The Unwanted Wife: Revenge After Divorce

AMELIA

It was a grey day, I thought as I fed the car more gas and accelerated. The clouds were grey. The sky was grey. If I were to describe my mood in one word, I would say it was grey. Hell! Even the car behind me was grey.

Frowning, I sat up straighter and looked again at the car in my rearview mirror. It was a grey sedan. Hadn’t I seen it behind me just as I drove out of the spa’s parking lot? But there had to be hundreds and thousands of grey sedans in this big city.

A moment later, my fingers tightened on the steering wheel, and I continued thinking about what had just happened. I should not have gone to the spa with that witch, Lora. The sneering way she had spoken of me… it made my blood boil. I wondered who was worse between her and Petra.

I made a hard right at the next intersection and, without really thinking about what I was doing, glanced again in my rearview mirror. My heart leapt into my throat. The same grey sedan was still behind the car next to mine.

I noticed now that it had tinted windows, all rolled up. I checked the time on my dashboard. I had noticed the car about twenty minutes ago, and I had negotiated many turns since then. What were the odds that the sedan’s driver and I were heading in the same direction? I was being followed!

“Get a grip, Amelia,” I told myself, hating how shaky my voice sounded. “Don’t be silly. It’s just a coincidence.”

But there was one way to find out for sure. I floored the gas, and my car shot forward. I ignored the honks and shouts of angry drivers. I made two turns at random and slowed down a little. I thought I had lost the car. A truck was directly behind me, and a moment later, the grey sedan came along.

No, I wasn’t paranoid. Someone was following me, and I had no idea why. But for whatever reason, I wouldn’t stick around to find out.

Terrified now, I could think of only one thing to do. I zoomed off towards Damian’s office, parked haphazardly in the parking lot and dashed out of the car into the company’s building. Panting, I barged into Damian’s office without knocking.

“What the-?” Damian half stood up from his chair. He gawked at me in surprise.

I cast a furtive look outside the corridor, shut and locked the door behind me and then flopped into a chair.

“Amelia. What is it? What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but it felt like my heart lodged in my throat. I could only gesture for him to wait. Damian hurriedly poured out a glass of cold water and thrust it into my shaky hand.

“Drink,” he ordered.

I drank and immediately felt loads better.

“Damian. I think I’m in danger,” I gasped.

“What makes you say that?” he said sharply.

“A car…” I shook my head and tried to organize my thoughts. “I’m being followed. A car has been tailing me. It’s grey. Has tinted glasses. I was so scared… I could think of nothing but coming to tell you… Call the police immediately. Maybe it’s a kidnapper or- or an assassination attempt… someone wanting to get back at you. WHY AREN’T YOU DOING ANYTHING YET?” I bellowed when he just continued to stand there, looking thoughtful.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

He winced at my tone.”It’s okay, Amelia. Calm down. There is no need to shout or to call the police either. I think I know what’s going on here.”

I blinked in surprise. “What?”

“I’m almost entirely sure that this is Petra’s doing. Just a few hours ago, I got a call from the firm that handled my uncle’s will. I was informed that Petra has launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding my marriage to you. The private investigator she has no doubt hired wasted no time tailing you.”

I sat very still, lost in thought for a long moment as I brooded on all the possible outcomes of this investigation.

“This is not good. Not good at all,” I finally managed to say. “What are we going to do?”

“We stick to our plan, which involves acting like a couple in love not only in private but in public as well. I’m sure I’ll start being tailed, too,” he added grimly. He was quiet for a moment. He drew his phone out of his pocket and typed something swiftly. “I just took the first step in hiring a private investigator,” he told me as he put the phone away. “I’ll keep an eye on Petra as she keeps an eye on me. Do you have anywhere important to go today?”

“Em- not really.”

“Good. I’ll just quickly finish up here, and then I’ll take you out for dinner so the investigator can see that we are getting along just fine.”

While Damian worked, I was mostly lost in thought. When he took me out for dinner, just as he had predicted, a car was following us, although it wasn’t the grey sedan from earlier.

Damian and I acted all lovey-dovey in public, but the investigators still refused to get off our backs. Being constantly followed began to take its toll on me, and I started becoming a little paranoid.

I tended to peer closely into the faces of strangers I encountered on the street and at the restaurant. I began to imagine that they were primarily private eyes, but I drew strength from Damian’s quiet and confident demeanour. He continued to act as though nothing affected him. **************

PETRA

There had to be something here. They had to be something to prove that Damian was lying to me. Damian’s near slips, the barely concealed look of fear in that upstart’s eyes, the evidence of her perfume on the pillows in this room; all of it pointed to the fact that Damian had paid that tramp he called a wife to marry him so that he could get hold of Marcus’s company.

I looked at my phone again. There were still no calls. No text messages. Nothing. The private eyes I had hired to look into Damian and Amelia’s marriage still hadn’t been in touch. The last one I had called said it was too soon for results.

Pah! Too soon? Who wouldn’t expect results and information within the hour after the amount I had spent to hire them? Ten minutes later, I decided that I couldn’t fold my arms and let others do all the work for me. I went up to Damian’s bedroom and knocked, even though I was pretty sure that Damian and Amelia weren’t in the house.

I went in, shut the door and methodically began searching the place, sure that Damian must have left a stray document that would prove his marriage had been arranged.

I just needed a little proof to bring him down. I’ll take everything from him and leave him penniless-just a little proof. ****************

AMELIA

I was going to the kitchen to grab a water bottle, but Lora was already there before me. She had opened a pot of the meal I had prepared a while ago.

With a sneer on her face, she was poking at the contents of the pot with a spoon. She half turned when she heard me enter, muttered something intelligible under her breath as a greeting, and resumed what she was doing. I stared, furious at this unabashed display of rudeness.

“Lora, what is it you’re doing?”

Not deigning to look at me, she shrugged. “I’m trying to decide if I want to eat this for dinner.”

“You’re in my house and in my kitchen too.”

“I’m well aware of that already. I didn’t say it was my house, did I?”

“So why does it seem that you don’t have any manners?”

She turned quickly. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. You’re in this house only because I let you stay. What gives you the right to poke around in my kitchen? If you’re hungry, you should wait for me to serve dinner! You’re a guest here, and you should behave like one. I mean, what sort of behaviour do you call this?”

She flared up instantly. “And what sort of behaviour do you call leaving me at the spa without any means getting home? And then you didn’t even bother to apologize!”

“Apologize?” I shouted. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I heard you spewing trash about me at the spa.”

Lora gulped. Her eyes darted here and there as she groped for words. “I- I wasn’t- I didn’t-”

“Oh shut up, you filthy liar!”

“Don’t you call me names, Amelia or else-”

“Or else what? You know what? I’ve heard enough of your cheek in my own house.” I shook back the sleeve of my blouse to glance at my watch. “I give you thirty minutes and not a minute more to go upstairs, pack your stuff and get the hell out of my house. THIRTY MINUTES,” I bellowed as I slammed the kitchen door behind me.