2. Broken Promises
Chapter 2
Broken Promises
Cole
I sit quietly at my dining table, staring into oblivion. There’s a calmness in me now that scares even me. It’s an acceptance of what has happened. An acceptance of the fact that life as I knew it has forever changed.
The woman I loved—the woman I thought I would spend the rest of my life with has betrayed me in the worst possible way.
Every fixture in our apartment that reminds me of her now fills me with revulsion. In the span of only a few hours, everything I thought I knew about her has changed.
Every dream that we were meant to share together—a future that is now no longer possible—is gone, replaced instead by a hollow emptiness.
Now, all I want is to know the full truth.
My bags sit beside me on the floor. My trip to Boston was originally only going to be for a few days. I was supposed to be attending my best friend’s wedding tomorrow, take the next day to rest, and then come back home to my pregnant fiancée.
That was the original plan. She said she wasn’t feeling up to flying, and I didn’t want to be away from her for too long, in case she needed something. Needless to say, my plans have changed.
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.
“You started working at that firm eight months ago, and two months later you’re already screwing your co-worker? What kind of trash woman are you?” I yell, brows furrowed deeply.
I truly don’t understand it. We were doing well. At least as far as I knew. How could she do this to me? To us? Why?
She continues to sniffle, hiding her face in her hands.
“Answer my question, goddamn it!” I yell, slamming a fist down hard on the dining table.
“He—he, uh—He’s my boss,” she stutters, shaky voice cracking on the last word.
“He started coming on to me the moment I got the job. I said no at first. I wasn’t going to do that to you. But then he—he—” she breaks out into a sob again.
“He started to give me things. He started to buy me really nice things and take me to expensive places for shopping, dinners. All those nights I told you I had to work late, the weekends we had company activities that required me to be away, I—I was with him,” she confesses.
“I mean, you weren’t doing so well then, you know. Your job was a mess, you were barely getting by. I just—I was tempted by everything he offered me, and I couldn’t resist it. I’m sorry,” she sobs.
Her body drops limply to the floor by the door as sobs rack her body.
My heart clenches painfully in my chest. She cheated on me with her boss because he’s rich and I’m not?
What a gold-digging whore.
My body sags limply against the chair.
Defeated.
Ashamed.
Emasculated.
She fucked another man because he has more than I do. She’s been cheating on me for months, while I worked my ass off to ensure that I can give her and our unborn baby the best life possible?
My heart starts racing again, even before I ask the question that’s been haunting me since seeing them together.
Somehow, I already know what the answer will be.
“The b—baby. Is it mine?”
The tense silence that hovers around the room is thick enough to cut with a knife. The air feels impure with her so close to me, yet I force myself to stay in her presence just a little longer.
I need to know.
I need to hear her say it.
But she doesn’t.
The seconds tick past painfully slow, yet she doesn’t say a word. Instead, she just sits there on the floor, sobbing like it isn’t her choices that led us here.
“Answer me, Lydia. You owe me this much.”
My voice is nothing but a whisper.
There’s no strength left in me. I’m drained in every way possible.
“Please,” I whisper again, my voice trembling slightly. “Is it mine?” I ask, sitting up straighter now.
She looks up at me, brown eyes wide and sorrowful.
I can hear the rhythmic thumping of my heart as she opens her mouth.
“No,” she croaks.
The feeling that consumes me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.
Relief, because after what I just saw today, raising a child with this woman is the last thing on earth that I would want to do.
Right behind it is sorrow, and crushing disappointment for the life I thought I was finally going to have.
Just yesterday I was planning a romantic surprise for my soon to be wife and mother of my child. I was excited for the future that stretched out in front of me. A future with what I thought was the most amazing woman in the world.
Now, all of that has been taken away from me.
I look at her now, and I feel nothing. All the love I felt for her is gone. In its place is a hole that I’m positive will never be filled. No—I will never let it be filled again.
Never again will I trust another woman. Never again will I give them this kind of power over me.
I stand, picking up my bags from the floor.
“My best friend is getting married tomorrow. It’s a good thing you hadn’t planned on coming, I guess now I know the real reason why. It wasn’t because you weren’t feeling well. It was perfect cover for you to screw around without me there to interrupt.”
“Well now you can have all the time you need,” I continue harshly. “By the time I get back home, I want every single trace of you gone from my apartment. I hope to God I never, ever see your face again.”
She doesn’t say a word. She can’t.
There’s nothing to say. So she just sits there on the floor crying as I walk around her and make my way out of the apartment.
I know as soon as the door shuts behind me that I will never be the same man again.
The shrill sound of my ringtone causes me to pause in my tracks as I make my way downstairs to get an Uber to the airport. Greg’s name flashes across the screen.
“Hey, man, how’s it going?” he asks as soon as I pick up the call.
I need to keep it together; I can’t ruin my best friend’s big day.
“I’m on my way to the airport now. I have a redeye; I’ll be there early in the morning,” I respond dully.
“You okay, man?” Greg asks. It’s going to be hard keeping this from him. He knows me so well.
“I’m okay. Just tired. It’s been a hell of a day,” I say. Isn’t that the understatement of the century?
“Great. The ceremony starts at noon, so that gives you plenty of time to drop off your stuff at the hotel and relax for a bit before you get over here. I can’t wait to see you, brother,” he says.
I can hear the excitement in his voice, and my heart twists.
“You’re gonna need to take notes so you can see how it’s done. Your wedding’s not going to be too far behind,” he chuckles.
Sadness tugs at my heart, yet I force myself to chuckle along with him.
“I’m getting married, man. I’m really getting married!” Greg whoops.
“Yes, you are, and I’m so happy for you she’s one of the good ones. There aren’t many of them left,” I say.
“I couldn’t agree more, man. I’m a lucky SOB.”
“Yes, you are,” I mutter as I make my way to the waiting car.
“See you soon, brother,” Greg says.
“See you, man.”