As soon as Tally stopped off the bus, she raced down the path. Her heels echoing on the sidewalk in sync with the beating of her heart as she hurried to the townhouse she shared with her fiancé, Blake. She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid as to leave the documents that her boss needed for this afternoon’s meeting at home.
She had been working on them late last night, but had forgotten to pack the files back in her work case after the disagreement she had with Blake. She’d almost had a heart attack looking for them just before lunch.
After explaining what had happened to her boss, she had fled the office, calling back over her shoulder to her boss, Ryan. She was going to get them during her lunch break. She had heard Ryan yelling at her as she slammed the outer door to their offices. Shit, she was going to get the skin peeled off her hide when she returned to the office?
Tally should have taken a taxi, but saving for a wedding and their own home deposit made her frugal. Luckily she only lived fifteen mins from work and she should make it back with plenty of time. She may have to grab a bite to eat at her desk. Getting the files back to the office was more important than a lunch break.
Thinking about the wedding, they really needed to set a date. There had been plenty of talk, and Blake kept pushing her for a date. But with her job, she was always busy. There just always seemed to be something coming up. Tally didn’t have family coming to the wedding. Maybe that was part of the reason she was putting it off.
Blake still didn’t understand why she wanted nothing to do with her family or their money. But she had seen what that money had done to her family. She didn’t need to give her father a weapon to use against her. If she had wanted the family money, they would have forced her into an unwanted marriage, and she would have been denied her beloved career.
Her father believed a woman’s place was at home. While the man worked and slept with whoever he liked. Ancient views on a woman’s place. She hadn’t spoken to him in over 5 years. She had even started using her mother’s maiden name the day she left to distance herself from him and his name.
Blake knew her family was wealthy, but he didn’t know exactly who her family was. She didn’t talk about them with anyone. Blake was a real estate agent and connections meant a lot to him. She understood it was important for his business. She adamantly refused to welcome her family back into her life. If she ever saw her father again, she wanted to be married. Save guarding herself from him.
Because she was worried that her father would do everything in his power to break them up. Tally marrying Blake didn’t help her father’s business. So, she hadn’t lied to Blake, just hadn’t shared the full details of her family. Their presence was unwanted and unnecessary in her life.
Tally knew she would have felt differently had her mother still been alive. She would have done anything for her mother. It was now just her father and older brother and a few cousins.
Her older brother was of the same opinion as their father. She wondered how Stacey, her sister-in-law, was. She had coped no better than Tally’s own mother with her husband’s affairs. Stacey had a drinking problem and was booking herself into another clinic the week Tally had left home. Tally didn’t understand why she didn’t just divorce John.
Slipping the key in the lock of their rented townhouse, Tally shouldered the door open. Pausing when she heard a noise from upstairs. Blake had unusual hours in his line of work. Maybe he had popped home for lunch if he was free.
Tally opened her mouth to call out to him, but a sound came from upstairs, stopping her from doing so. It was a faint groan. She frowned. Was Blake hurt?
Dropping her bag at the front door, Tally moved quickly up the stairs but halted abruptly on the landing when she heard a woman’s sharp cry. Tally’s eyes widened. No! No, he couldn’t do this to her.
But laying on the floor outside their bedroom door was a woman’s hot pink high heel shoe. Laying over it was the tie she had seen Blake put on this morning before leaving for work.
Silently now, Tally walked lightly towards their bedroom, to the door only halfway opened. Taking a deep breath, Tally braced herself to look into the room. She already knew what she would find. Sick to the stomach, she couldn’t stop herself from looking. She needed to know; she needed to see. So later Blake couldn’t say it wasn’t him. Despite the evidence lying on the landing, she still had to look.
The sight that greeted her was like a physical blow. Tally grabbed the doorframe with her right hand to hold herself upright. There in the middle of their bed was her naked fiancé and an equally naked woman. Blake was lying on his back and sitting over his nether regions sat a bleach blonde with big boobs. The rest of her was bony.
Obviously, they were having sex. Blake gripped the woman’s hips, moving her on him to his liking. He had his head thrown back. There was no mistaking the situation.
Tally brought her left hand up to her mouth, hitting herself in the face with her phone still clutched there. Without thinking about why she did it. It wasn’t like they were married and she would need the evidence.
Tally unlocked her phone and, without the knowledge of the couple in the bed, took some photos. She would not be told later that she didn’t see what she had just witnessed. Like her father had tried to tell her when she had walked in on him and his twenty something secretary when she was a teenager. With a trembling hand, she put the phone in her back pocket of her work pants.
Tally stood there. Not sure what she should do now. She felt trapped and she couldn’t leave and act like this hadn’t happened.
She had to say something, right?
When she had walked in on her father having sex, she had felt betrayed then. She had quickly entered his home office and was horrified to discover her father standing between his secretary’s parted legs, their bodies entangled on his mahogany desk. The lovers had been unaware of her presence. Time seemed to freeze as her heart pounded in her chest, her breath catching in her throat. After a moment, she cried out, backed out of his office, and hurried to her room.
This was so much worse than walking in on her father. Her heart pounded in her chest, its rhythm chaotic and painful. The air felt heavy, suffocating her as she stood frozen in the doorway, unable to tear her eyes away from the scene before her.
Anguish washed over her like a tidal wave, threatening to drown her. The walls seemed to close in on her, mocking the shattered trust that had once bound her to this place.
Her mind raced desperately searching for the etiquette. She would need to deal with a scene like this. Tally was sure she had never been taught how to react. How was she supposed to handle this? How could she confront the person she once believed was her life partner, the one she had wanted to build a future with? The private school she had attended had taught her many things, but it had failed to prepare her for this kind of devastation or how to confront it.
Confusion mingled with anger as she struggled to comprehend the depth of the betrayal. The hurt inflicted on her by the walls of her childhood home was nothing compared to the pain of discovering her partner in the arms of another woman. The wounds ran deep, piercing her soul and leaving her feeling raw and exposed.
She took a deep breath, summoning whatever remnants of grace she could find within her. It was time to confront this truth, to face the pain head-on and make a choice that would define her future. The private school may not have taught her how to handle this situation. But she was determined to find her own path towards healing, because there was no coming back from this.
Tally felt devastated. It’s like her world had just twisted off its axis. She thought she had it all figured out. Clenching her left hand until the pain of her oval nails left red crests in her trembling palm. It was the pain that finally snapped her out of her wonderings.
Heart still in her throat, straightening away from the doorframe. Tally took a moment to calm herself.
She said in a calm, clear voice, “Honey, I’m home.”
“Fuck!” Blake yelled, his head swung around to look towards the door. His eyes widened as he realized Tally had already seen too much.Tally looked him straight in the eye while the blonde screamed and shot off his lap. Ungracefully, she rolled across the bed, disappearing over the edge and landing on the floor with a slight thud. Despite the pain of seeing him like this, Tally tried her best to keep all the emotion off her face.Tally shifted her gaze towards the blonde, quickly dismissing her as insignificant. Observing Blake intently, she carefully studied every curve and contour of his exposed form. The air was charged with the lingering scent of their recent intimate encounter.Blake’s body glistened with perspiration, a testament to their passionate activities. Her assumptions had been accurate. Notably, his genitals were damp, confirming their shared pleasure.It was evident after they strung apart that he had neglected to use a condom, a fact that sent a surge of mixed emotion
Tally needed to stop thinking about it or she will look even worse by the time she got back to the office. Tally couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever find solace amidst the shattered fragments of her heart. What was she going to do after work?She could book herself into a hotel for a few nights at least or stay at the apartment in the office building where she worked. Ryan had told her to stay there before, after working late on projects in the past. She just had never taken him up on it. For one thing, she only lived fifteen minutes away and for another, Blake had never liked Ryan. Staying at the office would have caused a fight she didn’t want to endure.Blake and Ryan had met at last year’s Christmas party. It had been like two fighters sizing each other up before a fight. She found it ridiculous. Perhaps that’s how alpha males behaved. She had seen her father size men up when she had lived at home. She knew Ryan wasn’t in competition with Blake. One reason they hired her a
Tally was so surprised she didn’t answer straight away.“Tally?” Ryan’s tone held concern.“Yes, yes.” She would not start discussing her personal life with her boss.Frowning at her, Ryan turned his attention to the file in his hand. Looking through it, he checked the facts and said, “It looks in order, thanks Tally.” Dismissing her.“Is that it?” She blurted out, surprised. She had expected a bigger reaction from him. Like yelling at her, which he had done before. Granted, those times had been rare. She wouldn’t have stayed in the job if he was awful.Sighing, Ryan put the file down. Before rounding his desk and leaning back on it, facing her. “Tally, something is obviously going on with you right now and if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, but I don’t kick someone when they are down. I just want to let you know you can talk to me.” Raising an eyebrow at her as if encouraging her to open up. His words had let her know he was aware something was going on with her. Did he
The phone on her desk rang. Picking it up, it was Holly from the front desk. “Hey Tally, I have Miss Reynolds on the phone. She wants to talk to Ryan. I have told her he is busy, but she insisted on getting put through.”Tally exhaled deeply. This aspect of her job was the least enjoyable, and truly, it wasn’t Ryan’s fault. He had made it clear to his dates should only contact him on his mobile, not the work lines. If he didn’t respond, it should indicate that he was occupied or didn’t want to talk to them.However, it appeared that some women he dated either forgot this rule or disregarded it, especially as he became increasingly less responsive. This was often because he grew bored and distanced himself from them. “Thanks, Holly, I’ll handle the call.”Holly was relieved with her answer, saying “thanks” before switching the woman through.It was only a second before Miss Nicole Reynolds came on the line. “Connect me to Ryan immediately.” She hadn’t even given Tally time to say anyth
Tally focused on her work for a while before her thoughts eventually drifted back to her personal life. As she had been pondering Ryan’s sex life, it made her reflect on her own. Tally had always believed that her experiences were typical, dismissing the stories she read in magazines or heard from Ryan’s previous partners, as exaggerated or unconventional. However, now she couldn’t help but cringe inwardly at the notion of her sex life with Blake being called “normal.” In reality, she could now see it was more accurately described as boring.Tally had found her sex life with Blake to be lacking excitement at times. She noticed that he often didn’t realize when she hadn’t reached climax. As a result, she had always assumed that she simply had a low sex drive and wasn’t particularly interested in it. Since Blake was her only sexual partner, she had no one else to compare him to. Additionally, he held very traditional views when it came to the bedroom. Snorting. Maybe the problem in the b
Ryan took a moment to observe her before giving an answer. “Blake asked to speak to you, but when I informed him you had left to pick up a file from home and hadn’t returned yet, he sounded highly irritated.” Ryan’s gaze continued to stay fixed on her face.Tally, unable to contain her amusement, let out a mocking laugh and covered her mouth with her hands. With a sarcastic tone, she whispered, “Irritated.”Ryan went on showing her he had missed nothing. “Then you arrived back looking white and visibly upset.”Taking her hands away from her mouth, Tally responded. “Look Ryan, while I appreciate you are worried about my work performance today, and I’m sorry for that. I’m having an off day. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”Ryan’s brows furrowed, and his tightened jawline revealed the depth of his irritation. Meanwhile, his eyes held a hint of disappointment. “You don’t know shit, Tally,” he said, letting out a frustrated breath. “I don’t give a fuck about that. I’m asking how you are and if I can
Tally had mixed feelings, unsure yet somewhat certain. “It didn’t start off as a deliberate choice. After leaving home, I completed a few courses and then registered with some temp agencies. I enjoyed the flexibility of working different jobs here and there. Surprisingly, I even ended up temping in your building a few times. I never really considered the parallels between your business and that of my father’s.” Tally had a few reasons why she was in a corporate job. One she was good at it, also she enjoyed the challenges and another she voiced out aloud. “I just wanted to prove the men in my family wrong.”Ryan put his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand before asking her. “Wrong in what way?”Tally realized that Ryan and she had never really talked before on any level unless related to business. A lot of that was to do with her walls as well as his.Knowing her father likes to chase his secretaries around the office desk, as it were. She hadn’t wanted that for herself.
The following morning, as Tally arrived at the office, she was met with a tense situation unfolding near her desk. Ryan and Blake were engaged in a confrontation, their attention shifting towards her as she entered. Blake approached her, attempting to touch her, but she swiftly evaded his advance by stepping back. Ryan seemed pleased with her reaction to Blake’s attempt, while Blake appeared angry. Tally had no intention of allowing him to touch her, uncertain of where his hand had been that morning. Most likely touching his skinny blonde.Tally turned away from them to put her handbag on her desk. It gave her the few seconds she needed to gather herself. With renewed composure, Tally turned around to face them. She straightened her shoulders, then, placing her hands on her hips, she glared at them.After no one speaking, it was Tally’s voice that cut through the silence. “Can someone kindly enlighten me on what the hell is going on here?”Ryan crossed his arms across his chest and sta