His Perfect Temptation

My love or the devil?

Maliya’s pov

“What are you saying Ferd?” I asked him, my voice barely a whisper as I stared at him, unable to process this reality before me.

I couldn't find the expression or the best way to understand what the man standing in front of me had done.

The man that I loved. How could he do this?

“I know I’ve been such a bad boy, but..please, Liya, I will fix this. I swear on my life that this deal will pull through, it's not like the…..”

“Like the other deals you've been working on right? Mmhm heard that before.” A bitter laugh escaped my lips as I finished his sentence.

“Yes cupcake and I mean it this time, I promise this….”

“Don’t…tell me that!” I cut him off immediately, my voice breaking with emotion.

He was taken aback, unable to believe the fury that had now filled my eyes.

Eyes that had once been full of love and admiration for him.

My heart sank as I watched him, the first tear dropping from my eyes, down to my cheeks.

I didn't know the easiest emotion to hold onto. The pain, disappointment, fear, shock….? It was all too much, all too much to bear.

He reached out to hold my hand but I was too weak to even resist. I felt my knees weaken.

My mind was filled with thousands of questions.

Was Papa right? Was Ferdinand Gomez really bad for me? Did I make the wrong decision by running off to Vegas, so far away from home, and getting married to the man who has ruined my life since the first month we moved here?

Was Camilla right in asking me not to let him have a share of the assets I had access to?

If only she knew that I handed it all to him, including the deed to the house.

What could I have done, he's the man I love.

I looked up to find him staring down at me, with remorse written all over his face.

No, they were all wrong.

No one said making this decision was going to be easy, I'm certain he loves me deeply and would never hurt me.

These are just trials that come with marriage, I mean, he's been working so hard.

Maybe the gambling would really pay off, maybe I'm just worrying way too much over nothing.

Okay, now I'm going crazy. I've started to believe stupid things are now normal.

”I’m sorry.” he said again. This time in a whisper.

I’m certain he can read that my expression had melted. I wanted to trust him, I wanted to trust him again.

To give him another chance, maybe I’d been too hard on him.

But I couldn't bring myself to trust him.

“That's all you ever say Ferd. That's all you’ve been saying. Yet you go out there and repeat the same thing you say you are sorry about.”

I was so drained, and I didn't want to talk about this again.

My knees had gotten too weak for me to stand and I found myself falling onto the couch motionlessly.

I felt his eyes boring into me in silence, I knew if I stayed here, I would be unable to think straight.

Without another word, I walked out, running up the stairs and turning the lock as I got into our room.

Seeing him right now would only remind me of the whispers that held the disappointments from my Dad and Camilla.

The best thing I could do was stay away, maybe take a long nap. I'm certain I would feel better when I'm up.

But I didn't feel better.

I woke up with a banging headache from too much crying and the most unsettling atmosphere.

First, the room felt empty, an emptiness I didn't notice when I walked in and locked myself earlier, because I was too engrossed in what had become of my once beautiful love life.

I noticed an emptiness in the tiniest details like his cologne set that lined up on a shelf beside mine.

How did I miss that?

How did I miss the emptiness of the framed picture of him on the wall beside the one of us together? Pictures we had taken on the day we got married at the registrar.

I saw the emptiness on the dresser too, his hair brush and hair products were all missing.

My heart sank, if there's one thing Ferd never misses, it's taking care of his hair.

But why was it missing from the dresser? Did he move to the guest room?

It has to be the guest room. Even though my heart didn't stop racing, I hurriedly opened the door and ran downstairs straight to the room that had an adjoined door with the study.

And just like my fear had guessed, it was fresh and clean as we’d always left it.

No traces of Ferd or any scent of his cologne.

I picked up my phone and dropped it back after countless futile responses from him.

Breathe Liya, breathe.

I tried so hard to listen to myself but my head was thinking in different places, it was thinking in CAPITAL LETTERS.

Unable to grasp anything that would make his sudden absence make sense, I walked up the stairs to make my final search, my legs staggered at each step I took, trying so hard to hold myself from falling.

I turned to the front door at intervals wishing he would just show up and release me from the unstable mental state I was in at the moment.

But no, the front door remained closed just as I had seen it when I ran down the stairs.

I finally got to the room, my hands trembling so much as I held onto his closet, shutting my eyes so tight and hoping I find things exactly as they should be in this place at least.

As if hoping wasn't gonna get me anywhere, I prayed a silent mantra and opened the wardrobe with my eyes still shut.

But when I opened my eyes to meet the emptiness I had ignored, I lost all sense of feeling.

I stared at the wardrobe, with nothing but a piece of envelope lying inside it.

He was gone…