002

ALEXANDER

~•~

I hated that she was playing dumb.

I stared at her, waiting for her to finally confess what I wanted to hear. Even if she didn’t want to admit it, she could at least explain the situation that led to it. She could lie about it and reassure me that it was just a misunderstanding. The fact that she was pretending everything was okay was even worse.

She scrunched her eyebrows the way she usually did whenever she was confused. I wasn’t sure why she was confused as my question was pretty straightforward.

“You’re angry at me because you believe I’m hiding a secret from you?” She questioned. “I don’t have any secrets, Alex.”

My tongue poked the inside of my cheek. She was still playing dumb.

I was about to speak when her eyes suddenly widened. “Oh! I do have something I’m hiding from you.”

My heart stopped beating for a second. While I wanted her to admit it, I also didn’t want it to be true.

I watched her as she turned around and dropped one of her suitcases on the ground. I frowned. Was she going to bring out some kind of evidence to back up the fact that she was cheating?

I tried to be patient as she opened the suitcase and brought out a velvet box. She stood up and handed it to me.

“What’s this?”

“It’s supposed to be my gift to you for our anniversary, but since you’re impatient, I figured I’d just give it to you now. You’ve wanted that watch for a few months now so I decided to get it.” She explained, smiling as always. “How could you have known though?” She muttered to herself. “Did Iris mention something by accident?”

I was too stunned to speak. Was she fucking with me? Was she trying to see how far she could push me before I snapped? She knew very well what she had done while on tour. Did she think I was angry about a stupid watch?

I tried to stay calm. I really did, but before I could even process my actions, I was throwing the box on the ground.

Charlotte flinched, shock evident in her features. “What is wrong with you?” She yelled, picking up the box. “Do you know how much this costs?”

“I don’t give a damn about the watch, Charlotte! What I want to know is how you can act like everything is okay after what you’ve done!” I couldn’t hold in my anger anymore. Seeing her fake a smile and act innocent was my breaking point.

Charlotte and I had dated for two years before getting married. If anyone had told me she would cheat on me, I would sue them for defamation. Charlotte was the sweetest woman I knew. She could never hurt a fly. Apparently, I was a fly and she didn’t mind hurting me, except she never expected me to find out.

“What the hell are you talking about, Alexander? If something is wrong, we can sit down and talk about it. There’s no need to yell.”

I scoffed. “There’s no need to yell? If you didn’t try to pretend everything was fine, would I have a reason to yell?”

“For fuck’s sake, Alex. I just came home. If you can’t explicitly state the reason you’re mad, then there’s no reason for us to have a conversation!”

Just as angry as I was, for reasons best known to her, she zipped up her open suitcase and dragged it upstairs before coming down for the other two. She didn’t even bother to spare me a glance as she did so.

Of course, she didn’t. Guilty people often couldn’t look others in the eye. I badly wanted to tell her what was wrong but I also wanted her to spare me some dignity and admit to it herself.

If she was remorseful enough, maybe this wouldn’t cause much of a problem in our marriage.

But she clearly wasn’t. Even worse, she was trying to make me feel stupid when she was the one who disrespected our marriage. I couldn’t take that. I really couldn’t.

True to what I told her earlier, I was just back from work, but I also couldn’t stand to be under the same roof as her at the moment.

“I’m going back to work,” I cared enough to tell her as she stomped up the stairs, magically being able to carry two suitcases at once. If she didn’t feel guilty, she would have asked me for help, but she didn’t.

“Of course,” she chuckled bitterly, not looking back for a second.

I nodded to myself, grabbed my car keys from the bowl on the kitchen counter, and left the house, banging the door with much more force than necessary.

After the door closed behind me, I let out a few deep breaths. Thankfully, none of our workers were around to hear us go off on each other like that. They all saw us as a perfect couple. Fighting about infidelity in front of them would definitely be embarrassing.

How did we end up like this? I gave her everything I could. I showed her how much I loved her as often as I could. What was she seeking outside? I helped with her career as much as I could. I did everything to make sure she had everything she wanted. How could she betray me without feeling an iota of guilt?

Was she still my Charlotte?