The Miami Millionaire (8 page)

As Victoria walked down the road she pulled out her mobile phone and looked at it confused.  What on earth was going on this morning, she had missed several calls from Mark and another two from Alice.  She called Mark first.

“Hey Mark is everything alright, I’ve got about six missed calls between you and Alice.  Is something wrong?”

“No nothing, I just need to talk to you.  Where are you?  I have cancelled some meetings this afternoon, can you meet me at home as soon as possible?”

Victoria grew uneasy, Mark sounded stressed, and something must be wrong if he was cancelling appointments and asking her to meet him at home.

“What’s wrong Mark, you are worrying me.  Has something happened?  Is this why Alice is calling me too?  Tell me or I will just call Alice and she’ll tell me straight away.”

“No don’t call Alice.  I’ll tell you everything in a minute.  Don’t worry, it’s just a hitch with the honeymoon details and I am sorting it all out.  Nothing too important but we need to act on it this afternoon, so come home now.”

“Okay, I’m on my way, I needed to talk to you too so we can do it all at the same time.”  

“Why?”  Mark asked abruptly, “Is something wrong?”

“No, just some work stuff I need to run past you.”  She said putting the phone down. 

Victoria felt uneasy, what could possibly have gone wrong with the honeymoon details?  Had they double booked?  She dialled Alice’s number - she knew Mark had said not to call her but Alice was her best friend and if it was anything terrible she knew Alice would tell her straight away.

“Hi Alice.  What’s going on?”  Victoria said as she heard her friend’s voice at the other end of the phone.

“Where are you?”

“I’m on my way home.  I’m meeting Mark there in a few minutes.  He’s been calling me since lunch but I missed his calls.  You’ll never guess what?”

“What?”   Alice asked cautiously.

“You remember I met Jake Cumberland at your fete, well I persuaded him to come to a pitch at Churchill Turnbull & French and now he’s not only gone and said that he’s probably going to use us for his UK campaigns and he wants me to be his point-person.  His main man, well woman, for contact with his team in the UK.”

“Wow that’s great.”  Alice sounded genuinely happy for her.

“Yeah, and there’s more!  He’s said he wants me to go over to Miami and work with his marketing team for a few weeks.”

“Wow.  That’s fantastic.  When do you go?”

“Well that’s just it.  I need to talk to Mark first but Jake wants me over there on Monday.  I told him that I don’t think I can go – it’s really bad timing Alice what with the wedding so close.”

“You have to go Victoria.  Please tell them you will go.”  Alice sounded almost desperate and it made Victoria smile knowing how much her best friend supported her in everything she did.

“I’m thinking about it.  Mark is on his way home now and I need to talk to him about it.”

“Victoria, talking of Mark, I need to tell you something.  We need to talk but not on the phone.”

“Oh don’t worry about it Alice, Mark’s said he’s going to tell me, he’s on his way home now.”

Alice was quiet for a moment.

“Alice are you still there?”  Victoria wondered if the connection had broken off.

“Yes I’m still here.  Listen Victoria, call me when you’ve finished talking to Mark.  Please.”

“Yeah, sure.”  Victoria said and disconnected the phone looking at it confused, Alice certainly was behaving a little strangely.

Victoria walked through the front door to the smell of food.  That was strange, Mark had only called her half an hour ago and he wouldn’t have had time to get home and cook.

“Hi.  I picked up some food on my way back, it’s from that Mexican restaurant around the corner you like.  I know it’s a bit early but I thought we could have an early dinner while we talk.”

Victoria stood in the hallway hanging up her coat, she didn’t know whether to be amused or really worried, Mark never thought about picking up food, he always told Victoria to sort it out or cook it - she could have sworn Mark thought there was a food fairy in their house because he certainly never shopped, cooked or ordered it.  Why today did he decide to stop at her favourite restaurant around the corner and pick up some early dinner for them?  Had the honeymoon really been that messed up that he thought she was going to be really upset?  Maybe it wasn’t the honeymoon, maybe it was worse.  The venue?  Had they double booked or something?

Victoria walked into the dining room to find the table already laid and Mark coming through from the kitchen with two plates in his hand.

“How long have you been home, you’ve got this all sorted.”  She laughed as she took a seat at the table feeling her stomach grumble at the fresh aroma from her spicy Mexican dinner.

“Not long.  I just wanted to show you how much I love you.  You know I love you don’t you?”

Victoria took a bite of the enticing food and paused.  Okay now she knew something was definitely wrong, Mark was acting very strangely – he never told her he loved her, well not like that anyway – he would usually say “you too” after she told him she loved him.  In fact she couldn’t think of a time when he had acted this way, not even the night they got engaged, even then there had been no grand romantic gesture – they had lain in bed one night and Mark said he thought they should get married and she had happily agreed, it certainly made sense after nearly nine years together and two of those years living together.

Victoria put down her knife and fork and looked at Mark.  He had hardly touched his food.

“Mark I know something is wrong so just come out and tell me.  Whatever it is I can handle it.  Nothing is that bad.”

Mark took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his cheeks turned from a shade of pale to deep red and back to pale again, “I’m glad you think that because Victoria, sometimes we make a stupid mistake but that doesn’t mean we have to be punished.  Certainly not too badly does it?  We love each other and we can get over anything can’t we?  And let’s face it, we are not actually married yet.”

Victoria looked at the man across the table from her and for a moment she could have sworn Mark looked like a different person; he wasn’t sounding like his usual overly-confident and to be honest she sometimes thought quite arrogant self.

“Have you done something?”  She said as she felt her hands start to shake.  She had a feeling this was not going to be good.

Mark opened his mouth and started to talk.  It was as simple as that!  A single sentence, a string of words put together, and that was the very moment her perfect little life shattered.  If she hadn’t been so shocked trying to grab at the pieces of emotion as they crumbled around her she would have been surprised at how such simple words could change everything.  Everything!  Nothing was as it seemed.  How could it be?  Victoria thought they were in love.  She thought her perfect fiancé loved her.  They were getting married in just over a couple of months time for goodness sake! They were the perfect couple, everyone said so.  His parents loved her and her parents loved him, welcoming him into their family with open arms.

Victoria stood up from the table and looked at Mark for a moment longer.  She could still hear him talking, his words blurred incomprehensibly as her mind struggled to take them in.

“Victoria, I am sorry I really am.  It just happened.”

‘It just happened!’
  Victoria thought to herself.  How did it just happen?  Did his penis all of a sudden discover a life of its own and gain the ability to detach itself from his control and emotions and thrust itself into another woman?  How did that
just
happen?

“Why?  Where?  When?”  Her mind was whirring around.  Just when had he “slept with another woman” as he so eloquently put it?  She assumed that he hadn’t just got into bed with another woman and put his head down on the pillow and fallen asleep!  No, she was assuming that he had actually done more than that with her, although even the act of sleeping in the same bed as another woman hurt her since sleeping in their bed together at night was such an intimate act on its own.  Or at least that was what she had thought.

“Isn’t it enough that I have told you that I slept with another woman?  You don’t need to know the details, they are not important.  What is important is that I love you.”

Victoria interrupted, “It’s important to me.  I want to know when and I want to know where.  And did you actually fall asleep in each other’s arms after you had sex with another woman Mark?”

Mark flinched as Victoria put it so bluntly.  He had not actually planned on telling Victoria anything, not if he could help it.  But now it was out of his hands and he was being forced to.  He had been trying to put off the inevitable, but Alice had called just before lunch saying she had seen photographs on Facebook of him and another woman, and she wanted to know who the woman was and what was going on.  He couldn’t believe he had been so stupid to let his secretary Chantelle take the selfies of the two of them together in bed, but he had been carried away in the moment and had never thought for one second she might have a friend who knew Alice or Victoria!  For crying out loud, Alice didn’t even live in London!  Yet somehow the picture of him and Chantelle in bed together after an early evening sexual marathon session ended up on Alice’s friend’s Facebook page.  He could have killed Alice’s friend - she had recognised Mark from photos she had seen of him with Victoria on Alice’s Facebook page and called Alice sending over the photograph for proof, or just for good measure as far as Mark was concerned.

Of course when Alice called him to tell him she knew, Mark had tried everything to get out of this mess.  But Alice had seen through every lie he tried to use and the photograph was too incriminating.  So he accepted the inevitable – he was going to have to tell Victoria, or if he didn’t then Alice would, and she had told him as much!  Then when he called Victoria earlier and heard Alice had been trying to call her he knew she wasn’t bluffing.  Flipping heck, was there no way to keep a secret anymore?  Bloody social media!

Mark stood up and walked away from the table.  He ran his hands through his hair and turned back to face Victoria.  He hated the look on her face right now, she was pale and rigid and it made him feel guilty.  But for crying-out-loud it was just a stupid drunken night with his secretary, or maybe two.  Crap okay so it happened a handful of times but that wasn’t important.  How was he to know she was going to blab about her sexual exploits with her boss to her friends and one of them would just happen to know Victoria’s friend!  Mark was sure once he talked Victoria round then she would forgive him, she just needed to understand it had been a moment of madness.  Okay so there was a period of time of madness, pre-wedding nerves – all men got those didn’t they?  Soon enough she would get over this, they would get over this.  They had to because they were getting married in a few months and all their family and friends were going to be at their incredibly expensive wedding.  This was just a blip and he was sure Victoria would understand.

Victoria stood still waiting for him to answer.  She could hardly believe it when nothing came out of his mouth - Mark just stood in front of her looking like a naughty school boy sulking like he had just owned up to breaking a vase he knocked over.  Didn’t he realise he had broken a hell of a lot more than that?  He had broken her heart.  He had broken them!

“So that’s it?  No reason, no explanation.”  She didn’t think anything he had to say could make any difference anyway, but it hurt even more that he wasn’t even trying to make her understand.

“What can I say?  Maybe I was getting stressed about the wedding and I panicked and made a mistake.  I’ve said I am sorry, and I am.”

“Are you serious?  You’re just going to tell me that you had sex with another woman and you blame our wedding for your pathetic weakness?”

“I know I was weak and it won’t happen again.  Don’t let this ruin what we have, we are still great together.”

Victoria couldn’t believe he was saying this, did he really believe that?  She didn’t know what to believe right now and she needed a moment to take it all in.  A few moments ago she was coming home to tell Mark she might have to go away for a couple of weeks but she would still be on top of organising their wedding, and now………!  Now she had no idea what to think or feel.  The only thing she could feel was the bile rising in her throat and she needed to be sick.

“Get out Mark.”

“Victoria don’t be silly.”

‘Don’t be silly’
– was he kidding?  No she needed Mark gone, and he needed to go now.  She needed to think but first she needed to throw up.

“Get out Mark.  I’m going to the bathroom and you had better be gone by the time I get out.”  Victoria said as she ran out of the room straight to the bathroom.

Victoria finally emerged from the bathroom after what felt like ages.  She was still in a state of shock, she couldn’t believe that Mark had actually cheated on her.  She walked back into the dining room and thankfully found the room empty and Mark gone.  She saw a note on the dining table and slowly walked across the room to read it.  So he was going to stay at a friend’s tonight and he would call her tomorrow to talk again.  Victoria walked through to the living room taking a glass of water with her.  She sat down on the sofa and picked up her phone to call Alice.