Fragments of us

Chapter 3

A tentative hand on my shoulder made me raise my head, thinking Quinn had come back. Hours had passed since he stormed out, and I'd lost track of how long I'd been curled up in a ball on the floor, crying.

It wasn't Quinn who stood above me, though; it was Naomi, our housekeeper, and my friend.

She peered down at me with a worried expression, and I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes.

"Are you alright, Ana?" She asked softly, kneeling beside me and pulling me up in a sitting position.

I nodded stiffly, sniffing, wiping my face again.

"I'm fine," I said in a voice hoarse from crying.

She looked skeptical as she handed me a handkerchief to blow my nose.

"Are you sure?" She pressed. "I heard you and Quinn arguing earlier..."

She let her words trail off, and my cheeks burned with shame. What Quinn had done was bad enough without having someone else to hear our shouted argument.

"It's nothing," I rasped, getting to my feet slowly. "I'm fine."

"If you're sure..." She said. "You know you can talk to me though, right?"

I nodded. I knew. I just didn't want to talk about it right now.

"Did..." I looked around the room and peered out of the open door, hopefully. "Did Quinn come back?"

Naomi avoided my eyes slightly as she shook her head. "He didn't. I'm sorry, Ana."

I nodded, even though my heart thudded painfully. Was he with Vera that very minute, while I cried myself to death over him?

"It's alright," I repeated. "I just want to be alone."

"Would you like me to make you something to eat?" She murmured. "Or some tea?"

I shook my head, pulling out of her grasp and reaching for my phone, discarded on the floor.

"I'm fine, Naomi. Really."

When I nodded again at her, she finally left the room.

I glanced at the clock as I unlocked my phone and pulled up Quinn's number. It was almost four in the morning. Quinn had never stayed out that long.

Despite all that had happened, I couldn't stop myself from worrying about him. I was also sure that this was all a huge misunderstanding. Didn't I at least deserve to have my questions answered by him?

I clicked on the call icon and waited as the phone rang out without being answered. After calling a few more times and not getting a reply, I shot him a text.

"Where are you? We need to talk?"

I saw the two ticks that told me my message had been delivered, but not read, and tried calling him again.

When that didn't work, I tapped on the location icon on my phone so I could see where he was. My heart stuttered when I saw that he wasn't too far from me, but his location was one that broke my heart all over again. He was at a popular luxury hotel frequented only by the rich, and with a reputation for being more of a "pick-up" spot for the rich.

There was no doubt in my mind now that he was with a woman, but for some reason, I kept trying to call him. Maybe I was a masochist like he'd implied. Or maybe I was just stupidly in love. Too in love to let the man who had hurt me countless times go.

Just as I convinced myself not to call anymore, Quinn picked up the phone.

"Quinn," I began, "where are..."

The faint rustling of clothing I could hear made my words die out.

"Quinn?" I called softly.

I heard a faint grunt like the phone wasn't quite close to him, then a loud, breathy moan followed.

"Oh, f**k, baby!" a woman cried in a high-pitched voice, panting desperately. Yes! Right there!"

I heard that masculine grunt again - one I recognized as belonging to Quinn, and then his voice.

"f**k, you feel so good, Vera," he growled.

Vera panted. "Does she make you feel this good, baby?" She asked eagerly. "Does your wife f**k you like I do?"

"No," Quinn moaned. "Only you, love." Only you."

"Yes!" She screamed, sounding like she was on the verge of a mind-blowing o****m. "Oh, I'm..."

I'd had enough. I smashed my finger against the button to end the call and tossed the phone aside angrily.

When it didn't shatter on impact, I stormed over to it and brought my foot down on it as hard as I could, stomping and smashing on it until the screen broke and a jagged piece of glass embedded itself in my foot.

I was blinded by rage and hurt, and the pain grounded me to reality.

Ignoring my bleeding foot and the shattered phone, I marched out of Quinn's bedroom and entered mine, slamming the door behind me.

My laptop sat on my pillow right where I'd left it that morning, and I grabbed it angrily, not even bothering to wipe the furious tears from my cheeks.

I opened it savagely and typed "Quinn Winfrey, Vera" into the search tab.

Countless results popped up, including a flood of pictures of Quinn with his arm wrapped around another woman.

From the time I'd married Quinn till now, I had avoided celebrity gossip and articles about our life. I didn't read tabloids that talk about my husband, or bother myself with his past relationships. I knew I wasn't his first, and didn't want my love for him tainted with jealousy. Not anymore. Now, I had to know.

I clicked on the first article that popped up and gasped as my eyes fell on the woman on Quinn's arm. Her face was turned away from the camera, and all that could be seen was the slight tilt of her lips as she smiled, and the curve of her ear beneath her dark brown hair.

If I hadn't been so sure it wasn’t me in that photo, I would have been confused. Because that woman could have passed for a mirror image of me.

We were roughly the same height, our slender, slightly curvy frames were the same, and our hair was the same shade of mahogany. The one thing that would have convinced me, sure this woman definitely wasn't me, was the look of utter adoration on Quinn's face as he gazed at her.

He never looked at me like that.

I scrolled past the news article on them and found another picture of them in each other's arms, looking as if they were about to kiss. Her face was a lot clearer in this one, because I finally noted the differences between us. They were slight, but they were there. No one who knew us could mistake us as sisters, but to strangers, we might as well have been the same.

I caught her name in one of the tabloids. Veronica Rodriguez, fondly called Vera.

She'd just returned to the country after years abroad, and all the gossip papers were abuzz with the news of her not-so-secret affair with Quinn.

The world knew my husband was cheating on me, and I was the last to know.

I traced back all the articles, finding older ones until I stumbled on one from long before Quinn and I got married, and gasped.

There she was, locked in an embrace with Quinn while he kissed her like his life depended on it.

I slammed my laptop shut as the meaning of all that dawned on me.

She wasn't some new fling. She had been in a relationship with Quinn long before he married me. And that hurt, perhaps more than anything else, because that meant that my husband had never loved me.

I'd simply been a placeholder when his true love had left him. He married me because of our similarities. All this while, I'd been thinking that someone else was taking my husband from me, when I'd been the impostor all along.