A cheat

Ophelia was looking at Blaine with pleading eyes. Hoping he would just open his heart to listen. 

But he was not even looking at her, as his eyes scanned the room, taking in all the smashed decorative pieces and furniture.

He shook his head once as his eyes followed the trail of destruction. 

And when he looked back at her, she could see the confusion in his eyes still. Like he was seeing her for the very first time.

Like he did not know her.

“Honey.” She walked forward to take his hand, but Blaine took two quick steps back like she was some monster.

“Please.” She stumped a foot on the floor in frustration as tears welled up in her eyes. “Just listen.” 

Why was her luck so rotten? 

Why would Blaine come in, at that exact moment? Why had he not walked in earlier or later?

He looked away from her now and went to their room. 

She hurried after him, too scared to say another word, trembling with fear and wondering if this was it. 

She gasped when she entered their walk-in closet to see him pulling out a suitcase.

“Honey,” She said in alarm, “What are you doing? Please don’t do this.” She pleaded, watching him dump his clothes in. 

He did not look like he had heard.

She ran to him. “Honey. It’s not what you think. I was watching it..” She stopped because now that she was about to say it out loud, it sounded stupid.

~I was watching the video because I wanted to see if it was that bad~ That just sounded horrible. 

It did not make as much sense as she had thought earlier. 

When she looked up, Blaine was looking at her, seemingly waiting for her explanation, but nothing would come out of her mouth.

She just stared at him, slack-jawed.

He looked away and continued to dump his clothes in the big suitcase.

“I never cheated on you.” The tears finally began to stream down her face. “Believe me.” 

She was a lot of things, but she was no cheat.

She never put up any pretenses, and stuck to only one man at a time. 

No matter how attracted she was to Draco, she had never slept with him since right before her wedding to Blaine. 

She knew Blaine was traumatized by what Ruby had done to him in their teenage years, so he took fidelity seriously. Because of this, she had killed all her feelings for Draco after her wedding.

Blaine finally zipped the suitcase, and pulled it up. 

She hurried to him and gripped the case handle tightly, staring up at him with pleading eyes.

“Why won’t you just believe me?”

“Step back!” He barked in the voice he only ever used on strangers, and she found herself halfway across the room before she even realized she had run.

He stared at her briefly with enraged eyes, then turned and strode quickly out of the room. 

Ophelia slid down to the floor, crumbling in tears as her chest heaved from the intensity of her emotions. 

She was done for now. Who would protect her from her father?

She was attracted to Draco, who was big and tough and would go to war for her, but she could not move on and marry him. Draco was not exactly the model husband.

Over the past year, she had come to appreciate Blaine’s gentleness with women that she had taken for granted in the past.

Blaine treated women like goddesses, where the other men treated them like prized possessions.

She cried and cried, till she was sprawled out on the closet floor. 

There was no point in living life without Blaine. 

She had to convince him, prove to him that she did not cheat and that she would be the perfect wife from now on.

When next she opened her eyes, it was bright out. 

She started up into a seating position, and looked around.

She suddenly remembered all that happened last night and ran out. 

She halted in the living room.

Everything looked so organized that for one second she wondered whether it had all been a bad dream.

But it was not. She noticed the missing furniture pieces that would take the housekeeper time to get their replicas and replace them. 

A maid who was dusting the surfaces looked up when she noticed her presence, and bowed.

“Good morning, Ma’am.” 

“Where is my husband?”

“He left for the children’s hospital.”

Ophelia gasped as she suddenly remembered her daughter. She had not thought about her even once since that phone call last night.

No wonder everyone said she was a terrible mother.

But she wasn’t. She loved her daughter. Why else would she so carefully hire nannies to care for her round the clock?

She was embarrassed to ask the maid her next question, but who else could she ask? Maids always knew these sorts of things because they were such gossip.

She frowned in disgust.

“Where did he sleep last night?”

“The room the former Madam slept in.”

“What? What former Madam?”

“The chairwoman.”

Ophelia felt her hand begin to twitch, but words must have gone round about what she did to the other moronic maid because this one suddenly grabbed her duster and fled even though she apparently was not done cleaning.

Ophelia finally turned away, feeling like someone had slapped her. 

Did Blaine still have feelings for that woman all this time?

Why did he not go to a hotel like other angry married men, or any of their other houses? 

He decided to sleep in the Tucker mansion. And instead of sleeping in Olivia’s nursery or even in the wing he lived in as a bachelor, he decided to take up residence in the bedroom that wh*re had slept in that one night at the mansion.

She grabbed her robe, walked out of their bedroom, and took the general elevator that connected all the separate units of houses together in the mansion.

She stopped outside the bedroom door, her mind traveling back to that night almost two years ago, and all she had done to Ariel.

Did the witch curse her after that night, or place some bad juju on her? 

Is that why she has never experienced happiness since that day?

Her hand touched the cold door knob, and the door swung open. 

She walked in, and it felt like she had been transported back in time to that day, when Ariel was standing right there, just a few feet away, a scared little thing. 

She could see her even now, throwing her head back, and drinking the whole bottle of poison, 

and later, fighting, when her mother was shot dead anyway.

Ophelia could still clearly see the struggle afterward, and how she left Ariel bleeding to die in this room. 

She frowned. Why had Ariel not told anyone what she had done to her yet?

What was her overarching plan?