Thomas held her as they moved to the gentle beat of the song. He didn't want to remember that day. No, not now."Are you sure you are fine?" he asked his wife again.
Reyona tilted her head back as she looked keenly into the eyes she had come to love so much. The eyes she had believed she would stare into for the rest of her life.
"Yes, honey," she said breathily. "I am dancing with you, the love of my life, ain't I?"Thomas nodded.
He had no idea what else to do but to nod. He knew he should let it go. He should let her have her moment, but he couldn't shake off the niggling feeling that something was not right. He had to ask her.
Reyona saw the look that entered his eyes as they moved without missing a step—the way they have moved for years. They were so perfectly synced, and she thought that he was not so closed off with his expressions after all.She must have been the one who had not noticed.
She knew he wanted to ask something, just as she knew what he wanted to ask, so she laid her head back on his shoulder as they waltzed and sighed. "This is perfect. You always know what I need," she whispered into his ear.
Thomas tamped down his guilt. "Babe?"
"Yes, darling?"
"Did you come back home this morning after you left for work? I mean, after I have left for work."You couldn't hold yourself, could you? Reyona thought in disdain.
Then, "I think I..." she felt him tense and she deliberately paused for a while to make him sweat before she finally completed, "Oh, no. I did not come back home."
Breath rushed out of his mouth before he said, "But you were saying..."
"Oh, that was yesterday. I almost mistook yesterday for today. I did come back home yesterday for a file I forgot, but not today. Why?" She raised her eyes with a curious look.
"Oh, nothing, nothing at all. So you did not." He stopped himself in time as he thought of leaving it be. She definitely couldn't have seen the paper and still acted like this towards him. Reyona was more sensitive than anyone he knew, and she would not let such a thing slide.
"I did not what?" she asked with a smile.
"Nothing, nothing at all. Ooh, look, the song has ended," he said suddenly as he thought "Thank God, I didn't write the note after all. Now I can focus on other things, as that is already out of the way."
Reyona gave another command to the system, and another soul-stirring song started playing. She encircled his neck with her arms as she looked lovingly into his eyes.
They were barely moving in the same spot as she thought, "How had I gotten it wrong? Where did I fail you? Where did I fail myself?"
She could remember how she had kept herself through school. When her friends were going out, partying, and falling in and out of love,. Reyona had been focused on her studies. She had been hellbent on making something of herself, believing that the right man for her would come when the time was right.She had believed that Thomas was that man.
When her sister, Toria, decided that the gym was the new rage for getting hot men, she dragged Reyona along despite all the protests.After guilt-tripping Reyona into being her training buddy, Toria had not spent up to one week before she decided that she had rather stay fat and single than put herself through any torture called exercise again, and she bowed out. Reyona, at this point, had become hooked on the habit of going to the gym, and she just stuck to it.
That was when she met him, the handsome, responsible-looking gym operation manager. Theirs had not been love at first sight. He had been consistently pursuing her before she gave in.Even when she stopped going to the gym to dissuade him, he still found her. Her company was just a startup then; she worked for about a year after college and decided to start her own.Thomas had been patient with her, consistently showing her love. Even when she was not giving him attention after accepting to be his girlfriend,
Finally, she fully accepted him into her heart when she realised that he had grown on her and that she couldn't even imagine her life without him. Who could have thought it was all a lie? Such meticulous planning.Reyona laid her head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat. The heart she had believed beat for her. Just as hers beat for him. Another lie.
As the current song blended into the next, she closed her eyes tightly against the tears that wanted to pool in her eyes."No, girl. You cannot afford to be soft now. He does not deserve your crying. Let this be a passage rite," her mind whispered to her as she held him more tightly. She reached around and placed his hand more firmly around her.
Reyona knew that after this dance, it was truly over. Her nurtured dreams for many years would be truly over.
"And that song is over as well. I could dance with you forever, babe. You know I could, but I need a drink."
Reyona smiled and stepped back, her hands reluctantly leaving his body. Reyona looked at his back as he went to the bar after he asked if she wanted a drink. Renewed disappointment filled her heart as she realised that she had held little hope in her heart that he might decide to confess to her now that his plans had failed, but he seemed adamant.Yet she had to give him one last chance.
"Babe?" Reyona called."Ye..yes," he said as the scotch whiskey he was taking to his mouth splashed on his shirt. "Oh damn, sorry, that was... Well, you wanted to say something?" he said as he looked at her.
Looking at the face she had trusted for ten years of her life, she asked, "Tommy, do you want to tell me anything?"
"What? No, why would you think that? No, babe. I can't think of anything I might want to tell you," he said as he downed his whiskey, then looked at her appreciatively "Except maybe to tell you how gorgeous you look in that dress," he said as he dropped his glass. Then he moved closer to pick her up and twirled her.
"Lying till the end, I see," Reyona thought as she laughed when he twirled her. "Good, there is no going back now."She looked down at him when he raised her above his head.
And kissed his lips.
Thomas looked at his friend like he had just informed him that the apocalypse had already happened. "What do you mean by you have sold it? Both? How is that even possible?" he asked his friend, Lance. The latter beckoned on the waiter to bring beers over to their table. He looked over at Thomas. "The usual?" "I don't care about crappy beer, man. What do you mean by that?" Thomas fired back at the man, who seemed nonchalant about his plight. "Cool your jets, man. I have been up and about since morning, and I am not about to miss out on a cold beer because you suddenly changed your mind. '' He turned to the waiter. "Just give me a chilled Guinness, thank you. '' My friend here would be having none." "You got it," the waiter said before going back to get the order. Lance Pratchet loosened his tie before sitting more relaxed in his chair. Work had been hectic recently, and his ex-wife seemed to think he plucked money out of the air with the way she had been on his neck about alimony.
Lance Pratchet gaped at his friend when the latter looked at him incomprehensibly. He had never known Thomas to be a prankster. The man might be an asshole in Lance's book because of what he had done to his wife of many years, but bros had got to stick together, and that was why he had agreed to help him with the sales of the two properties that Thomas had acquired with the help of the wife he was leaving for his side chick. Lance had never liked the bimbo-looking babe with her voluptuous body and wiles that had hooked his friend for years, but Lance did not really like females these days anyway, not with the way Alexa had frustrated his life throughout their three years of marriage and continued to do so since they finalized their divorce a year ago. She had gotten everything she planned with her friends, and they had accused him of being abusive. Fat, dark bruises had shown up in graphic details in court, and with a long line of witnesses to corroborate her claims, Lance knew t
"The transaction went through. Sorry about the delay. There was a little transactional error with the mule account. Check out the account now." Reyona set aside her phone as she got the message and looked up at her assistant, who was standing in front of her. The lady was telling her about one company that would like them to handle their audit this year. The owner of the company intended to use the audit to test the strength of ReyDexter LLC. If they are satisfied with Reyona's company, they intend to hand over their portfolio to them and make them their official accounting firm. Reyona was a Certified Public Accountant who had realised earlier that she would rather have a firm of her own than be in a company where she only dealt with the company's finances. Reyona loved challenges, and she believed that one way she could get them in her chosen profession would be to have a company of her own where she could handle the cases of the different companies, as she believed that no t
Reyona was sleeping, or at least trying to sleep, when she felt the bed depressed, and Thomas stood up and went out.She waited for it as she heard his phone vibrate where he had kept it beside him. He wouldn't put his phone so close to him like that normally, as he had said that the radiation from the phone was not meant to be kept anywhere near the brain, especially in sleep.Reyona knew that today was a special day, though.She was sure he was expecting something, so she didn't comment on his out-of-habit move; she had merely curled up against his side, laid her head on his chest as she took his hand, and wrapped it around herself before kissing him good night.She smiled to herself as she heard the phone vibrate, and he checked if she was asleep before gently removing her arms from around him. She had thought briefly of tightening her arms around him to see what his reaction would be, but then she decided to let him go. The show was about to start anyway.He had been on edge since
Thomas looked back sharply when he heard her voice. Damn it. He had not realised that he had spoken out loud. That was why he left the bedroom for the living room, after all. He should have just gone downstairs to the sitting room or the library. Yeah, the library would have been okay. With all the volumes of books in there and the soundproof padding his wife had installed in there as it doubled as her workspace when she wanted to as well, he could have shouted all he wanted and she wouldn't have realised. He knew that his shout was inevitable, even as he blamed himself and turned in the direction where he heard her soft footsteps. He knew he couldn't have helped his reaction, not even if a gun had been put to his head when he opened his email earlier. Even a hardcore guy would have reacted as he did. Thomas was no hardcore guy. Just a 35-year-old man looking for a soft landing in life. Ah, what would he do? He thought as he recalled the message that was burning a hole throug
Reyona tamped down the revulsion in her as she said those words. She could feel bile in her throat as she closed her eyes tightly. Who could have believed that there would be a day on earth when she would feel her skin crawl at the thought of intimacy with her man? What did she know?Theirs had never been a super passionate "get wet with just a look at you" kind of sex life, but they had a healthy sex life. He wanted her as much as she wanted him, and she could turn to him whenever she wanted to do it with the assurance that he would accommodate her and vice versa.She remembered a saying that a man's penis could be separated from his heart. She couldn't remember where she heard the saying from, but she remembered that the person had said that a man could be having regular sex with a lady while, in his heart, he held someone else dear."It is just how they are wired; just because he is fucking you every day does not mean he loves you. You are just that. A fuck buddy."Reyona released t
Thomas groaned as he held his wife closely to himself. He could feel his eyes crossing behind their lids. He had no idea what had come over her, but he was not about to mind. Not when his libido could reap the benefit. She was all he had for now anyway. Susan was not available for all their games.Even though he had always been careful with her and only went to a limit when it came to their bedroom activities, unlike he did with Susan, he loved the fact that she was taking the initiative to introduce this. Most of what she did these days made it seem like he didn't know his wife that well, not that he'd been paying much attention before.He had been trying his best to be a double agent with such carefulness that his cover would not be blown. He loved this new side of her.His eyes jerked open when he felt her hands wrap around him, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he wondered when she had pulled the drawstring of his pyjama bottoms.He was close to bursting, and he felt he sh
Reyona almost laughed out loud at the priceless expression on Ruth Lanoth's face as she entered and met her with the kids. They were eating the crackers that Reyona bought on her way to the house and surfing through the channels to see what show would satisfy all parties involved, as she had met the kids arguing over the channel that the eldest had put on. Thomas's mother had never learned the habit of locking up her door, as she had said that she did not have a property that belonged to a burglar. So, it was quite normal for Reyona to simply walk through the door and call out to her mother-in-law if she didn't immediately see her in the living room. Lugging the grocery bags she had with her, she opened the door, picked up the bags, and used one of them to push the door wider. She entered and called out even before she fully raised her head."Mum, are you…?" She trailed off as she saw the three miniature copies of her husband staring back at her. Two of them had been in a tussle