Chapter 3

The rays of sunshine the next morning hit Madine's eyes like a spear. She opens her eyes almost comically and everything around her is unfamiliar. She takes a deep breath before standing up.

As soon as she does, her breath catches as she sees the breathtaking man sleeping away beside her. His face is like a baby with immense aura of a man. Well, he's a grown man but he's asleep so peacefully, even with a tiny hint of a smile coating his full lips.

She remembers vaguely what it was like to get kissed by those lips, getting ravaged by them completely from her head to her legs. She shivers to shake the thoughts away from her head.

She picks up all of her clothing from the floor and dresses very silently while worrying about waking him. She successfully makes it out of there, not after taking a picture of the man on the bed.

She cocks her head to the side outside as she stares at the picture. "Just for documentation purposes."

She hails a taxi and leaves his place just as he opens his eyes on the bed.

Eric opens his eyes and looks around for the woman he had spent the night with and he facepalms. "How could I have overslept?" He chides himself. "Overslept. I overslept!" He almost yells in relief.

He rises up from the bed and her side is already cold which means she's been gone for quite a while or at least, past time for that side to be cold.

"I'm going to go to that bar again and find her."

He suddenly steps on something in the plush rug and his toes curl in pain. "Ow!" He exclaims and goes down. He picks up the offending thing.

It's a ring.

He had stepped right on the diamond pointed area, pushing into his leg painfully. He looks at it curiously. "This is an engagement ring." Then he remembers he had seen a flash of something on her finger.

Now he has an excuse to find her, he smiles to himself as he heads into the shower, determined to find who that woman is.

Madine exits the taxi and drives her car from the point of the motel the previous night.

Now, she looks up at the high rise apartment that had always been hers but she had given it to Harrigan just so he could live somewhere. It was her second home and now the whole place, even from the outside seems so distant.

She takes a big breath and goes inside, remembering how she had been red in the face, trying to hold back her tears when she was walking out the night before. She gets into the elevator and unlike the way she had wanted it to go faster yesterday, she just wishes she can delay doing this.

But what has to be done has to be done, and the faster it's done, the better it'll be.

Who knows? Maybe he just might apologize that she was the one who seduced him.

She stands at the door and presses in the passcode. She opens the door and goes inside. She walks straight for the room and on the bed, she meets both of them, half naked, curling in one another and fast asleep.

She forces back inside the tears that were threatening to spill out. She chooses to get angry instead and walks to them. She rudely pulls out the pillows from under their heads, jerking them awake.

"You two are the worst people on earth! After all of that, you both didn't feel any ounce of remorse and still continued into the night?" She turns to Karla who rolls her eyes. "What did I do to you to make you do this to me in revenge? Don't you have any shame? I was supposed to be your best friend. And even those have codes. Don't steal your friend's man, not even her ex boyfriend."

Karla scoffs. "Who are you to talk about codes? There's also a code that says don't leave your man hanging. He proposed to you. You were supposed to stay no matter what your boss says you should do. You shouldn't have left."

Madine looks over at Harrigan who hadn't said any word since the whole verbal exchange started. "Why didn't you say so? I told you and you said it was fine. If this is happening so boldly, I think I deserve to know when this relationship of yours started." She asks defiantly, looking back and forth between them.

"Well, if you must know..." Karla starts. "We've been meeting since you started this your trip around the world."

"Since I got promoted two years ago?" She asks, unable to believe it. It had all being under her nose since. She's too shocked for words. She looks at Harrigan with raw pain in her eyes. "You proposed to me! You asked me to spend a lifetime with you and you were already lying to me two years since? You're the worst man possible."

Harrigan finally speaks. "I like you both."

Madine is shocked beyond expression. She nods and brings out her phone and dials a number.

"Who are you calling?" Harrigan asks, scrambling to get out of bed to do whatever he wanted to do.

"Hello Mr Julius? Yes. It's me, Apartment 1405, Yes, Red Villa... Of course. Can't say I've been well lately. Anyway, I want to put my apartment up for sale."

Harrigan looks shocked as he finally shrugs into his trousers. "You're what?!" He half yells.

"Of course. You can sell it for any amount and just send me the deposit to my account. Oh, I can call you again later in the day but please, I want it out by this afternoon. You know many people who are WORTH it would love to live here... Yeah, bye." With a satisfied smile, she puts her phone back in her bag. "I'm sure Julius will soon be here with people who would love to buy the place. Also, you owe me rent for the last two years."

Karla looks at Harrigan. "What's she talking about? Selling this place? What right does she have to do that?"

For the first time in the last twelve hours, Madine laughs and it's not humorless. "The level of your slutiness is equally proportional to your stupidity. They are both a hundred percent."

Karla looks wounded and Madine absolutely loves the look on her.

"It means I own the place and always have. He's only been living here under my name, being my supposed boyfriend but I'm lenient. Out of the three years he's been living here, I'll only charge him for two. So in total, he owes me over a sixty thousand dollars. This is a luxurious place. The man you hogged to yourself is too shabby to buy himself a house."

Madine turns around to leave. "Ah, before I leave your lives forever, one nugget for you Karla, forget karma at this point but a man who cheats on a woman who's been dating him for eight years with her best friend, how much more a lady who he's only ever been sleeping with for two years? Once a cheater, always a cheater."

With those words, she leaves the apartment, slamming the door on her way out.

Within the next two days, Madine flies out to Glasgow for a permanent job that has been offered her over there and she takes it with all joy since New York has lost all of its beauty to her...

Only that, once in a while, she stares at the picture of that strange man whom she had lost all her morals for.

And just now she remembers him, he remembers her very clearly.

Because every Wednesday night, he goes to that bar but she never showed up again.

And for three years, the whereabouts of Madine Miles remains a mystery to not only Eric now, but to Harrigan, Karla and other interested parties.