CHEATED?

ELOISE'S POV.

Swollen, red eyes that burn like fire as I struggle to keep them open. Tear-stained cheeks and sirens spinning in my head. These are the aftermaths of crying myself to sleep last night. Well, this morning I would say.

After that puzzling phone call, I called Logan and asked where Klein was. Logan said Klein joined Morgan at the last minute after arriving at the airport, but when I asked who the woman was, he said he was unaware of any woman present. Klein specifically told Logan to not follow him, so he didn’t know where he was afterwards.

I even called my best friend, Maeve and asked her if she had any chance knowing where Klein went since she had some connections. But the answer was negative.

A painful lump forms in my throat as I rise from the sofa I slept on last night, and see the decorations still hanging on the walls. The unused confetti's are still on the table where I placed them. Nothing has been touched. I prepared all these with so much love and I was excited to spend even just a few minutes alone with Klein on his birthday, but he chose to stand me up and spend the night wherever he was.

I feel like a pathetic joke believing that if I did my part well, Klein would notice my feelings.

Did he not remember he promised me to come home? Or did he deliberately spend his birthday with someone rather than me? Is that his way of telling me I’m not important at all?

My rational mind tells me the call was picked up and cut off deliberately. It was a declaration from that woman that she was with my husband. It was also a mockery, mocking how all my cries were powerless.

And adding the fact that Klein didn’t come home all night, it wasn’t hard to put things together.

Klein spent the night with her. He cheated on me.

Still, my aching heart keeps telling me maybe he didn’t, and that he just went back to his other apartment on his own. And that they were really just friends.

I go over to the kitchen and retrieve a piece of cake from the fridge and sit on a stool. Klein isn’t going to eat it anyway. But then I realise I have lost my appetite. I can't even bring myself to taste the cake.

Just then, a message dings in my phone, snapping me out of my depressing thoughts. I drag my eyes to the phone's screen, expecting nothing at all, but my heart misses a beat when I see that it's a message from Klein. I lose my grip on the fork in my hand and it falls on the plate before me. Quickly, I pick up the phone read the message which reads;

“Something came up last night, that's why I couldn't come back home. Sorry. I'm on my way home to pick you up so we can go over to my parents’.”

I start typing a long text rapidly, asking him his whereabouts last night, but on second thought, I delete the long sentence and send a one word response.

“Okay.”

Thirty minutes later, his car pulls up in the driveway and his driver comes over and opens the backseat door for me. I thank him with a simple nod and hop into the car.

When my eyes meet Klein’s, I notice he looks calm and pristine as always, not like someone who got himself all wasted last night.

Or someone who was in guilt.

It’s like nothing wrong happened.

“Good morning.” I whisper to him as I buckle my seatbelt. I am angry and heartbroken and confused and I want to lash out at him right now, but I manage to keep my cool.

He turns to me and his handsome face comes into full view. If only he knows how much I missed him while he was away.

“Good morning, Eloise.” He replies calmly.

When we got married, I thought Klein would call me Elle like my close friends do, and I had been secretly thrilled by just thinking about that. But he insisted on calling me Eloise till today, in the most formal way possible. No one has been able to make him stop.

But that's not what's important right now.

The silence in the car is deafening as the driver sends us to Klein’s parents. Klein keeps his mouth shut and his eyes at the window, and it’s making me even more uncomfortable.

Finally, I open my handbag and take out a medium sized decorated box from it. It's the perfume I made for him.

“Klein.” I call and he turns to look at me.

“I wish you a belated happy birthday.” I say in a practised happy tone and with a forced smile on my face as I hand him the gift.

I had practised how I would introduce the perfume to him when I gave it to him, but now that the moment has come, I am at a loss for words.

His eyes widen in surprise and I don't know what to conclude from that reaction.

Did he think I'd forgotten about his birthday?

“Thank you.” He says tightly and takes the box from me. Then he just puts it aside, not even bothering to open it and see what's inside and that shatters my already broken heart into tiny pieces.

Why is he so cruel?

“Who did you spend the day with?” The question tumbles from my mouth before I can hold my tongue. His brows crease as he gives me an intense look.

“With Morgan and some other friends.” He replies curtly and I find myself nodding even though I'm not satisfied with his response. If anything, it has only deepened my doubts. Now, my mind is buzzing with questions relating to his response, but I stay quiet, hoping he'll say more.

He doesn't.

Several minutes go by and there's still no sign that he'll utter any more words to me concerning the issue.

What the hell is wrong with this man?

He broke his promise to me yesterday and didn't come home all night, but here he is, acting like he doesn't owe me any explanation.

I really want to confront him, but I hold myself back knowing it’s not good timing right now. We would be at his parents’ soon and having a fight with Klein before seeing his mom is going to make things even worse. She hasn’t been a friendly figure for a while. I’d rather save the fight for later, if that’s ever going to happen.

When we arrive at the mansion, we both go into the house and my mood immediately turns sour when we meet his mother, Mrs. Iris Wesley and his cousin’s wife, Ava, waiting for us in the dining room.

“Good morning, mom.” I great respectfully, but the woman only pulls her son into a warm hug and so does Ava. When they are done hugging and greeting Klein, we all take our seats at the dinning and to my greatest dismay, Klein didn't sit beside me like always. Instead, he follows his mother and sits beside her, across from me and that leaves me completely stunned.

What the hell is going on?

“Eloise! Stunning as always. You are going to outshine all of us!” Ava suddenly turns to me and greets me excitedly.

I give her a faint smile, knowing that she isn’t genuinely complimenting me.

She is sly as a fox. I have learnt that with time.

“If she could spare just a little precious time of hers to think about her family other than herself, that would save all of our day.”

Here it comes. My mother in law picked up the conversation immediately like they had practised it together before. She acts like she’s only talking to Ava, but she’s still loud enough for me to pick up every single word. Then she raised her voice.

“Thank God I have you, Ava. It’s so kind of you to prepare this meal with me. You are such a helper and you know you didn’t have to do this at all.”

“Don’t say that mom. This is the least I can do. I’m not as smart as Eloise so I can’t help my man in business.” She says and winks at me, as if trying to help me in this situation.

I know she’s only fueling Mrs. Wesley urge to say more disdainful things to my face.

“Yeah, as if PHOROMA Enterprise isn't still dropping! ” She said exaggeratedly, “I tell you, women can never be as good as men at work and have the same vision as men. That’s why I stay at home and take care of my family. Because this is my responsibility and also my strength.”

I just lost my appetite. How can she be so proud of such an outdated and self-deprecating opinion?

“Eloise,” She faces me. “You are a married woman and whether you like it or not, you have to take up the responsibility of feeding and serving your husband instead of going out there to work like you're a man. And your most essential duty as Klein Wesley’s wife is to have a child, yet you haven’t been able to accomplish that after so many years.”

A surge of rage flows through my heart. How am I supposed to get pregnant when Klein is hardly at home and even the few times we get intimate, he insists on using protection every time?

When I first got married to Klein, Mrs Wesley wasn’t this bad. I knew she had always wanted me to be a stay home wife like she was, but I refused. I had my dream and it was to become a renowned perfumer and elevate my family's brand to the very top of the global stage. Since Klein didn’t want someone clinging to him anyway, he didn’t care if I went out to work, or should I say he would rather prefer it this way. But anyway, I still did my best to balance work and being an attentive wife.

Things began to change when our family’s company suddenly faced a massive crisis, and we had to be acquired by Klein’s family's group, WESLEY GROUP, just to keep the brand alive. I have also been working extra hard to help our company get back on the right track. It was since then that my mother-in-law began to show her dissatisfaction with me openly, picking on me in every way possible. It was as if all of this proved her right—that my efforts were a waste of time, that I was just a selfish person trying to satisfy my own desires, and that I had failed as a wife when it came to the family responsibility.

“I don’t think a woman's value depends on whether she gives birth to children.” I say as calmly as I can manage.

“You are Klein Wesley's wife and that’s what you are supposed to do!" she spat furiously, "I don't know why my son is still married to you. If it were up to me, he would divorce you right here and now and I'd find him a more decent and obedient wife!”

The table went completely silent, except for Ava’s gasping.

Why am I here anyway? After learning that my husband had spent the night with another woman, I have to sit with his mom the next morning listening to her lecture on how bad of a wife I am and how he should divorce me already? Hello?

“That’s enough, mom.” Klein’s stern voice stopped me before I could fight back.

I waited, wanting to hear his affirmation of me, and my hard work, but nothing came.

Just then, my phone vibrates on the table. I want to ignore the coming message but the preview catches my attention. It’s a text from Maeve which reads;

“Klein was photographed entering a hotel with a woman last night!! Check the link”

My heart skips a beat, a palpable pause that reverberates through my chest. With trembling fingers, I click on the link which leads me to a post titled;

“What happens to Family Alliance when old feelings are rekindled?”

Below the title are several pictures of Klein holding a girl in a hotel lobby, entering a hotel room and leaving the hotel together. I blink rapidly, trying to clear the fog of disbelief clouding my vision as I stare blankly at my phone's screen. My hands are trembling uncontrollably.

My eyebrows shoot up, forming an arch of astonishment as I look at Klein whose face remains expressionless as he eats his food.

Klein really cheated on me last night.