Sasha looked at the picture in the newspaper, her whole body frozen in place. Her eyes moved, but she felt all of the blood drain from her face and her body was suddenly cold despite the heat from the afternoon sun shining through the windows.
As her eyes read the words, her mind frantically tried to deny them. Impossible, she thought! It simply wasn’t true!
But there she was again. The same woman. The blond.
Surely there was another explanation, she told herself. There was no way Damon could make love to her the way he did and then go to another woman.
Could he?
No! She refused to think that he was that kind of a man.
So why was this woman holding onto her husband’s arm? Why was she smiling up at him as if he’d just said something hilarious? And why did the ache in her stomach make her almost nauseous with the jealousy that invaded her whole mind and body?
She stared at the picture more closely and the pain only intensified as the details of the picture came into sharper focus.
Why the hell was her husband, the man who had ignored all of her protests to end their marriage weeks ago, walking out of a hotel with this blond woman on his arm?!
Sasha let the paper drop to the table, her mind racing, trying to come up with an explanation. But nothing made sense! It was a hotel! The blond looked beautiful and she was laughing up at her husband! Unfortunately, there had been too many pictures of the two of them over the years. Over the past six years, Sasha had seen many pictures of the blond woman on Damon’s arm coming out of the theatre, restaurants, walking down the street in various cities all over the world….
What other explanation could there be?
First his disappearance from Paris and now this. Her fingers curled into fists as she crumpled the newspaper in her hands.
As the intense pain swelled inside her heart, she knew what she had to do. She’d stated very firmly from the beginning that she would not tolerate infidelity. Good grief, they were trying to make a go of this, to have children! And here he was, gallivanting around with the blond woman that he’d spent time with in the past. Lots of time with! He obviously wasn’t fully committed to their marriage or he never would have gone to another woman. Either that, or he thought she simply wasn’t smart enough to discover his infidelity. Both of those possibilities were crushing.
Sasha didn’t care how beautiful or kind the other woman was, Sasha didn’t share! She’d been used and abused, ignored and isolated. She would not be a fool any longer! No way.
Maybe if it had been any other woman. The blond…what was her name? Oh, Scarlett something or other…had been on Damon’s arms too many times in the past. He might have a string of mistresses but this was the woman he kept coming back to. Ever since the beginning of her marriage, this beautiful blond had shown up in the tabloids on Damon’s arm sporadically. They must have an on again, off again affair but she suspected that Damon, her husband, truly loved this woman. He treated her differently than the others. The other women had been smiling up at Damon or laughing into the cameras triumphantly while walking with Damon. But Damon had never been looking down at them.
In this picture, he was and there was genuine affection in his eyes that the camera couldn’t help but capture. He didn’t even look like he was trying to hide from the camera! How arrogant was that? He probably didn’t even care if he was caught with this particular woman. Or maybe, she was one of the strong ones, the woman that demanded that he not hide her away like a dirty little secret. Good for her, Sasha thought even as a tear dropped from her cheek down to the top of her hand.
The betrayal stabbed deeply and she turned away from the picture, unable to look at it any longer.
She took a long, deep breath and considered her options. She could turn a blind eye to this latest betrayal and stay with Damon…or she could follow through on her threat.
In the end, there really was no choice. She refused to be the pathetic wife that stayed at home while the handsome husband went out and had affairs with whomever crossed his path. And this woman had crossed his path too often over the years to ever be ignored. Nor was Sasha the kind of person who would ignore something so humiliating. She was too strong and worth more than just the scraps of affection Damon was willing to share with her. First the rapid departure, now this.
Why was this blond woman allowed to be with Damon during a crisis in his life? Why was she so special? What did this woman do that captured Damon so thoroughly that he needed her on his arm?
And did it really matter? That was her past thinking process! She wasn’t going to second-guess herself any longer! She refused to try and figure out what she’d done wrong, what she could do better to keep Damon by her side and away from the blond.
She couldn’t share! Sasha simply wasn’t a good enough person to share. She wanted all of Damon. She loved him so deeply, respected his business brilliance and truly enjoyed his company.
No, there was no way she could ignore this latest indiscretion. It hurt too much this time.
Picking up her phone, she dialed his assistant. “Hi, Mellie. Do you know when Damon will be back in town?”
“He arrived early this morning, Ms. Galanos,” Damon’s assistant told Sasha. “Is there a message you need me to get to him?”
Sasha closed her eyes, her head bowing as the pain ripped through her. So Damon was already back in Athens and he hadn’t bothered to let her know. He didn’t think his wife was important enough to know such little details like his whereabouts. So be it!
She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then slowly let it out, feeling slightly more in control of herself. “That’s great news,” she lied. “Any chance he might have time for lunch with me today?” Sasha couldn’t believe that she was on the phone with her husband’s assistant, almost begging for a lunch date with her husband! Damon should have come by the house before he went to his office! At the very least, he should have informed her that he was back! Just one more insult to add to the list, she thought with resentment.
Sasha heard Mellie clicking on some keys. “He has more than an hour for lunch today. Would you like me to book a table for the two of you?”
Sasha thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “No. This is a conversation that needs to happen in private. I’ll meet him at his office, if that’s okay with his schedule. What time is his last morning meeting over?”
A few more clicks on the keyboard and Mellie said, “He should be free about twelve-thirty. Does that work with your schedule?”
Sasha’s lips compressed. She knew Damon’s attitude and if twelve-thirty didn’t work for her schedule, she wouldn’t see him until tonight. He didn’t shift his meetings around for her. If she couldn’t be there, she could wait until the next gap in his schedule.
“I’ll be there.”
Sasha hung up the phone and looked at her computer screen. She didn’t see the words or the numbers today. All she saw was Damon, her Damon, her husband, wrapped in the arms of that blond woman. And it hurt. It hurt very deeply that he’d been saying how he wanted things to work out between them and then he’d gone to another woman.
Why had he done this? She thought about picking up the newspaper and checking the date, but there were only those few days when Damon had been away, leaving her behind while he worked out whatever it was that had sent him off. Her fingers shook as she tried to type out some notes on her findings today.
Goodness, she’d been such a silly fool! He’d gone off and done his business, slipped away to his mistress while she worried in Paris that he was upset about something, that he was actually worried or hurt. And when his “business” was finished, he hadn’t even bothered to tell her that he was back in town. Sasha had discovered that news accidentally. It used to be that she’d rush to his arms whenever he’d made his way back to the villa on his sporadic visits, pathetically eager to see him. She’d only called his assistant today because she was excited to check on him and talk about her latest research, hear his advice and work his information into her investment strategies. But she hadn’t known where to contact him. He hadn’t answered his cell phone in two days.
Sasha knew she was the same woman she’d been all along, eager to please, puppy-like in her adoration. The only change now was that they had sex. A lot! He was a voracious lover and she’d fooled herself into thinking that he felt the same way about her, wanted her just as intensely as she wanted him every time they came together.
Fool me once, shame on you, she thought. Fool me twice, shame on me. This was all her fault. She’d trusted him. She’d believed in his word. She’d believed in what they had been sharing together.
She’d loved him!
Sasha crumpled to the floor, her mind scattering with the horror of what she’d just realized about herself. She was madly in love with her husband and he was off having an affair with the same woman he’d gone back to over and over throughout their pitiable marriage.
Never a fool like a fool in love!
Picking herself up, she wiped the tears from her cheeks, furious with herself and furious with Damon. No more! This was finished! She would not be a fool again.
She walked determinedly into the bedroom, stripping off her clothes as she walked into the bathroom. Sasha was determined to look gorgeous for this lunch meeting today. She would show up, tell the man what a bastard he was, tell him she’d file for divorce and then walk out the door. She was never going to see Damon again. She’d go back to London, find a small house and live there by herself. She had an income now. She could make her own money. It was small, but she had a nest egg that she could grow into something more substantial. She wouldn’t even accept alimony from Damon. She just wanted out. She wanted nothing to do with him.