Unfaithful: Web Of Betrayal

“Look,” he said at the theatre.

He was pointing to something behind her back. She looked over her shoulder. There was nothing.

“What?” she was confused.

He had a piece of paper between his fingers, and he held it close to her face.

“What’s that?” she creased her brows.

He smiled and tucked the paper in her shirt pocket.

“What is that?”This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

She took it out and opened the folded paper, it was his name, ‘ROMAN’, followed by a set of numbers. Her heart sank, another reminder their time together would soon be over.

“I know you probably won’t call it … but at least keep it? Just in case you change your mind?” he tried to sound casual.

“I don’t even know your last name,” she put the paper back in her pocket.

He laughed, “Let’s not get into what we know about each other … there’s close to nothing … it’s ridiculous.”

Yet how they felt for each other didn’t feel ridiculous at all. She fell silent and rested her head on his chest. He was right; she probably will never call that number; there was no way she could pursue this any further once they were back on land. The past 9 days felt like a dream.

“Can we sleep in your room tonight?” she asked.

“My super standard cabin?”

She’d been in his room; they had never spent the night there. It wasn’t as tiny as he described it to be; it was a regular size hotel room which was quite massive for a cruise ship. The company gave him the room on the upper deck, where she had seen him for the first time coming out on the balcony. The girl he was with was another story. One of the models for the catalog wanted to stay in his room which he said he declined.

“Yeah … it’s nice for a change, right?”

He scoffed, “If you say so … I don’t care …” he kissed her forehead.

He had no idea she had packed all her luggage in her room. She had arranged with the manager to take them all down first thing in the morning so her luggage would be the first thing they unloaded as soon as they arrived at the port. She had no intention of having a sad farewell with Roman. There will be no tears, no drama; the last thing he will remember about her would be that night they spent in his room, passionately making love to her one last time.

It wasn’t the nicest way to part from someone she had spent literally every waking hour for the past few days, but it was the only way she knew how to deal with the situation. She didn’t want him to know she was being picked up by a driver in one of her husband’s cars. Didn’t want Travis to see a young man walking her to the car. She couldn’t risk anyone on land to see her holding hands with a man who was not her husband. She thought everything that was done on that cruise would stay there for the rest of her life.

People make mistakes all the time. She wasn’t immune to it. Her husband did it. The person she always thought would never do something like that to her, he did it. She never thought she would either, but it was done. It was over the minute she set foot on the ground. There’s no turning back. It was beautiful, even magical. But it was wrong.

She tipped the porter generously. Her Bottega sits nicely on her face shadowing any trace of sadness in her eyes. She gave a brave smile to everyone who greeted her way off the ship. Roman was fast asleep when she snuck out of his room before sunrise. She was almost at the gates to exit the harbor; the car would be waiting for her at the pick-up point. She quickened her pace and held the scarf over her head from blowing away by the wind. Clutched her sling bag tightly, she was on her toes trying to get to the car faster; her heart was throbbing.

She kept her vision straight forward, didn’t want to risk looking over her shoulder, and found him running after her. She had to leave, and fast. Because once she was in the car, all that would be over … for good. The car was the first thing she saw when she emerged through the gate running. Travis was standing by the back passenger door waiting for her; he opened it as soon as he saw her. She leaped inside.

Once the door was closed, she tilted her head back, gasping for air. A wave of emotions took over her. She put her hand over her mouth, trying to control her breathing, but it was chaotic. The car smells like home. She was back to her life, her real life, not the fantasy fairy tale she had just got out from. The Ludus was visible from where the car was. Travis slammed the trunk and came into the driver’s seat. “Will that be all, Mrs. Hunt?”

‘Mrs. Hunt’ that’s her. To all her employees, her husband’s employees, her husband’s colleagues, and their wives, she was Mrs. Hunt. Although Declan had let her keep her maiden name, Harmon, everyone called her Mrs. Hunt.

It was hard to breathe properly, “Yes … take me home, please.”

“Right away, Ma’am.”

As soon as the car moved, her breathing was back to normal. She stared out the window and felt nothing. Life was going back to the way it was. Roman had become the past, an incident that happened while she was on her solo travel. A figure in her memory that will disappear in time. A face she didn’t capture on her phone but embedded in her mind.

Maybe in another life. The only message she left him on his bathroom mirror.

He woke up to an empty bed. His room wasn’t big enough not to be able to find another person if she was somewhere in there.

“Adele?” he called her anyway. Nothing.

He got off the bed and walked to the bathroom, the only place she could’ve been. Then he saw the words written with her lipstick. She even left the lipstick on the counter.

‘Maybe in another life.’

He stared at those words and knew she was gone. There wasn’t enough time to convince her otherwise. His chest hurts.

The message sounds so permanent. That was the end of it. Another life. How could he ever settle for that?

Adele Leighton. He whispered to himself. “I’ll find you again.”