissa? Alberta could be the key,” I’d finally said after we’d stopped and I’d found my phone.
“What? I didn’t get it.”
“She’s his housekeeper but their relationship is more mother and son than maid and employee. You touch her, you touch Mike.”
“I don’t understand. Why are we touching an old woman?” Marissa queried, in confusion.
“Oh my goodness, you are so daft.” I laughed. “If we can talk to Alberta and get her to plead with Mike, he is definitely going to listen.”
Marissa’s eyes slowly widened with excitement. “And you have Alberta’s number?”
“Yes. I took it the day we bonded. I was supposed to call her for a recipe, which I never did.”
“Now look who is daft,” Marissa said, snidely.
“Idiot!” I exclaimed amidst laughter as I proceeded to dial Alberta’s number.
She hadn’t picked.
Just as I was about to give up Marissa had dragged me, heading towards the door.
“We are going to his house,” she announced.
“To do what?”
“Look at the time, genius. It’s a weekday. Want to take a wild guess where she is?”
“At work, in his house.” I beamed.
“Exactly. And he is at work in his office. We are going to talk to her.”
“Let’s get flowers on the way,” I announced.
“Why?” Marissa responded in shock.
“Because she likes them and I’m not ruining this last shot. I really need her to like me, now more than ever,” I said.
We’d immediately rushed down to Mike’s house after stopping to get flowers.
She’d recognised me immediately and allowed us in before going ahead to listen to everything I said. After scolding me, and telling me how devastated Mike had been as a result of what I’d done, she’d promised to help only if I promised not to hurt him that way ever again.
“And keep the flowers for him. I like them, but he’d like them more.” She winked.
I’d promised her then as I’d have said anything to get Mike back but as I moved towards him now, I realised I meant every single word of the promise I’d made to Alberta not to hurt him again.
“Please, forgive me.” I cried as he looked away.
I reached him and continued crying. The pain in my heart at the thought that he wasn’t going to forgive me and take me back was too much to bear. Still, I continued pleading.
After what seemed like an eternity, I felt his hand hold my cheek and begin cleaning my tears. He said nothing but yet as he proceeded to lift me to my feet, I knew he had forgiven me.
He’d continued cleaning my tears as more flowed down my cheeks from relief.
“Even when you cry, you still somehow manage to remain beautiful,” he finally said.
“I’m so sorry. I’d never hurt you that way again.” I promised, relieved that he had forgiven me.
“It’s okay. Stop crying,” he said as he continued to clean my cheeks.
“I’d thought I’d lost you forever,” I continued sobbing.
“Well, I’m here now,” he said. “And I’m not going anywhere,” he responded, reassuringly.
“Well, what happens to your girl?” I asked, both relieved that he had accepted me back and confused about the girl Marissa had told me about when she’d burst into my office a week ago.
“What girl?” He responded in shock.
I turned and looked at Marissa then for an explanation. I found her laughing.
“Girl, I had to come up with something to make you get off your ass and go get your man.” She confessed.
“YOU!!!” I screamed at her.
She had lied about everything and yet, deep down, I was truly grateful to her.
“What’s going on?” Mike asked, confused.
“Never mind, Baby,” I responded, turning to face him.
I stared into his eyes as he continued to clean my cheeks. Then he leaned forward and kissed me softly.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Without skipping a beat, I responded. “I love you more.”
THE END
A Note From The Author
Thank you for taking the time to read the box set. I sincerely hope you enjoyed the stories.
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Emma Vikes
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About The Author
Emma Vikes is a passionate contemporary romance author, who thrives by 3 aims - to entertain her readers, to entertain them massively, and then to entertain them amazingly!
She used to work in the corporate world, but didn't like it. So, she found her escape from that world through her writing.
Emma became obsessed with the world of contemporary romance once one of her friends introduced her to this genre few years back. She got instantly hooked and turned into a voracious romance reader, until she became so fascinated that she couldn't resist writing her own romance stories to sooth her own fantasies.
But apart from penning down her naughty thoughts in papers, she loves to spend quality time with her 2-year-old boy and plan date nights with her husband. She is a hopeless romantic.
Being a strong-minded woman, she loves her female leads as sassy, independent and strong. And her heroes are alpha male who are hot and super rich with a dash of sensitivity.
So, if you’re looking for sizzling hot romances with generous amount of twists and suspense, you will love her creations.
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