Page 8 of Enemies, Lovers & A Valentine's Baby

I’ll be extending my trip for as long as my job will allow me. Maybe take that sabbatical they added as part of our benefit package a few years back.

The sound of keys jingling in the door jerks me back to reality. My eyes glance from the clock that hangs on the wall to the door that’s opening.

8:42 P.M.

I’ve been sitting in this chair for hours, waiting for her.

The clicking sound of it closing causes me to flinch.

It creaks slowly as she opens it. My eyes swivel up and down her body, and for the first time since we met, all I can feel is disgust.

Her hair is a disheveled mess, no doubt from having the man she was screwing yanking on it while he fucked her. She probably went back to his house and continued their disgusting sessions.

Her eyes are bloodshot, and black streaks from her mascara are smeared on her cheek. The dress that had previously been hiked up to her waist is now a wrinkled mess.

I squeeze my fists at my side and will myself to take in slow, deep breaths.

How many nights did she come back home to me seemingly perfectly put together, after having another man inside her body? How many times did I blindly kiss the same lips that had just been God knows where?

It’s all I can do not to heave at the thought.

How could I have been so foolish to have missed all of it?

“Cole, please—” she starts to beg, but I wave it off with a flick of my wrist.

Apologies don’t matter now. It’s not going to change anything. All I want to know is the truth.

“How long?” I ask.

My voice is cold and unfamiliar, even to my own ears. The warmth it held every time I spoke to her is gone, replaced instead with a sinister calmness.

“Baby, please just let me—”

“How long, Lydia!”

She jumps and tries to take a step towards me, but when she meets my eyes, she instantly recoils.

“Six months,” she says, hanging her head.

Six months?

Six fucking months?

My heart drops into the pit of my stomach. Pain tears through my chest, yet my face remains set in a hard expression.

I proposed to her five months ago. She said yes to marrying me all while sleeping with another man?

“Why did you say yes, then?” My voice sounds raspy with pain.

“I’m so sorry, Cole. I love you, I just—”

“Don’t you ever fucking say that to me again.” My voice is like a whiplash.

She freezes, seeming to retreat into herself and become smaller.

“I’m so sorry. I should have never—” she breaks out into a sob, the tears starting to flow down her face. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her cry and not felt a twinge of sympathy. She’s always known how to use tears to get her way.

I want her to hurt in the worst way possible. I want her to suffer the way I’m suffering right now. I want her to feel pain—real pain, like she’s made me feel.

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