Bound by Deception

Chapter2

Chapter 2

- Emma -

The phone lay on the floor, Margaret's voice still coming through the speaker. I picked it up and ended the call. Ten billion dollars? The Blackwood fortune? It had to be a lie. Another cruel joke in a life full of them.

I laughed bitterly. Did they really think I was that stupid? That I'd come running back because of some made-up inheritance? I knew who I was. Emma Mitchell, orphan. The group home had all my records. My parents died in a car crash when I was five. There was no fortune. There was no secret identity.

This was just Marcus trying to manipulate me into coming back. He needed his five years for his mother's will, and now he was making up stories. First, he'd tried anger. Now he was trying greed. What next?

My phone buzzed with more messages. I deleted them without reading. Marcus, Margaret, numbers I didn't recognize. Delete, delete, delete.

For six days, I survived on cup noodles and cheap bread. I applied for twenty-three jobs. Got rejected from all of them. Apparently, three years as a housewife didn't look good on applications. The hotel manager started giving me looks that made my skin crawl, suggesting other ways I could pay for my room. I kept my door locked and pushed the dresser against it at night.

On the seventh day, my twenty-fifth birthday, I woke up to an empty phone. No one had called. No one had texted. Even Marcus had finally given up. Good. It was better this way.

I had twelve dollars left. Not even enough for another night at the hotel. My checkout was at noon, and then... I didn't know. Maybe I'd sleep in the park. Other people did it.

That evening, I walked into a bar with my last ten dollars. If I was going to be homeless tomorrow, at least I could forget about it tonight. The bartender looked at my wrinkled clothes and messy hair but took my money anyway.

"Rough day?" he asked, pouring me a whiskey.

"Rough life," I corrected, downing it in one gulp. The burn felt good. Real. I giggled. "But it's my birthday. Cheers to that."

"Birthday girl gets the second one free," he said, pointing to a sign on the wall.

"You have that 'another year older and deeper in disaster' look," he said playfully.

I laughed for the first time in a week. "That obvious?"

He poured me another drink. Then another. Somewhere after the fourth one, the world got soft around the edges. The pain in my chest numbed. Marcus's voice in my head finally shut up.

"You okay there?" A deep voice asked from beside me.

I turned to see a man in an expensive suit. Dark hair, darker eyes, sharp jaw. Gorgeous in that dangerous way that should have been a warning. But I was too drunk and too broken to care.

"I'm fantastic," I slurred. "I'm nobody. Do you know how freeing it is to be nobody?"

He sat down next to me. "Everyone is somebody."

"Not me. I'm furniture. Forgettable. Pathetic." I laughed, but tears were rolling down my face. "My husband told me so. For three years, I loved a man who couldn't stand to look at me."

"Your husband is an idiot."

"Ex-husband. Well, soon to be. I left him. Left everything. Now I have nothing, but at least I have my dignity. Wait, no, I don't have that either."

The stranger ordered a drink. "Let me guess. He had an affair?"

"Worse. He never loved me at all. He was just using me for money from his mother's will. Stayed married to me like I was some business contract."

"And now you're here, drinking alone on your birthday."

"It's my birthday. Twenty-five years of being unwanted. First my parents died, then the orphanage tolerated me, then my husband..." I took another drink. "You know what? I don't want to talk about him anymore."

His eyes were intense, watching me like I was something interesting. No one had ever looked at me like that.

"Dance with me," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"It's your birthday. No one should be alone on their birthday." He stood and held out his hand.

The bar had a small dance floor where a few couples swayed to slow music. I shouldn't have taken his hand. But the alcohol and loneliness made me reckless.

He pulled me close, and I melted into him. He smelled expensive, like cologne I couldn't name and whiskey and danger. His hands were steady on my waist, mine shaky on his shoulders.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Does it matter?"

"No," I admitted. "After tonight, we'll never see each other again."

"Then let's make tonight count."

One dance became two. Then three. His hands stayed respectful, but his eyes... his eyes burned into mine like he could see straight through me. Like I wasn't furniture or pathetic or forgettable.

"You're beautiful," he said against my ear.

"You're drunk."

"Not as drunk as you. But drunk enough to know I want to kiss you."

I should have pulled away. Should have run. Three years of marriage and I'd never even thought about another man. But Marcus's words echoed in my head: "I can barely stand to look at her."

"So kiss me," I whispered.

He did. Right there on the dance floor, his mouth claiming mine like he had every right to. Like I wasn't someone else's wife. Like I was worth wanting.

The rest of the night was a blur of want and need and terrible decisions. His apartment. His bed. His hands everywhere. The way he made me feel wanted for the first time in my life. The way I forgot everything but the heat of his skin against mine.

I woke up at dawn, my head pounding and my body aching in unfamiliar ways. The stranger was asleep beside me, his arm heavy across my waist. In the pale morning light, I could see what I'd done. Who I'd become.

I was naked in a stranger's bed. I'd slept with someone whose name I didn't even know. I was exactly the kind of woman Marcus could accuse me of being. Desperate. Pathetic. So starved for affection I'd fallen into bed with the first man who showed me kindness.

My stomach lurched. I barely made it to his bathroom before throwing up. The alcohol, the shame, the self-disgust all came pouring out.

I looked at myself in his bathroom mirror. Tangled hair. Bruised lips. Hickeys on my neck. I looked like exactly what I was - a drunk woman who'd made a terrible mistake.

Moving silently, I gathered my wrinkled dress from his floor. My underwear was torn. I stuffed it in my purse. My shoes were by the door. Each movement made me hate myself more.

On his nightstand was his wallet. For a moment, I thought about looking inside, finding out his name. But what was the point? He was just a rich man who'd found easy entertainment in a broken woman. I'd probably disgusted him with my crying and neediness. He'd wake up and be relieved I was gone.

I wrote a note on a piece of paper from his desk: "I'm sorry. Please forget this happened."

The walk of shame back to my cheap hotel was the longest of my life.

I packed my suitcase with shaking hands. I had two dollars left. Enough for bus fare to... somewhere. Anywhere but here.

My phone had seventeen missed calls from Marcus. Three from Margaret. I turned it off. Let them think I was dead. It would be easier than explaining what I'd become.

I sat on the bus, watching the city disappear behind me, and tried not to think about the stranger's hands. His mouth. The way he'd made me feel human for just a few hours. It had all been a lie, of course. The alcohol and the loneliness playing tricks on me. He probably did this every weekend. Found some broken woman and gave her a night of pretend affection.

But for those few hours, I'd felt wanted. And that made it worse somehow. Because now I knew what it felt like, and I'd never have it again.

The bus headed south. I didn't care where it was going. I just needed to disappear. To become nobody again, but this time truly nobody. Not Marcus's unwanted wife. Not the stranger's one-night mistake. Just nobody.