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Your Requited Love

Your Requited Love

Willow Mendoza

Last update: 2023-10-25

Chapter 1 An Encounter

  • Being an accountant of a small firm, I was previously sought out by my husband, Cary, to help with a cash flow issue he had. He wanted me to get him one hundred thousand to tide him over just for one day. One day. That was the agreement. Then, one day dragged into a whole week. Not only had he reneged on his promise to repay, but he also flat-out denied having received any money from me.
  • Embezzlement was a crime that carried with it a jail sentence, so I frantically tried to borrow extensively from whoever I could. It was an impossible endeavor given the time constraints. After my mother got wind of my troubles, she quietly went out and borrowed from a loan shark to help me plug the gap. Mom eventually suffered a mental breakdown owing to her inability to repay the debt, and she could no longer withstand the harassment of our creditors.
  • As a consequence of the deed, I was fired from my job as well. Because I no longer have a source of income, I couldn't keep up with the payment of her treatment. Compounded by my own need to avoid the hounding by the loan shark myself, I became an insomniac on the brink of collapsing.
  • What proved most aggravating was the discovery of the purpose behind the loan of that hundred thousand. It was meant to bankroll the purchase of a diamond ring so that my good husband could chase the skirt of some rich girl!
  • With my emotional and professional life both in shambles, I had hit rock bottom. The anger and impotence I felt toward him left me quite bummed out. Hence, I visited Enchanted, a bar where my husband and I first met, by my lonesome self, and sought refuge at the bottom of the bottle.
  • “Why shouldn't you try to hook up with others online, just as Cary did?” asked Jodie, my good friend. “Bring out your phone. Use it to pick up some cute guy in your vicinity, and then throw yourself at him.” That, she said, would be justice done right. “If Cary could do it, so can you, because you definitely have the assets and the looks to pull it off. Absolutely no one would suspect that you're married if you keep quiet about it yourself! Live it up, girl. Get out there and strut your stuff!”
  • After some deliberation, I started to see how that made some sense.
  • Why am I being so devoted to a man who took me for a fool? What have I gotten in return in the end for staying faithful in this marriage? I may not be capable of other stuff, but making a cuckold out of Cary? I damn well could.
  • Per Jodie's instruction and being emboldened by the drinks that coursed through my veins, I latched onto Julien Starck, who was in the same bar that I was. Straddling stupor and sobriety, I took his hand and wound up being led to a hotel.
  • No way was I going back to there, the setting of my shame and self-abasement. Neither had I any intention of getting tangled up with that stranger any more than I already had.
  • Cary and his mother, Amanda, were seated on the couch with their accusing eyes when I got home.
  • “Where had you been?” Cary asked.
  • The sight of this man filled my heart with revulsion because it was precisely his betrayal that landed me and my Mom in this sorry state of affairs.
  • “It's none of your concern. My mother was the one who paid for this house, so kindly show yourselves out.”
  • Cary imprinted his palm across my face. “How dare you continue to speak so arrogantly after you have strayed! What rights do you claim to have over this house when it's registered in my name? How do you have the cheek to remain here after what you did? Where's your phone? Answer me!”
  • I was quietly shocked. Why is he asking for my phone out of the blue?
  • “Cat got your tongue, huh? Guess what? Your lover-boy called to say that you left your phone inside the hotel room and that it's been moved to the front desk for you to pick up on your own. What have you got to say for yourself now, you little floozy?”
  • My heart was in my throat when it dawned upon me that that jerk must have sifted through my phone and Cary's number remained saved inside my contact list as Hubby as I had no time to get around to changing it.
  • To think that he called Cary with my own phone. Now, I'm in deep trouble!
  • I had been punked by the fates in the worst way imaginable. Before this, I was due to take Cary up for infidelity. How the tables had turned after that no-good scoundrel handed the levers of power over to my soon-to-be-former husband instead.
  • Pissed as hell, I neither resumed my fight with Cary nor attempted to defend myself. Instead, I packed a few things and then walked away from that place I used to call home.
  • With my luggage wheeled to my side, I waited for the bus by the sidewalk on my feet. A good half an hour had gone by, yet there was still no sign of the transport pass by the sanitarium.
  • That was when a Range Rover approached and pulled over by the bus stop. When the side window wound down, I met the eyes of the person inside the car who stared out at me.
  • To my astonishment, it was that jerk from the hotel.
  • “Hey, hookup buddy. Hop on in,” he hollered.
  • That manner of addressing drew unto me the unwanted attention of the numerous pairs of eyes of those who gathered to wait for the late-night bus ride home for all the wrong reasons. I wished that I had a hole to bury my own head into.