CHAPTER 8: EVERYTHING ABOUT EVA

XANDER’S P.O.V

“Someone is lacking behind today? Too much wine last night?” Cara teased as she stopped and waited for me to catch up with her. “No, no, that’s not the case at all. I trained you well” I said with a smirk. “Oh, is that so? You trained me well? To jog?” Cara questioned, my eyebrow raised,  rolling her eyes at me. “Yes… it’s not my fault you had to be trained for everything” I annoyed her. “Excuse me? That’s not true. There are a few things that I can teach you as well” she said, a smirk on her face and her arms folded against her chest as she watched me pant in front to her. “Like…*huffing *puffing… what?” I asked. “You would see as time goes by, but all I can see right now is that one of us is aging by the day and it’s not me” she teased again. “Hey…that’s not nice. I’m young and as fit as a fiddle” I defended myself. “Okay fit fiddle…let’s go and sit on the sand. The sun is about to rise” she said and I followed her.

“Cara, I’m ready to tell you” I said, as we sat comfortably on the sand. “Are you sure that you want to?” she asked. “Of course, I can’t risk losing you and I won’t risk it” I, said. “Okay then. I’m listening” she said, her eyes fixed on mine. “I met her 7 years ago and her beauty had me captured since I laid my eyes on her. We began talking and going out on dinner dates, movie dates, shopping trips, etc, I was such a fool in love that I didn’t even realise that I have been paying for it all. As time went by we fell deeper and deeper in love or at least I did…while she used more and more of my money” I sighed as, I thought about it all, then I continued. “After 2 years of dating, we decided to get engaged, I must have been the happiest man alive that day, I was unaware about the storm that was about to come. While we were engaged I began to notice a change in her, she started lying to me, avoiding my calls and messages at certain times, making excuses not to meet. So one day I decided to follow her…my worst nightmare came true as I followed her into a hotel and watched from far how she and her lover romanced in each others arms, their lips pressed on each others before they can shut the door behind them…” I took a deep breath in and Cara placed her hand on mine, encouraging me to go on. “I waited in the lobby of the hotel for almost an hour. While waiting, I tried to call her but her phone took me directly to voicemail. After trying to call her a few more times and getting the same result, I was convinced that  every time she avoided my calls it was only because she was in bed with another man. First she tried to lie and cover it up, that’s when I repeated the room number that she and the other guy was in, making it known to her that I was there and I saw everything. Then she began to cry and beg for my forgiveness but I was still hurt from the truth that I had learnt the night before and could not forgive her so I cancelled the black credit card which I had given her, took away the keys to the car that I had bought her, took all the other valuables that I had given her and then had my guard escort her out of my premises” I explained to Cara who was listening very attentively. “After some time I began to heal and found happiness within myself once again, then she came back. She begged and vowed to never cheat. She poured out all her fake love to me, which I thought was real and I , myself realised that I still loved her. Her beauty was truly remarkable, it could not be matched to anyone and I couldn’t resist to take her back. After a 3 more years we decided to get married. While making all the wedding preparations one of my childhood friends told me that he had seen her with another man and that they were kissing, believing her words that she ‘would never cheat again’ I thought of him as being jealous and making up lies to break us up, so I broke up ties with him instead. The thing is that in the back of my mind, I knew that he wasn’t lying and that she is most probably cheating on me again, but I was a fool in love and didn’t want to believe it. So, I went through the wedding, and …damn… all hell broke loose afterward. She started again with her lying and sneaking around, whenever I questioned her about her whereabouts she used to argue that I didn’t trust her and threatened to kill herself. I was hopeless…I was spellbound…I was suffering. I felt guilty about not trusting her and causing her such pain that she wanted to take her own life…I felt guilty about it until I found out that all my instincts were true” I paused for a minute and then continued. “I went on a business trip and was supposed to arrive back after 3 days, however, there was an incident so I canceled the last meeting and I came back a day early to be with my wife…only to see her in bed with another man…she was sleeping with another man on our bed, Cara!” I once again felt that infuriating anger that I felt on the day on which these events happened.  “I dragged her out of my house and just like how I threw all her belongings out of my house…I also threw her out of my life” I explained. 

“There next day I had the divorce papers sent to her, which she refused to sign so I took her to court. In court, while my lawyers began to question her, I learned that she had the incident which I experienced during my business trip, all set up to kill me. I’m only alive today because my bodyguard managed take down the assassin ,who she hired, before he could shoot me…if it wasn’t for my bodyguard I would have been dead and she would have inherited all my wealth, party her life away with my money, sleeping in my bed with a different man every night” I looked into her eyes to find sadness as I laid my past in front of her. “It didn’t end there. As time went on I learnt more and more about her character. I found out that she planned to have me killed. I’ve also learnt that she lied to me that she miscarried our baby when in fact she had my baby girl aborted” my pain was clear in my voice.

“She actually tried to kill you? And she killed your baby as well?” Cara asked, my pain reflected in her eyes. “Yes she did, but I guess that I wasn’t meant to die then because I was meant to be here with you now” I smiled at her. “And you don’t have any feelings for her now?” she asked. “No…she tried to kill me…she killed my daughter Cara,” I said. “But you loved her so much and you said that her beauty is incomparable to  any other,” she said, concern and sadness was evident on her face. “but you are beautiful on the inside and outside and that is something that she does not have” I explained. “Now I am going to ask you the question again…Cara will you please marry me?” I asked, however unlike the last time , this time I presented her with a ring. “Yes…yes, I would” she said, tears in her eyes, I slipped her diamond ring on her finger, got off my knee and took her in my embrace…