Chapter 2: The Other Woman

*Elena's POV*

The argument with Rosalie didn't end well, especially with the fact that Damian had dismissed me and called me petty for crying over some clothes when all I did was steal his money and sabotage his company to get the clothes.

It was an argument I never won because today wasn't the first time that Rosalie was doing this. It wasn't the first time that she came into my matrimonial bed and took my things without my permission and cheated with my husband.

“Get the fuck out of my sight, Elena.” Damian spat out after she pulled Rosalie protectively into his arms, and I was hit by the pain of the memory that he had once held me like that.

Like I was the only thing that ever mattered to him in his life, but I guess that life was nonexistent now.

“We're not finished here, Damian!” I shot back, but I was already turning on my heels and walking away because the tears were coming, and I would rather die than let any of them see me cry.

My chest tightened and hurt so bad by the time I got to my room, and all I could do was lock the door behind me and fall on my knees to cry. To cry about everything I had lost, especially myself… just because I married a man like Damian.

A man who had once loved me but suddenly changed out of the blue when Rosalie came back, pretending to be hurt and needing care. Ever since then, my life became a living hell, and soon enough, Damian was asking for a divorce.

He couldn't initiate the divorce because it would mean losing his position and shares in his company to me, and if I did initiate the divorce, he would walk away with everything. But I just couldn't let him go. I couldn't…

I couldn't sign the papers. The marriage was the only thing keeping him alive, and even if he destroyed every last piece of me, I would rather not be the one to sit back and watch him get himself killed, and that was why I endured the following years of abuse and cheating while he accused me of sabotaging something in his company.

*****

I woke up quite early because more security organizations were calling me for one investigation or the other, and the clients and investors were asking for their money back. And their money had somehow disappeared due to Damian's influence.

I stumbled into my kitchen the next morning, my eyes still red, and my mood soured instantly the moment I saw Rosalie in my nightwear again, stirring something in a pot.

“Oh, morning there, Elena.”

She didn't look up from what she was doing, and her voice was as smooth as honey, and I was certain that it was one of the characteristics of her that pulled Damian close to her.

“I hope you don't mind. You can cook later, but Damian and I are so famished after last night, and you know… he needs more good food to keep him healthy.”

She twisted her body and pushed her hair out of the way, making sure that I was able to see the fresh marks on her neck…

The hickeys that had stained her beautiful skin, and it was no doubt from Damian. The pain in my chest got fresh, and I had to look away before I was going to break worse than I was already broken.

“I heard about the thing with your fashion house, by the way.” She smirked. “How does it feel to have what you worked hard for, for years, to be taken from you?”

She cocked her head to the side to gauge my reaction.

“Do you know how much I waited for Damian? To get married to him and have his children, something that your womb has a hard time doing…” She chuckled slightly and shook her head.

“Just to get home from school to find out that some maid's daughter had already taken my place and had become his wife!” She clicked her tongue.

“Damian and I were in love.” It was a weak argument; even the mocking laughter in her eyes was proof that I just said something stupid.

But I hadn't been lying. Damian and I were in love. We held each other's hands in front of his father as we signed the contract, and he had told his father that there was no way he was going to let either of us get divorced.

“Oh really?” Rosalie mocked. “Well, what about now? What would you say happened? You both fell off? The love faded? Or he has always been in love with me while you manipulated him all the way through?”

“I didn't!” I gritted my teeth in response.

Why was everyone saying this? Even Damian's mother believed that I was somehow playing dirty behind the scenes. How could I prove to them that I loved Damian in every sense of it, and I wouldn't do anything to hurt him?

Before I could give another response, heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway, and then Damian appeared in the kitchen doorway, still in his sweatpants from the night before, his dark hair slightly mussed. He stopped when he saw me, and his expression hardened instantly.

“What's going on here?”

“Nothing, babe.” Rosalie practically floated toward him, pressing her body against his side as if she belonged with him. “Elena and I were just having a little chat about her company. I was offering my condolences.”

Damian's arm came around her shoulders possessively as he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“She doesn't need your condolences, Rose. She needs to sign the papers.”

“I haven't done anything wrong,” I said, and I hated how my voice shook. “I've been telling you that for five years, Damian. I have never sabotaged your company. I have never leaked anything. Whoever is feeding you that information is lying to you.”

“Right.” His eyes were cold. “And the documents that show transactions from your accounts to my competitors?”

“Those are all fabricated! I'm sure you would know the difference because you're good at it too. Don't tell me someone else beat you at your game!”

“Or the witness who saw you meeting with Henderson Industries three months ago?”

My blood ran cold. “Henderson? I've never met with—”

“You were seen, Elena.” He was advancing on me now, with Rosalie still by his side.

“I got this from three separate sources and on three different occasions where you were meeting with my biggest competitors before my biggest deals fell off.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” And I wasn't lying. At first, I thought he was making this up to justify his actions for destroying my company, but the conviction on his face told me something different.

“No? Then tell me where you were on March fifteenth. Tell me where you were at nine o'clock in the morning, because I had a deal worth forty million dollars that fell apart that exact hour, and my sources say you were seen walking into Henderson's building.”

I opened my mouth, but the truth died on my tongue. Because I remembered March fifteenth. I remembered it vividly. I had been at the hospital that morning getting my bloodwork done for the pregnancy I hadn't even known I was carrying yet. But I couldn't tell him that. I couldn't tell him any of it.

“I was—” I swallowed hard. “I was out.”

“Out where?”

“I don't have to answer to you.”

“Of course you don't.” He spat it out. “Just sign those goddamned papers, Elena, or I swear on my life I would make you suffer my wrath if anything happens to my company again!”

“Oh, baby… You know she can't.” Rosalie cooed from his side.

“She's so much in love with you that she can't go a day without seeing you. I guess she wants us to take the hardest route to get her to leave once and for all.” Then, she sighed and shook her head.

“She just enjoys seeing you suffer, babe. She doesn't care about you. She never has.”