The Unwanted Wife: Revenge After Divorce

NOAH

I returned home in a foul temper. Only ‘foul’ was not good enough to describe my mood. If Amelia were here, I probably would do something both of us would regret. Or maybe just me because she would not be alive to entertain regrets.

How could she? How could she do that to me?

I kicked the front door open and stormed into my sitting room. I dumped all the files I was carrying onto the centre table. Some files slid off and fell on the floor, but I didn’t care. They could burn to ashes for all I cared, just like the way I was currently burning with anger.

My company’s branch at Milkirk Avenue was gone, reduced to dust, mortar, and rubble. I had barely managed to supervise getting most of the company’s equipment out in time before the demolition had begun. Amelia had left not one stone standing.

I watched it. I had raved. I had threatened, but there had been nothing, absolutely nothing I was able to do about it. It wasn’t just my building that was brought down. My name, reputation, and everything I worked hard for were reduced to nothing.

How Amelia would laugh. How she would gloat at the fact that she had scored one over me.

“Bitch!” I hissed.

I kicked the sofa and felt the veins bulging in my neck and my eyes. Amelia would pay! By hell, she would pay for this. I would make sure that happened even if it was the very last thing I did.

The question was how.

I was still too caught up in my emotions that I couldn’t think straight to form a proper plan for revenge. I swore to myself right then and there that my revenge against Amelia would be most diabolical. She would face the most gruesome punishment, and she would pray for death.

If there was one thing I could not picture myself doing, it was letting her get away with what she had done. If I did, it would be a loss, not only to me but also to my reputation. Thanks to her, I was almost nobody in the city, but I still had a reputation or something of that sort to preserve. No one would mess with me and walk away freely.

I couldn’t even consider what people would think when they learnt that my ex-wife had ridiculed me like a tiny ant, and I had done nothing about it. If I just so much as closed my eyes, I could picture the faces sneering and the laughter bouncing off their lips.

‘She obviously wore the pants during their marriage…,” they would say.

‘Now I think she left him, and not the other way round.’

And then there would be those who would say conclusively that the Allen-Donovan debate on who was more influential was over, that Damian was better than me, and so was his company.

With a snarl, I began to pace the room.

To think that everything had been going so smoothly for me just a few weeks ago! First Damian, then Amelia had come around and spoilt it all.

Of course, the fool of a mayor had a huge role to play in this mess, too. He could have helped stop Amelia if he wanted to. I was sure of it. Maybe the bald-headed creep had a liking for Amelia.

I snorted. I wouldn’t put it past him, the dirty old man! Probably, he thought standing by and letting me crash and burn would earn him a place in Amelia’s good books and maybe into her bed.

I would not be surprised if she was fucking him too. Amelia was capable of anything; jumping into another marriage right after ours ended was just enough proof. She didn’t even grieve the marriage. Not once!

And then, there was Damian. He had a role to play in this shitstorm. He had been the one who had given Amelia wings, wings which badly needed to be clipped. If not for him, she would have continued being a mousy, frightened little nobody.

Damian showed her that she could be somebody. Hell! She was nobody! Amelia would always be my stupid, dumb ex-wife. No matter who she fucked.

But Damian would still have to pay. Amelia would have been useless without him, just like Lucy had been for several months.

My face contracted in anger as I thought of Lucy. Her fashion designing business was as good as useless. She was more or less a trophy wife, and I had been the one forced to fund her very lavish lifestyle. She had brought nothing to the table, had done nothing for me but to get pregnant with my child.

I heaved a sigh. At least she was pregnant and would make me a father in a week or two. Amelia would never be capable of doing that.

Speaking of Lucy…

For the first time, I looked around me, reflecting that it was rather strange that she hadn’t come downstairs to say hi to me. She almost always knew when I arrived home, as her bedroom, where she virtually spent all her time these days, overlooked the garage. I hadn’t even noticed her absence, as all my thoughts had been about Amelia.

“Lucy,” I called, turning my head towards the stairs. “Lucy.”

I called her name several times but didn’t get an answer. I marched up the stairs in search of her. As I climbed the stairs tiredly, I reflected bitterly on how easy it would have been a while ago when I hadn’t sacked all my domestic staff to save money. I would simply have sent one of them to call Lucy. Now, that luxury was gone because of Amelia.

Thoughts of Amelia were driven clean out of my mind after I had searched the entire house and had found no signs of Lucy. She was not home. That was odd. Because of the pregnancy, she always claimed that she couldn’t move properly, so where had she gone?

Just as I went outside the house, I saw her driver driving in. He parked the car, got out and did a double-take the instant he saw me.

“Sir!” he exclaimed with a swallow.

“Yess.”

A quick look into the car told me Lucy wasn’t there.

By the time I turned again to the driver, his expression was under control, but he could not mask his first look of surprise.

“Jacob, where is Lucy?” I asked.

“S-sir-” he stuttered.

“Yes?”

“I was not expecting you to be home so early.”

That was a queer answer indeed. I wondered briefly how this was related to the question I had asked.

“That is not the answer to my question. This is my house. I can come and go as I please.” I paused to let this fact sink in. I could already feel the anger, temporarily dampened by Lucy’s absence, rising to the surface. “Now I ask you again. Where. Is. Lucy?”

“I er- she isn’t here, sir.”

“Obviously she isn’t. I’m not blind.”

“I dropped her off somewhere. She told me to pick her up after two hours.”

“Two hours!” I exclaimed.

Where could Lucy possibly have gone off to for two hours? Today certainly wasn’t the day for her prenatal visit. I was sure of that.

“So where exactly is somewhere?” I queried. “Is it the mall?” Jacob shook his head. “Or a boutique, maybe. Did she go shopping?”

I thought this was the place where Lucy was most likely to be, as her propensity for shopping didn’t seem to have reduced even though I wasn’t financially buoyant now.

But Jacob again shook his head. “No, she didn’t go shopping.”

“Then where the bloody hell did she go?” I thundered. I shut my eyes briefly and counted to ten in my head. In a calmer tone, I said, “Take me to where you dropped Lucy off. Now!”

******************************

I sat in the car, staring at the sprawling mansion before me. Beside me, Jacob sat trembling. I could feel him alternating his glances from me to the building and back again.

“This is the place?” I asked. “Do you bring her here often?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “She usually comes here, but I don’t know who lives here. I often drop her off, go back or wait at a cafe for when she wants to be picked up.”

“I see.”

From the look of the building, it was obvious that someone very wealthy lived there. The house was imposing enough to rival mine, which was saying something.

“We will wait for her. I must know who she has been visiting while on bed rest.”

Jacob nodded and sank back into his seat.

Time went by as we sat in uncomfortable silence. A little over an hour later, the front door opened, and Lucy emerged from the porch. I sat up but managed to keep my head down to avoid being spotted, eager to see who her companion would be.

To my utmost surprise, it was Thompson, the very person Monique had told me about. My stomach churned, and I thought I might be sick. It had to be a mistake, and my mind refused to process the reality before me.

I blinked rapidly, hoping that everything would be normal again when I opened my eyes. But it wasn’t.

My thoughts raced, each one more frantic than the last. Why did Lucy visit Thompson after the ridiculous lies that she was trying to help me secure the contract?

She couldn’t be…No. She wouldn’t dare.

I watched them with anger rising in my throat. They were talking animatedly, like friends. As I watched, Thompson hugged her. My fingers gripped the car seat in anger, and my knuckles turned white. I dug my fingers into the seat, fighting the urge to run out of the car, run up to them and ask her what the hell they were doing together.

The thought that I wouldn’t get the truth using that sort of approach kept me on my seat.

“Take me home. Take me home,” I repeated angrily to Jacob, who was engrossed in the unfolding scene between Lucy and Thompson. She was still talking to Thompson, and it looked like they would be doing that for some time. “Come and get her once I’m home. And make sure you don’t say a word to her.”

Jacob nodded again. “Yes, Sir.”

As we drove home, I tried to focus and latch onto something positive in my mind, but my thoughts were too chaotic. I couldn’t stop the thoughts in my head or the questions, especially the one that bothered me the most.

Was Lucy cheating on me with Thompson?