Chapter 20 Outside the Office.
Jess.
I walked to my office after giving thorough instructions to Lila. I sat down, hoping she did exactly as I said. I didn't have any energy for firing and restructuring.
I sat for a couple minutes, calming myself and bracing myself for what came next.
I didn't want to open it and find her calling somebody, because that would then mean that truly she was lying to me. I didn't want to open the cameras and find her doing anything, really, that was going to tell on our relationship.
As much as I detested her, I quite treasured my Delilah, and her use to me was quite paramount.
The minute she stopped being the trusted, permissive wife, that was the minute everything shattered for me.
I didn't want to open the cameras for I feared for what came next.
I didn't want to lose Delilah.
I opened my laptop, clicking the app immediately, ready for anything and everything. I clicked it and opened the footage and played.
I moved it forward a lot, skipping all the parts where the bathroom was empty. And then I followed the CCTV from the main master into the bathroom.
We walk in, I sit down, she says the whole thing, and then she walks into the bathroom. I follow her into the bathroom and find her on her phone, not calling but texting whoever it was.
I pause, unsure what this meant.
If she called somebody then I could have confirmed my fears a little, or at least known that she was trying to cover something up. She was on her phone.
Why would she pick up her phone in the bathroom? She could have done that in front of me. Was she texting someone instead? There was that possibility.
I stared at the footage for a while, trying to read into the phone but obviously failing at it quite badly. The footage quality was low and quite discouraging, so I gave up hope pretty quickly. I slammed my laptop shut and thought for a while.
Whoever she texted last night, she must be going to meet today. That must have been why she was so quick to leave the house to go see this mystery person.
But who could the mystery person be? Darius, of course. Why else wouldn't it be him?
This mystery person had to be Darius or have ties to Darius. Because that's the only reason she would have left that early. Anything that had to do with taking out Aria.
Nothing burned more passionately in Delilah's heart than destroying Aria.
I had patted down the flames for a while, kept it contained. At least until I had one last taste of the girl. And now she was proving stubborn, way too stubborn to keep around. So I just had to let the fire burn as brightly as it could.
That would mean that the text meant something.
It might not even have anything to do with Aria. Delilah might be cheating. I knew the entire act yesterday was all a sham.
I got up, immediately infuriated, and walked downstairs, picking my bag along with me. I locked my office door, making my way to the reception, and letting the receptionist know that I would no longer be coming in after now, and that I was closing for the day. She nodded.
I nodded back to her, knowing that she had nothing to do with it anyway, and walked towards my car. I drove. I drove down the street, wondering where exactly I was supposed to stop.
Would she be in her workplace? Or could she be somewhere else? It's a pity she didn't have a tracker on. I needed to find her fast, and I needed to know what exactly was going on, well before it started.
That way, I could decide whether I profited me or not, and when I could close things off. The road whizzed by, and I thought back to the footage, and her on her phone.
I knew one thing from all my research. Delilah liked men.
She liked the attention they gave her, the power they gave her. She prided herself at stringing man after man in her bucket list, and flaunting them until their time ran out. Made them feel special until they weren't.
I thought I'd won by marrying her. I thought I'd beat them all. I'd become the man she didn't leave, the man she didn't walk away from, the man who beat all her previous conquerors. But the way it was looking, I was dead wrong.
But I so badly didn't want to be.
So I drove on, thinking about the first day we met, a day orchestrated and handpicked by me. I'd picked a place she frequented, the mall, and told her that I was coming here to pick something out for my mother. She had made it pretty clear through an Instagram post that she decided how good a man was from how family-oriented they were.
So I picked her favorite place, favorite store, on the day I knew she'd be there. And then I waited, and waited some more. And when she walked through those doors, I knew that I was going to get her. I knew she was mine.
She, at first, paid me no mind. And then I walked towards her, placing two of her favorite brands right in front of her and asking her to pick one.
Obviously, she recognized them and asked how I knew them. And then I responded and told her the entire story. And so we got talking.
That Delilah could have thrown me away at second glance.
That Delilah wouldn't have married me.
But the Delilah I made through months of talking and conditioning couldn't. She loved me too much. Couldn't survive without my hands on her.
I parked in front of her office, turning the engine off, and laying back in my driver's seat. I started at the building, waiting.
She was a magazine executive. One of those ladies who dressed extravagantly and gave their two cents on what a magazine should look like every month.
The magazine was quite popular here in London. The latest housewives and trendy ladies frequented their stalls to pick up copies, so many subscribers just waiting for the next edition.
She barely did anything. That was why she never had to be at work and she could take breaks whenever she wanted to. For fuck sakes, she owned the place. I'd been waiting a long time when I got a call.
It was an emergency. An emergency meeting with a potential client. I was about to leave when she stepped through the entrance doors. She walked out in her pinstripe suit, nicely toned to her body, buttoning the jacket as she walked into the car.
She entered and slammed the door shut, driving off. I followed right behind her, ready to find out what was so important that she could not have texted in front of me.
Delilah? Mine.
I took no exceptions, no debates, nothing whatsoever. I revved the engine and followed.