CLAIMED BY HIS RIVAL FRIEND.

MAYA

“Where the heck could all this noise be coming from?” I mumbled low. Tossed and turned. The sheets squealed beneath my heavy body.

The screeching sound of something heavy, something metallic, still found its way into the room upstairs. I sighed defeatedly. The sleep finally left my eyes. I pulled the sleek sleep mask off as I sat up.

The noise still pestered. No, I needed to check what was actually going on before I get moved too from this god-forsaken room without anyone realizing it. I grabbed the tiny clock on the nightstand, I had silenced it earlier.

The clock chimed slowly, 7:14am. It was still too early for such noises this beautiful Saturday morning.

My feet touched the cold floor, fishing for my slippers as they wove into the pair. I pulled my robe tighter, the silk brushing my upper thighs. Too short maybe, all thanks to Evelyn, the crazy girl had given that to me as a gift on my last anniversary.

“Maybe a little change could spice things up between you and Gabriel,” she slurred.

Well, it hadn't. I had worn it all through the night, waiting for my husband of four years, only for him to stagger in by a few minutes past one in the morning, drunk. Groaning about how his supposed friend had won another award, right after splashing millions on a stupid Ferrari.

I wondered how that was a problem for him, he had refused to submit his work, or rather, our work for nominations for the same award. He would rather slander the designs I created, even though they had kept that firm running long before he became the CEO.

And that was how our sweet anniversary went, with him jamming his bedroom door right there in my face as I tried to inquire the name of the company that had kept him on edge. I had gone back to my bed, in my sweet, sexy, little black silk robe. Empty and alone.

I still moved. The noise grew stronger as I stepped into the hallway. Gabriel's bedroom door stood ajar, right opposite my door. The light in there was dim. I tiptoed slowly, to check if he was in, or maybe I was the one imagining such a noise.

I peered in. The room was empty, the sheets lay scruffy. Then footsteps echoed softly, I turned, and it was one of the maids. She held a mopstick and a bucket. She greeted me calmly and said Gabriel was downstairs when I asked.

I nodded, returning her warm smile, even though mine wobbled. My head still banged from the bottles of wine Evelyn and I had emptied last evening. I followed the directions of the noise and walked till I found myself at the front of the house.

My eyes fell on him. Williams Banks. The man who commands the city. The one who was the stock's favorite. The one whom Gabriel had called his Ferrari stupid.

The supposed friend of my husband whom he secretly despised. The man he said he only stuck around to steal possible business updates from. The man whom he frowned at his progress.

But one thing shocked me, the more he frowned. The more he comes home drunk because another man got a deserved result for his hard work, the more the man succeeds. The more every TV news channel carried his name. The more the city revered him.

My steps slowed on the last step, hand gripped tight on the short railing as my eyes fell on him. My mind flew back to his last birthday on a Yacht.

He had insisted on celebrating it with core friends, if only he knew Gabriel wasn't one, and had insisted they all come with their wives, even though he was as single as a Pringle.

As everyone dispersed slowly after the event, he had snuck up to me on the foredeck, and asked one question I never got an answer to.

“Why him?” He asked. The question had come too suddenly. The question I had run away from all these years.

I choked on the drink I had lifted to my lips. My eyes turned red as I coughed endlessly, he had rushed to me at once, his hand warm against my bare back. His blue eyes darted into my hazel eyes, undoing me in a way no man had ever done. In a way I wished Gabriel would.

His soft lips stood in my face. Then he leaned forward, crisp white shirt unbuttoned enough that the hardness of his chest stood in full view. The gentle breeze from the sea waving them open enough for my eyes to feed on.

I hadn't realised how close he was until his lips gently brushed mine. No! I shouldn't be doing this. My mind struck instantly. He was my husband's best friend in the open, and also his hidden rival. The man he so much desired to be. I pulled away instantly.

He hadn't pestered either. He had watched me walk away. Back into the cabin. Gabriel was finally back in the cabin too, from wherever he had disappeared to earlier.

There was something about him. Something about the way he looked at me even now, made me realise how short the robe actually was.

There was always that sinful flicker in his eyes that made heat pool up in between my thighs every darn time.

Then I saw his lips part slightly, he looked so charming leaning against his red Ferrari.

White vest that clung to his arms like a second skin. Legs crossed. Arms clasped tight across his chest. Face catching the warm glow of the morning, then he lifted the side of his brow. Did he just wink at me?

My throat gulped. My ears heard words that he didn't say. Then a loud screech against the floor, pulling my mind back to the reason why I left my bedroom. My hands flew to my ears, cupping them enough to deaden the noise.

Only then did I realise there were three men who looked like they had been boxing all their lives, in front of me. They were wheeling the machines out. The machines that had been packed in the room, the second largest room in the mansion. Gabriel’s was the largest. My eyes went wide.

Do they know what they were doing? Who sent them? Gabriel wouldn't hear of moving those machines from that large room. Larger than mine. I had wanted to move into that room after he made the rules of us staying in separate rooms eight months after our wedding.

Guess what? He wouldn't hear of it. He said he had ‘needs’ for that room. A few days later, he pulled these heavy machines into the room.

I had pleaded, asked, and reminded him that the machines could stay in the basement warehouse at the company. He had blatantly refused and would never hear of it. Then I got it, he had put those machines in there to stop me from occupying the room.

“Hey! Hey! Excuse me,” I called their attention. They stopped in their tracks. Three pairs of eyes focused on me. “What do you think you're doing? My husband hadn't asked you to do this… Who sent you to wheel them out?”

One of them, the one who seemed to be the eldest among them spoke, telling me Mr. Gabriel Steele had called them specifically for this as he slowly wiped the beads of sweat that clung to his forehead.

No! They couldn't be saying the entire truth. Maybe his mother had ordered them. My lips parted. I needed to stop them first.

Then a footstep reached my ears from behind.

“I asked them to move the machines,” the voice followed the footsteps. I turned, and it was Gabriel.

He looked like he had just walked out of the kitchen. He held a coffee cup to his lips, steam curling persistently into his face, while he approached me.

“You… You asked them to?” I asked, surprised. What changed? I wanted to ask him. But that's only if I was ready to get embarrassed before these three men, and that one who leaned against his red Ferrari. I gulped instead.

“Yes. I have a cousin, Amila. She’s coming into town with her four-year-old daughter. She needs somewhere to stay for a while…. So,” he sips from the mug in his hand, “I'm trying to make out a comfortable space.”

I nodded slowly. Hands clasped tight now on my chest. He was making out a space for his supposed cousin? The same room he couldn't make a space in for me.

Cousin? Wait! What cousin? Why am I just hearing of this cousin just today after four years of being his wife? My eyebrows puckered. My heart thumped hard against my ribs. Something wasn't right. This didn't feel right.

The men had resumed moving the machines. Each screech against the floor felt like Gabriel's fingers scratching my face. He had always chosen everything over me, his job, his friends, his family. But this felt different, for reasons I didn't know.

A hard lump clogged my chest as I tried so hard to push back tears welling up in my eyes. Then I flew the low steps, running back into the house. With one word thumping endlessly. Amila? Who the hell was Amila?