Falling for my Ex-Fiancee’s Best friend

All through the next day, even at work, it bothered Nathan that Demelza was acting suspiciously around him. She had taken that call in the bathroom the night before, but what did it mean? He didn’t mean to go as far as interrogating her or breaking into her private life and affairs, but he did need to know.

She was having his baby. They were practically dating now. There needed to be some sort of transparency between the two of them. But he only worked up the courage to ask once about who it was that she had called in the bathroom the night before.

“Don’t worry about it.” Demelza had said. But Nathan was worried about it. Nathan was very worried about it.

The strenuous atmosphere at work only seemed to increase, especially because Demelza was his secretary. He needed to be able to trust her, and that meant that she needed to be honest with him, and not just as an assistant.

Still that same morning, she had to leave the office because she had an appointment with the doctor.

“I should go with you.” Nathan suggested, but Demelza shot him down politely.

“I’m a grown woman, Nathan. I shouldn’t need policing at your hands.”

“I’m not policing you, I just want to make sure you’re safe.” He added in a whisper, “I want to make sure that you’re both alright, you and the baby.”

Demelza rolled her eyes. “Should I have given you a microphone so you could announce to the office that I’m pregnant?”

Nathan looked hurt and stepped away from her, but Demelza pulled him close and kissed him. Slowly, the hurt went out of his eyes.

“I’m not trying to be the bad guy here, Nathan. But if you were to accompany me to every single appointment I have with the doctor, and probably even appointments that are more casual in nature, you’re going to give away everything and your office employees are bound to come sniffing sooner or later, and they will find out about your big secret. So why don’t you just try to rest? For me. Okay?”

Nathan didn’t really agree with her logic, but he settled down anyway.

“Besides,” Demelza added. “It’s not like I’m going to be kidnapped. Again. It’s just the hospital. I’m sure it will all be fine.”

She left after kissing him goodbye and promising that she would be back soon and he could check on her before the office closed.

But of course, nothing was ever that easy. Nathan was slowly beginning to learn that nothing ever went as planned, because much later in the day when the office was closing around evening, he had gone to her office to tell her to wrap up her tasks, but really, it was just another excuse to see her.

He knocked. No answer. He knocked several times without answer, and he became instantly confused when the door refused to open. That only meant that she had not returned from her visit to the hospital. Now Nathan was worried again. He couldn’t shake off his particular feeling of dread.

He rushed back to his office and began to try her lines. None of them were going through. When the calls finally went through, they bounced back as if Demelza was intentionally rejecting the calls.

He considered calling Katherine again, but he thought to himself that it was a stupid move. Nathan waited in his office in case she decided to come back there instead. Sometime past seven p. m., he got a text on his phone. He quickly whipped out his phone to check, hoping that it would be Demelza. What he saw broke his heart. His grip on the phone tightened until the screen almost looked like it was going to crack.

He put the phone down and inhaled several times, his fists clenching and unclenching each time, then he went back to look at what had been sent to him. It was a photo, no, there were several photos taken of Demelza.

She was with Hampton and in each of the photos, it looked like they were having sex. Rage filled Nathan’s heart. So that was the reason why she had been rejecting his calls all day. What had happened? Why was she suddenly behaving like Silver. If she wanted to go back to Hampton, then why did she come to him in the first place. Why was she playing with his feelings? And he had worked so hard to bring her back this time around, too.

The images could not leave his mind. They were positively imprinted there, and Nathan knew that that was what Hampton had wanted. Hampton, Nathan thought sinisterly. He had promised that he would make Nathan suffer. That he would pay back. Nathan guessed this was the payback. It was the worst sort of retribution, that a man should go after the property of another man.

Nathan cursed.

The security on duty turned concernedly in his direction. “Is everything alright, sir?”

But Nathan could not answer. He was still boiling with rage and he feared that if he opened his mouth at this point in time, the only thing that would pour out would be fury and wrath and he would nt be able to stop. He was absolutely certain that he needed to leave the office or he would just instantaneously combust. Nathan got into his car and banged the doors shut. Then he was driving at high speed in a fury up the road to his house.

When he got home, he flung the doors open and marched straight in. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He stormed right up to Demelza’s room and saw her things which he had helped bring in. Things that he had only recently convinced her to bring as she moved back in with him, and anger filed him again.

He thought about the photos, thought about the way that Demelza’s body was pressed so seductively against Hampton’s. Thought about the fact that Hampton would have probably been laughing as he fucked her, Demelza. He imagined all the things that Hampton might have done to Demelza. Because if he was in the same shoes as Hampton, he knew he would do everything in his own power to spite the other male.

It was a primal male instinct, the urge to dominate and mark and declare a territory. Demelza was his. But now that Hampton was with her, he knew. He just knew. Hampton was probably drilling his own marks into her. He was claiming her for himself, too. Did Hampton even know that she was pregnant? Did Hampton even care?

He put the phone away, satisfied with the way his blood burned hot in his body.

Then he attacked Demelza’s belongings, tracing them one by one and ripping them apart from the room with vicious savagery. If she still wanted to be with Hampton, then she would have to take her things over to his place and be with him instead. He was not going to let another woman cheat on him or play him for a fool. Not after all the hell that Silver had put him through.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

His eyes stung with unshed tears and brimming anger as he threw her belongings outside. The belongings were few and there was not much to throw away, but it gave him savage pleasure to inflict damage on this little part that remained of her.

When he was done throwing her things all over the place and thrashing her room, and his nager was beginning to subside, he thought that he was a fool for throwing a tantrum. And then, maybe it was just the way the heart loved to revel in pain, but he brought out his phone again to gaze at the picture some more, and burn every single detail into his memory.

As he looked now, he noticed something. In the pictures, Demelza’s face was barely noticeable. Only just enough for him to know that she was the one, but not enough to give too much away. Still, he saw right through the picture. They were lies. They were fakes.

Demelza’s eyes weren’t open in any single one of them. Her eyes were closed the way they always were whenever she was asleep. He would know. He had traced the outline of those several times with his lips, his fingers… That could only mean one thing: Demelza had been unconscious while these photos were taken. She was probably not even aware that she was at Hampton’s place. It all made sense now.

Bits and bits of the puzzle started to fit together in the picture. And it hit him. There was no reason at all for Demelza to be with Hampton, she had wanted to club him with her heels the last time she had seen him. There was no way she would suddenly go back to go have sex with him now. Demelza had probably been abducted by Hampton on her way to the hospital, drugged and knocked her out, then taken the pictures as part of his revenge.

Nathan’s heart steeled in resolve. Hampton had pushed him too far.