Amara sat in the dining room, listening to the grandfather clock as it ticked away. Spread out on the table before her, was a different variety of foods, all prepared by her with one man in mind.
Tobias William Larsen, her husband.
Today was their 6th wedding anniversary, yet said man was nowhere to be seen.
But she didn’t panic, because ironically, she knew her husband was currently at Citdel, a famous restaurant in the heart of London…having a romantic dinner with his first love.
How did she know this?
Well, she had a private investigator follow Tobias all month after learning that his first love and childhood sweetheart had returned to London.
Silly, she had thought at first, but after seeing the first batch of pictures, seeing Tobias smiling at another woman who wasn’t her, his wife, a realization hit her. And it hit her hard!
And what was the realization? Simple, it was the fact that even after 6 years of their marriage, Tobias still loved his childhood sweetheart.
Painful, but it fueled her wavering determination to keep their marriage going.
Or so she’s been convincing herself for the past month…
Sighing, she pulled her gaze away from the cooling meal on the table just as she heard the clock strike midnight.
She frowned. Midnight, Tobias wasn’t coming home today. He’d forgotten their anniversary, again.
The comprehension as she stared at the clock left a familiar bitter feeling in her mouth and a newfound feeling of doubt about her marriage.
The Sudden sound of her cell phone buzzing had Amara searching for the device on the table. She located it and opened it expectantly, expecting to see a text message from Tobias, but froze upon seeing the message that she had received.
[How does it feel to be left alone on your wedding anniversary?]
Her eyes narrowed. What? She thought, feeling puzzled by the message. But as soon as she saw the next message, that feeling faded.
[After all these years, how does it feel to still play the role of my stand-in, a substitute that Is looked at in my place?]
As soon as she read that message, anger overtook the feeling of puzzlement she felt seconds prior, because even though it was an anonymous text, she knew exactly who it was from.
Celestine White, her husband’s first love. The very one he was with tonight.
Amara knew it had to be her, after all, no one else was as audacious as the young woman. And Celestine had proven that time and time again by playing despicable tricks, turning Tobias’s mother and sister against her, and even verbally abusing her, right before she was sent abroad by Gustavo, Tobias’s late grandfather.
But of course, Tobias knew nothing of her true nature. To him, she was still the same sweet angel he met in high school and thus, he took offense to his grandfather’s action. And now that Gustavo had passed away and Celestine had come back, they both believed no one could stop them from being together, didn’t they?
How shameless.
Rereading the message, Amara couldn’t help the bitter laugh that escaped her lips, especially when she remembered the way Tobias had smiled and seemed to be having a lot of fun with Celestine, in photos that Liam, her private investigator had sent to her the day before.
During the entire 6 years of their marriage, Tobias had never for once shown her that soft smile of his, talk less his caring side.
At times, she found herself wondering if she meant anything to him. If her presence in this marriage mattered even a little bit.
Well, the answer was obvious, but she had chosen to ignore it all these years. But for some reason, ignoring it wasn’t as easy anymore.
Not when the truth was now staring her in the face, knocking on the door and demanding to be let in.
The sound of another message entering her phone pulled Amara out of her bitter world. Although, the moment she saw the picture in front of her eyes, she had wished her mind stayed in a house of its own.
[Beautiful, isn’t it?]
The message read and above it was a picture of Celestine’s finger adorned by an impressive black ring…the Larsen family heirloom which had been left by Gustavo.
Hurt quickly faded into irritation and then finally settled on anger. How could Tobias give something so precious to that witch?!
The family heirloom was of great importance to Gustavo, he cherished it to the point that even on his deathbed, he requested she keep it say, along with Tobias and the company. And at this point, she was doing neither, and that made Amara feel guilty, because Gustavo had been such a grandfather figure to her.
He showered her with affection and accepted her even when Tobias hadn’t and that wasn’t the only thing he had done. It was safe to say Amara owed him a great deal. And because of that, she wasn’t going to seat back with her legs kicked up on a table and watch Celestine pilfer all the old man cared about.
Without hesitating, Amara excited the messenger app and went straight to her call log. She spotted Tobias’s number without even needing to look for it, thanks to the big red heart that was placed beside his name. But for some reason, many reasons, she was starting to doubt if he deserved that heart emoji.
She dialed the number and pressed the phone to her ear, impatiently tapping her fingers against the table as she listened to it ring. But as expected, the first call went unanswered and so did the second one. At some point, her calls were pushed to voicemail.
“Unbelievable.” She scoffed, feeling as the sensation of irritation climbed higher and higher until it boiled into newfound anger.
Furiously, she seized her pointless call sessions and went straight to Tobias’s private message. Her fingers moved across the screen of her phone like a madman as she composed and sent a text message that she was sure would anger him.
After a little while, she got a reply that told her that her act had worked.
