Eric (Men of Honor 2)

Then he got a job working out of town for a chain. He was making more money sure, but the long days and nights apart took their toll, and before I knew it, the man who’d laughed and played with our daughter and still brought me home flowers had grown distant and snappy.

At first, I thought it was the pressure of having a new job that took him away from home for weeks on end. I thought he was probably missing Lora, and I since the three of us had always been such a close unit, but he’d be back to himself in a few days, and things would go back to normal for a while until the next time he had to leave home, and things would start all over again.

Then the phone calls had started, strange calls in the middle of the night where nothing was ever said, but it was obvious that someone was on the other end of the line. I had my suspicions because of Sam’s behavior but silly as I was, I still refused to believe that the sweet boy who’d swept me off my feet with promises of forever would ever cheat on me, that he would do anything that would destroy our little family.

Three months after landing the new job that took him away from home for two weeks at a time, I learned the ugly truth. Sam had met and fallen in love with someone else his first week away from home. To say I was in shock is putting it lightly. The day he finally told me, I thought he was coming clean to ask for forgiveness and to find a way to make things work after his betrayal, but nothing could be further from the truth. He wanted a divorce.

I stupidly tried to hang onto him, dreading what it was going to do to Lora, who up until this point had idolized her daddy. But Sam and Kristen, that’s her name, had made my life a living hell until I signed the divorce papers. Whatever I’d tried to do to shield Lora from the ugly truth had been in vain when Kristen came to my home and spelled it all out for her.

She’d told my young teenage daughter that I was a washed-up bitch whose husband no longer found her attractive. She’d told my child how her father no longer wanted her and was looking forward to starting a new family with her and getting the son he’d always wanted that I couldn’t give him.

That last had been news to me since Sam and I had decided together not to have any more kids until our finances changed. I’d wanted more children after Lora, but because I had to put my education on hold to raise her and my pay was just enough to help out with the bills and stuff, it didn’t seem sensible.

Sam had been on board with that decision, and that day had been the first I’d heard any different. I’d been so gutted by the accusations my husband’s mistress had thrown at me, lies told by my ex to make me out to be some kind of monster, his justification for destroying our family, that I’d just given up right there and then.

I think it hurt more that some of our mutual friends had gone over to their side and had even acted as if I were the one in the wrong for wanting to hang onto my marriage. After the divorce, Sam had cut us out of his life and had used the new well paying job to buy him and Kristen a new home while his daughter and I were still living in a rental that had seen better days.

It hurt more than I can say to hear about them living it up, about all the things he was doing for her, things he never did for me, and his daughter in almost fourteen years of marriage. Things she went out of her way to make sure I knew about. It was this kind of behavior that had led me to leave town as soon as I could afford to.

I snapped myself out of my depressing thoughts and wiped the wayward tears that had fallen as I reminisced. I have no reason for tears anymore because of Eric. I still find it hard to believe that we are where we are now. A chance meeting just a few short months ago had brought about so much change that I still sometimes find it hard to accept that this is my life.

I rolled out of bed and headed for the shower to wash the scent of my husband and sex off of me and get the day started. It’s taking some getting used to not having anything to do all day. But with a full household staff, which Eric insists on even though I told him I could take care of the house on my own, I find myself at loose ends most days with nothing more to do than go shopping, which my husband thinks is the cure-all for what ails me.