Page 71 of Beyond our Forever

No, it cannot be.

Chapter 19

Bruce.

His hand on the blonde’s back.

Hers on his arm.

Their mouths an inch apart.

Everything becomes blurry.

The party has disappeared, the room is painted black to feel that blow as strong as the impact of a demolition ball.

My world turns upside down, just when I thought it was going in the right direction. Why doesn’t anyone come to pinch me? Someone to get me out of this nightmare, wake me up.

Is it too much to ask?

“I need to talk to Bruce,” is the first thing that comes to my mind and therefore what comes out of my mouth.

Emilia looks at me as if I’ve suddenly become an alien.

“For what?” she mocks. “So he can fill your head with more lies?”

“There has to be an explanation for this,” I mumble, still holding the phone.

Please, God, let there be an explanation for what I’m seeing.

He told me that last night’s dinner was for business, what was he doing then alone with the Angelique woman having dinner in dim light?

He looks gorgeous, dressed in that charcoal suit I chose myself, combined with one of my favorite ties. One that the children gave him last Christmas.

I look at the images again, carefully examining them one by one. In the first, they are laughing together. In another, he has his arm on her back, guiding her somewhere. The gesture is intimate to me, like there is trust between them, more than a simple professional relationship.

Holy shit.

I feel humiliated, I’m an idiot. A real idiot.

And with a married woman!

How low you have fallen, Bruce Leighton, how low you have fallen.

And yet my insides scream at me to talk to him, that there has to be an explanation, to give him a chance to really tell me what the hell happened between them last night.

I’m confused, lost.

Here we go again.

Somehow, I manage to give Emilia her phone back and get mine out of the little handbag, I dial my husband’s number and after several tones it goes to the mailbox.

I dial one more time with the same result.

Shit.

Shit. Shit.

I have to sit down, my knees are shaking and it won’t be long before I can’t hold on to the heels I’m wearing.

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