Unfaithful: Web Of Betrayal

Declan sat in the dining room, waiting for his mom to enter in her fashionably late manner. This time she brought some files with her. Her sumptuous smile subsided when she saw her favorite son looking scruffy and worn out, as if he hadn’t showered or eaten in days.

“You look like you just crawled out of a cave … what happened?” she sneered.

He stood up and kissed his mother’s cheek, “You look lovely as always, Mom. How are you?”

“I’m as well as I can be,” she sat on the chair next to him and put the files on the table. She turned to him with a concerned look on her face. She touched his arm, “Is there something wrong with your business?”

“No … business is good,” he said.

She raised a brow and turned away, “It’s your home then … where is your pageant wife, anyway?” Mimi started to look through the papers in front of her.

He rubbed his temple. He was not in the mood for his mother’s cynical remarks. “Why am I here, Mom?”

Mimi let out a long sigh. “You’re here because I asked you to come … it seems all of my children don’t seem to have the courtesy to pay a visit to their own mother if it’s not about … money.”

“It says a lot about what kind of mother you are,” he commented.

She ignored it. “My will … I’m finalizing it … have you started the IVF program? Am I getting a grandchild from you, Declan?” she gave him the side eye.

He hung his head low, “Perhaps you will … but not through IVF.”

She paused. “I take it … you’re still having sex?”

He laughed lightly, “That is none of your business, Mom.”

“Well, actually, it is … my family is my business … where my money goes is my business, so whether she likes it or not … her uterus is my business.”

He shook his head, “No … it’s not … I think we should be clear with that … I know what I’ve done for this family, and I deserve more than this kind of treatment.”

She took a brown envelope from the stack of files and placed it in front of Declan.

His heart skipped a beat. Brown envelopes gave him anxiety. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Open it … it’s your precious wife’s extracurricular activities while she works in that company you bought for her,” Mimi stood up and walked over to pour them some drinks.

Declan somehow knew what was inside the envelope. He sighed and opened it anyway.

Pictures. They were pictures of Olivia and Roman as they walked together on the sidewalk with coffee in their hands and wide smiles on their faces. A warm hug when they said goodbye. A kiss on the cheek. Roman clinging to her hand when she was about to leave. A kiss on the lips. Roman’s adoring stare at his wife. He threw the pictures on the table. He’s had enough of those images.

“You don’t seem surprised?” Mimi had two glasses of bourbon in her hands.

“I took care of it,” he said.

“Did you?” she sat and gave him a glass. “Do you know where he is now?”

“He’s gone … I bought his gallery from Brian, and I put Olivia’s name on it.”

Mimi chuckled and sipped from her glass, “This is exactly why I can’t trust you with my will … Declan … she cheated on you with a boy, and you put her name on the business you bought with your money?”

He stood up abruptly, “She’s my wife! It was OUR money … OUR lives … I can’t believe you had my wife followed for this? Is that really all you think about? Money?”

“Do you know how many lives are ruined because they’re not careful with their money? With the people they choose to marry? People they choose to trust?” Mimi raised her voice. “You are the smartest guy I know, Declan, but God knows … when it comes to HER … you’ve always been an idiot!”

He dug his fingers into his hair and walked around the dining table.

“Your dad and I worked our hardest to maintain our family’s legacy … our family’s fortune inherited to us to build an empire for our family and our generations to come … and I will not let it slip because I failed to protect you from your own stupidity of trusting a pageant girl to be your wife! She’s a cheater, Declan! She lied to you!”

“I lied to her! I cheated on her! Years ago … when she needed me most, and I betrayed her, but she stayed with me, Mom, she gave me another chance … don’t you think she deserves the same?”

“Of course, she stayed with you, honey. Where else would she go? And now? What if she gets pregnant with another man’s baby? Brian Murphy’s grandchild, nonetheless, you can’t possibly think of staying married to her … not after this?”

He slammed his hands on the table. Mimi jolted in her seat.

“You don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot do! I’m not a child anymore, Mom! You talked shit about preserving this family’s legacy … I’m the only one doing all that! I make the money, I do the business, I do the work! I’m the one who’s preserving this family’s legacy! And the one thing that messed up my marriage was your incessant meddling with my private life and your constant nagging about an offspring! Enough! I’ve had enough of that!”

Mimi fell silent. She watched her son’s face as he calmed down after blurting out everything he wanted to say.

“So that’s your final decision? You’re staying married to the woman who cheated on you and not planning to have any children?” she kept her composure.

Declan rested one hand on his waist and rubbed his face with another. “The deal I made with Brian will be the last thing I do for this family,” he said in a low voice.

“I’m leaving for London next week and starting a new life with Livy … I love her … she made me who I am … I don’t care what you think of her … she’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and it didn’t require children in that equation … you can take me out of your will or whatever you want … I’m done with this family … you can give it to my brother’s children if you want … I can make my own living.”

She sat back on her chair and let out a long sigh. She had never imagined that her favorite son would choose his wife over her, especially now that the wife had cheated. Mimi realized that Declan’s love for Olivia was more than just on the surface. She used to think it was only because of her youth and beauty.

Mimi nodded slowly in silence. “If that’s what you have to say … then I wish you all the luck in the world … I’m not taking any risk … I will reserve some money for you in my will, but not her … not even if she’s pregnant now … I’m sorry, honey, I don’t trust her, not after this.”

He took the drink from the table and engulfed it in one go. He put the empty glass next to his mom, “I don’t care … you should start telling your other sons to step up to the plate, ’cause I’m leaving … I’m going to run my own thing from now on … I wish you all the luck in the world,” he said the last sentence with a sarcastic tone.