Chapter Seven

#THERICHMARRIEDWOMAN

#EPISODESEVEN

(Hope you have not missed the last episode? If you have, check the previous one because I shared two episodes today).

He walked to sit before her and sipped from her glass gutfully.

She was surprised at him. "What are you doing..."..

He met her eyes and she lowered her eyelids immediately she recognized him. "Do you recognize me now? Your knight in shining armor?".

The first time that they had met was when she had gotten drunk at a bar and some journalists had sneaked in to take pictures of her in her drunk state, but he had hidden her in a room until she was conscious the next morning

From then, he had been asking her out but she had been playing hard to get.

She cleared her throat. "I heard that you are now a married man".

"Papers can be changed these days". He said with a shrug. "... only if there is an alternative though". He sipped from her drink again.

She smiled. "Is your wife not the beautiful elegant fashion designer of Bower bound company?I saw your couple pictures from love hotel. It was beautiful".

He frowned at her. "Why are you doing this?".

She shrugged. "What am I doing? I am only stating a fact".

"Those couple pictures were done out of publicity stunt".

"Stop explaining to me, mr Raymond".

He observed her closely. "You don't have any interest in me".

She snatched her glass from him and gulped it all. "I don't have interest in a coward that cannot stand for himself. A coward that does only what his stupid domineering grandfather wants. How can your cowardice even reach your married life? You married someone that you don't love because of your grandfather".

"What about you? Did you ever love me?".

She fumed at him. "Does it matter now?".

"If I divorce my wife, will you marry me?".

She smirked. "You think it is going to be that easy? Your grandfather is the hardest man on earth".

"No, but I have a desire of proving to you that I am not a coward".

"Take off your ring".

He was surprised at her. "My wedding ring?".

She pulled off his ring. "There is a room upstairs. I will there waiting. Don't wear back the ring until we are done".

He smiled.

It was easier than he had thought. He took off his ring and walked into the room.

He slept with the governor's daughter.

Roland mansion felt new again when I entered it that morning after visiting my loved ones.

As I entered into the mansion, I recalled what my mother had told me.

'Marriage is not for strong people, it is for the weak that get strong. At the beginning, you would feel as if you are prepared for how to handle things in the home, but are you really prepared when you haven't experienced it yet? It is after your experience that you know how prepared you were indeed. Sometimes you even miss your mother...but the fact that you have to become someone's mother gives you another strength to carry on. Marriage is not a perfect life. Marriage is a reality that brings out the real you and your real strength'.

That was mother's last words to me this morning before I left the house.

I walked to pa Brian's room and his caregiver was right there, feeding him.

He smiled heartily at me. "Because of you, your husband didn't come back home yesterday. He just returned this morning. He told me that, what was he coming home to do when you were not around? Your husband is already getting attached to you".

I smiled as I recalled what my mother had said to me last night. 'If you don't have hope for little things like this, how will you find hope of finding your father?.

It seem there was finally hope.

I walked into the room and Raymond was already dressing up in his room.

"Where did you sleep last night?". I undressed.

He made eyes at me. "...and how is that your business?".

I chuckled. The big head was too embarrassed to say that he slept outside last night because he missed his wife.

I walked into the bathroom. "What did you eat this morning?".

"Ask the maids yourself". With that, he left for work.

I wondered if Raymond was not a man.

Anytime I undressed in front of him, he was never attracted to me at all.

He was not sexually attracted to his wife.

Such irony of life.

I packed all his dirty clothes and washed them.

I always washed his clothes and underwears myself.

I spread them on the line at the backyard and left for work that morning.

I was introduced to my lively colleagues and I was happy working with such lively people in the designing department.

I researched more about trending styles and created more designs in my head.

As I drew out designs on my computer, my phone beeped.

A text message.

'Your husband loves someone else'.

My heart slipped at the contents of the message and I dialled the number but it was saying, that the call was forwarded to another number.

My heart was not at rest.

Was it possible? Was that why he was not sexually attracted to me?

I walked into his office and he was laughing and chatting loudly with Matilda.

Did he really love Matilda?

He rolled his eyes when he saw me. "So you have started working here so that you will be disturbing my peace up and down in this company right?".

I cleared my throat. "Sorry for disturbing you". I left his office and banged the door shut.

I was not going to care about his love life anymore.

I was going to mind my business, after all he was a bag of thrash.

I heard footsteps from behind.

I turned.

It was Collins Roland.

He cleared his throat. "Your husband cheated on you last night".

I gasped at him. "You liar".

"I was the one that sent that text to you right now". He gave me some pictures.

The image was of my husband in a bar, leading a half naked woman out of a room.

I staggered back.

He observed me closely. "Don't let your husband deceive you. You are a beautiful woman with brains. If I had someone like you by my side, I would have treasured you like my own life".

I sobbed.

I just couldn't believe that Raymond hated me that much.

Raymond looked down on me that much. "Thanks for the pictures". I told him as I packaged them back.

He cleared his throat. "Even if you show Raymond those pictures, he would still hold on to to that woman. He doesn't love you at all. He sees you as thrash".

I couldn't concentrate at work that day anymore.

I just had to go home.

I felt the urge to fill Raymond's mouth with Ghana pepper and see him cry for pain the way he had broken me.

I instructed the maids to take back his food.

I was going to starve him and deal with him that night.

I waited in my room until I heard his footsteps.

He walked into the room, mumbled greetings to me, took off his clothes and walked into the bathroom.

I placed the pictures on his laptop and continued reading my newspaper like nothing happened.

He walked back to the room after taking his bath and looked around. "Where is my food?".

I ignored him and continued reading my newspaper.

"Hey! I am talking to you!". He threw a pillow at me.

I continued reading my newspaper, raging with the whole of my insides.

He walked to his small bed and observed the pictures that I had kept for him on his laptop.

When he looked up at me with fear in his eyes, I was looking at him.

He coughed uneasily. "Where the hell did you get this?".

"Are you the one that supposed to be asking me a question?".

"You paid someone to be following me around?".

"You are still asking me questions?".

He rolled his eyes.

Tears filled my eyes. "Do you really look down on me that much? What happened to her? She has a master's degree and class? You think that makes her better than me?".

He scoffed. "She is a governor's daughter, you are a nobody's daughter, so she is hundred percent better than you".

"No wonder you said Jennifer trained you. You guys have the same brain".

"Are you crazy?".

"Crazy?". I chuckled and rose to my feet. "I haven't even shown you crazy yet and you are already calling me crazy".

He swallowed uneasily. "What do you want to do?".

"I want to do what crazy women do". I winked at him and plugged the iron.

He rose to his feet. "Gold, I am sorry. Please, I promise to never ever do that again! I swear".

"The iron is not even hot yet darling".I said cynically.

He rushed to the door but I had already locked it.

The key was in my underwear.

I smiled to myself as I waited for the iron to get hot.

"Gold, I love Margaret".

I smirked. "An immature human being like you is talking about love. All your life, you have been eating pa Brian's money and never struggled to take care of anyone, that is why you believe that you can be a spoilt brat anytime you like".

"Why are you not divorcing me? Let us get a divorce".

"Divorce? That would favour you but it would not favour me".

"What do you mean?"..

"The heir to Bower bound company is not in Margaret Perry's womb, the heir to Bower bound company is in Gold Roland's womb".

"So, you are only holding on to me because of the company?".

I glared at him. "Are you a kind of person that a woman can love geniunely?".

Someone knocked on the door.

It was grandfather.

Raymond smiled. "If you tell Grandpa what I did, two things will happen, you will leave this home and Margaret will stay".

#fromyourfastfingers

Onyekachi Ikeh.