The Dare

A kid? I sure as hell care as the breath gets caught in my lungs. A child? That means he must have a family at home. A child. Maybe even more than one. And a wife too. Of course, Zack Ward has a wife. Why wouldn’t he? A man like him must have been snapped up years ago which explains all of the behaviors…

Shit. I clutch my stomach hard as a sense of stupidity races through me. I am an idiot, a bimbo, I got caught up in a cheating scandal and didn’t even know it. But no one will believe that I didn’t know it, because the mistresses always do. I have been idiotically fawning over this man and he has a wife at home.

I already worked out that he had made a fool out of me, but I didn’t realize how bad. Now, I know all too well. I know why the texts and the phone calls, I understand why he can’t stick around for me, I get it all.

Fucking hell, now I really need to get out of here. This situation is making me hate this place. I can’t stand it. I’m going to have to apply for more jobs, look further, find a way to escape. This is a place that has become completely intolerable for me and it will only get worse as time goes on…

***

“Uh oh.” Tracey spots the sadness on my face the second she steps through the door after she has finished work. “What’s happened? What has that little shit done today? I will kill him if I need to…”

“He wasn’t there,” I choke out in a sob. “He wasn’t in the office today which I thought was because of me. Either that he couldn’t face me or maybe he was playing some sort of horrible game with me. I don’t know what… but anyway, it turns out that I was completely wrong. He wasn’t in the office because of his kid.”

Tracey is silent for a beat too long, trying her hardest to process this. “A child… are you serious?”

I nod vigorously. “I know, right? That’s what I thought. He hasn’t ever mentioned a child to me. I didn’t even know that he had a family or anything like that. I thought he was single and that he liked me…”

I break in to more sobs. I feel like I’m about to melt under the stress of this mess. It’s completely and utterly overwhelming. To know that I have been such a fool for so long is killing me. I can’t stand it.

“The fucker!” Tracey yells, her months of frustration finally shining through. She has been living this with me, listening to me spill my guts about him for far too long, so if anyone can understand how much this kills me, it’s her. She is also clearly fuming with him as well. “There is no way that he hooked up with you without mentioning this wife, that is just the lowest of the low. Not only is he a shit for cheating on one woman, he is basically cheating on you as well because he led you to believe you have a future together.”

“I’m a fool, Tracey. I am an absolute idiot. I can’t believe I fell for him and he’s a liar.”

“This isn’t your fault.” She immediately envelops me in a hug. “You did nothing wrong. He tricked you, you just fell for him like everyone falls for one another. You didn’t do a single thing wrong…”

“I bet his wife wouldn’t see it that way,” I interject grumpily. “She would hate me. If she found out.”

Not that I intend to ever go near that man again so unless he tells her, which I can’t imagine he will since he is an incredible liar, it shouldn’t come to that. I will escape the hatred from the woman who owns him.

“You should tell his wife,” Tracey suddenly declares as if this is obvious. “He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this. You should tell her. She deserves to know, don’t you think? Wouldn’t you want to know?”

Urgh, the idea of taking him down a notch or two sounds good, I would like to see Zack squirm since he has broken my heart, but I don’t know if I like the idea of revenge. It feels petty and needless.

“I don’t know. Won’t that just make me seem bitter?” I whine. “The wife will hate me anyway, which sucks. I don’t know if I can take the hatred on top of everything else. I’m a mess enough as it is.”

“You can give it some time, sure,” Tracey reassures me. “But I still think that you should do it. I think that this poor woman deserves to know and that he shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it…”