Chapter 16
The gourmet dishes on the dinner table had long gone cold, and the beautiful buttercream cake had melted into sticky trails across the hardwood floor, curling around Melinda’s feet. She didn’t even notice. She just sat there, staring at her phone, fixated on the 99 missed calls blinking on
the screen.
Patrick hadn’t come home since that fight in the apartment. At first, he’d still text her back–just a quick “I’m busy, be good“-but even those stopped after a while.
It was the same pattern she’d seen growing up. Her father stopped coming home, stopped answering her mother’s calls or texts. The silence always meant the end was near. Melinda refused to believe her marriage could fall apart the same way. She couldn’t accept that it might be over before it really began, or worse, that Patrick might not love her anymore.
He had swept her off her feet, made her feel like she was his whole world. If he ever stopped caring, if he really decided to leave her, she didn’t know how she’d survive it.
So she kept telling herself: Patrick was just busy. That was all.
Today was Patrick’s birthday. Melinda woke up early, spent hours making his favorite meal, setting the table, lighting candles, even baking a cake from scratch. When everything was perfect, she called him, hoping he’d come home.
He didn’t answer a single call.
Desperate, she scrolled through her contacts, but realized she didn’t even have the number of a single one of his friends. She had no idea where to look for him.
Finally, a friend messaged her: I just saw Patrick at the bar downtown.
Melinda’s heart nearly burst with relief. She thanked her friend over and over, grabbed her keys, and rushed out the door–didn’t even bother to change clothes.
She knew her way around bars. She’d worked every rough, thankless job to help pay her grandmother’s medical bills. Navigating a crowded bar was nothing.
It didn’t take her long to spot Patrick. He was in a private booth, sprawled in a leather chair, legs crossed, as a server handed him a cigarette and lighter. He lit up, smoke curling around his sharp jawline, his long fingers holding the cigarette with an effortless kind of grace. Melinda felt her knees go weak just watching him.
She was about to push open the door when she heard the man next to Patrick speak.
“Patrick, didn’t you say I could have your mistress? So… what’s the deal?” The guy looked way too eager, rubbing his hands together like a kid about to open a present.
Patrick stubbed out his cigarette, not even looking up. “If you want her, go get her yourself. Don’t ask me.”
“You really don’t care?” The guy looked shocked, like he couldn’t believe his luck.
20:4
Chapter 16
Patrick let out a low, cold laugh. “Why should I care? I told you before: she was just a mistress, always has been.”
He paused, then added, “Besides, the divorce cooling–off period with my wife is almost up. I need to withdraw the paperwork and get her back. Why keep a mistress around? If you want her, take her. Just don’t let her get in my way.”
The other man grinned like he’d won the lottery and clinked his glass against Patrick’s.
The sound of their glasses meeting–just a soft, sharp “clink“-cut straight through Melinda, snapping the last thread holding her together.
She collapsed to her knees in the hallway, hands clenched so tight her nails broke the skin. Blood ran down her wrists, mixing with tears that splattered the floor.
It felt like her heart had been ripped out and smashed to pieces.
Mistress. Was he talking about her?
She remembered so clearly: she’d told Patrick she would never be the other woman, and he’d promised, even showed her the divorce agreement with Maisy. He swore she wasn’t the mistress. He swore he loved her.
Now, he was out here, calling her a mistress, acting like she was nothing. He hadn’t even divorced Maisy.
Melinda finally saw it, even through the pain.
His love? A lie.
His promises? A lie.
Even their marriage–it was all a lie.
212
