Love Prevails

The Confrontation

Early the next morning, Camilla sat up in bed reading through her social media posts when a call came through on Steven's phone.

Looking at the number, Camilla didn't say anything at all to Steven. She woke him up and handed him the phone. "It's the same people that have been calling all night," she informed him icily.

"Huh!" he responded in a daze, still trying to wake up.

Camilla explained to him about the phone calls from the night before, and these women not giving up on calling him, wanting him to fetch them at all unearthly hours of the night. Steven had no recollection of what had happened or how he had even gotten home.

After explaining the phone call, Camilla confronted him for not fetching her from work the previous afternoon. "Why didn't you fetch me from work yesterday, and where were you? You got home so drunk," she questioned him. Camilla got straight to the point.

Steven started to explain, "I finished work early yesterday and decided to go and have a few drinks at this bar," he didn't dare give excuses, he could see Camilla was in no mood for his antics, "the bar I went to was a strip club," he continued, "I don't remember much of anything."

"So you don't remember telling me that you were on the way to fetch me!" she raised her voice.

"Quite honestly, no, I don't," he said with a guilty look in his eyes.

"And those girls that were phoning you?" she questioned, not happy with his explanations.

"I really don't know them," he said quietly, "honestly, I don't know them at all, as for how they got my number, I don't know."

He seemed genuinely truthful in what be told her about the girls. As for not fetching her the day before, he still wasn't off the hook.

That afternoon, they took a drive through to Warrington to Golden Square shopping centre. While walking around, Steven's phone rang. He looked at the number, and by the look on his face, Camilla could tell that he knew the number. Answering his phone, he said, "Hi, how are you doing?"

The voice on the other end was a friendly, female voice, "I'm good, what are you up to today?" she asked.

"Nothing much," he responded, "just out with the family today."

"That's nice, well enjoy!" she said. They both said goodbye and ended the conversation.

Camilla looked at him questioningly, waiting for an explanation. Noticing the look on her face, Steven said, "she's just a friend."

"Uh huh!" Camilla thought to herself. Steven didn't answer her again and just left it at that.

That evening, she noticed that Steven was unusually quiet. He didn't have anything to drink the whole day, but he was on his phone a lot that evening. As Camilla leaned over to him, she noticed that he was chatting to a female. The context of the conversation was not very savoury, to say the least. She didn't confront him then and there about the text messages, but she decided to go and do some laundry. They would, after all, need fresh clothes for Monday.

While checking through his pockets, Camilla came across a photograph of a fiery, red-headed woman with a peach completion. "Please don't lie to me!" she lashed out at him.

Steven took the photo she had thrown at him. He had actually forgotten he had this picture of Lucille. He looked at the photo, "What lie can I spin?" he questioned himself.

"It's Lucille. She asked me to give it to Matthew. She met him the other day when he was with me. She said she wanted him to have this picture," was the escape answer he gave her.

Matthew was single. He worked with Steven. He was a senior manager in the firm. Matthew was tall with dark brown hair, a neatly shaved beard. He was the same height as Steven but more masculine.

"I don't know about that," Camilla responded, "if she was really interested in him, why didn't she just give him the photo herself?"

"Everything is just way too coincidental." She thought.

"She didn't know his number," Steven answered, but Camilla could see the guilty look in his eyes.

"Something about this doesn't sit right. This woman seems familiar," Camilla pondered.

Camilla didn't say another word. She went back to the laundry area and continued with the washing.

While taking out the first load, she realized why the woman's face was familiar to her. Angry as hell, she went back to the dining room where Steven was watching TV and, with a raised voice, said to him, "This is it, why do you insist on lying to me!"

Quizzically looking at Camilla, he responded, "What do you mean?"

"That woman in the photo, it's the same woman you were chatting to earlier, it's the same woman who called you while we were out, and it is the same woman that you went to meet a few months ago!" her anger blazed inside her.

Staring dead straight at her, Steven could not deny that he had just been caught in a tonne of lies. "How can I explain my way out of this one?"

The wheels of deceit turned inside his head as he conjured up another lie to cover all the uncovered lies. There was no way out. There was no lie he could conjure up to cover all the other lies. He had to face the cold, hard fact that he had been caught in his lies.

He said to his wife, "I really don't know how to say this, Lucille and I have been having an affair," he admitted. Finally, the truth was out.

Camilla collapsed on the settee and cried. She had realized that this was the case for a while now, but the hard reality of her husband admitting to having this affair hit her like a tonne of bricks.

Seeing how this affected his wife, he bent down in front of her and said, "Camilla, I'm sorry."

"You're sorry!" she yelled at him, "you are nothing but trash, get out of my sight!"

Disgusted by his behaviour and his lack of respect for their martial vows, she burst into tears. This had been the first time she had ever resorted to using derogatory name-calling. This usually wasn't how she was.