Betrayed By Love

Evelyn sat in the fine living room, her comportment regal but her countenance tempestuous. The weight of her father's legacy was heavy on her shoulders, and the reality of her control over Alex had never felt stronger. But behind the power was a boiling pot of seething anger and betrayal.

Alex entered, his face pinched, a mix of guilt and desperation etched on his features. He hovered in the doorway as though expecting permission to enter.

"You wanted to talk?" She said cautiously.

Evelyn didn't play games with niceties. "Sit."

Alex sat down into the leather chair across from her. The silence lay, thick and oppressive, until Evelyn eventually spoke.

"The board can't dismiss you without my approval. And as it stands, you're in my favor, Alex." She leaned forward, her gaze coldly keen. "So, talk, why should I let you keep your title? Why shouldn't I watch all that you built crumble?"

Alex's jaws clenched. "Evelyn, I realize I hurt you-"

"Hurt me?" Evelyn's voice grew louder, the anger at last breaking. "You shamed me! You betrayed our family, and ruined our name through the streets! And now you want me to save you?"

"Not just me. Our children. Our legacy. The business your dad built. Do you want to see it go up in flames over this?" Alex said sternly, but there was a hint of pleading under the bravado.

Evelyn's eyes flared with a mix of anger and something more-sorrow. "I'm not the one who gambled all this."

Alex took a deep breath, his voice softening. "I'm sorry, Evelyn. I am. I made mistakes. But I want to mend it. Whatever it takes."

"Whatever it takes?" she echoed, leaning back. "Then here are my requirements. One, I have absolute authority of our finances. Two, you apologize publicly, not just to me but to everyone. And three... you break things off with her. Now."

Alex's face blanched. "Evelyn-"

"Those are my requirements. Accept them or lose it all, Alex."

There was a crushing silence. Alex gazed at his wife, the woman he had thought he could keep at arm's length, and saw that she wasn't bluffing.

"Fine," he said, his voice strained through anger and defeat.

Evelyn didn't shift, her face a mask of tranquility, though she was a maelstrom of conflicting emotions inside.

As Alex left the room, his phone rang. A text from Maya: "I miss you. Come over."

His fingers hovered over the screen. His life was falling apart, and here he was, torn between the woman he was supposed to be protecting and the woman he couldn't help but love.

But Evelyn's threat resonated in his mind. He needed to make up his mind.

His fingers began to type: "Maya, I can't see you anymore."

But he didn't. Instead, he deleted the message, overcome by a desperation with no source. He needed to see her, to break up with her face to face. Or maybe he needed one last moment to feel something other than shame.

A few moments later, he was standing outside Maya's door. She opened it, her eyes red and puffy, and in that moment, his resolve broke down.

"Alex?" She spoke in a whisper, with pain.

"Maya." He stepped towards her, his arms instinctively wrapping around her. She elbowed into his hug, and he could sense her trembling. "I'm so sorry for everything."

Her fingers clamped onto him, desperate. "Everyone hates me now. My life is ruined, Alex. Because I loved you."

A tear slid down his cheek, shame eating away at his ribcage. "I did not want this to happen. I thought I could protect you."

"Don't go. Please," Maya's voice broke as she pleaded. "You're all I have left."

Alex's hands gripped her more tightly. He knew he should tell her gently that it was over. He knew he should just leave. But looking at her face, streaming with tears, all he could think to do was how desperately he wanted to relieve her suffering.

"I'm not leaving," he swore, his voice trembling with emotion. "I'll make you better. I promise."

Alex stayed where he was, his heart pounding as Maya's tear-stained face turned in his direction. His voice was low and insistent. "Maya, marry me."

She gasped. "What? Alex."

"I can fix it. I can make it work. I know this is insane now, but please. be my wife."

Maya's head had shaken in denial, her back sliding toward the door. "Alex, listen to you. Marry me? As what? The other wife who ruined your family? The home wrecker that everyone will hate?"

"They don't know you. They don't know the truth," he urged, one foot taking a step forward. "I love you. I won't let you suffer alone."

She released a pitch rise, a mix of anger and hurt. "Suffer? Think that wearing a wedding ring is going to make this all right? Something is going to be different? I'll be the second wife, in a house where I'm the enemy. Your children will despise me, Alex! Evelyn will despise me. I'm not going to go into your life and pretend everything is all right."

"Maya, please-"

"Please, what?" she shouted. "Be the wife who took a husband away from his wife? Be the stepmother to children who stare at me like I'm a monster?"

Alex's shoulders dropped, but he gripped her. "We'll make it through. I'll fight for you. I'll get them to see."

Maya's laugh was frigid. "Fight for me? You couldn't even fight for me last time. You just stood there. You watched."

"I was wrong. I didn't know how to." His voice broke, the guilt clawing at him. "Maya, I can't lose you."

Her eyes softened for a moment, but the fear and uncertainty did not go away. "This. this is a mess, Alex. And you're expecting me to go in even deeper."

"It won't be like that. I swear."

"Promises don't count now." Maya's voice trembled. "I need space. I need to think."

Alex retreated a step, his heart breaking with every word. "I understand. But please. don't shut me out. I love you, Maya."

She put her back to him, tears welling in her eyes once more. "Sometimes love isn't enough."

Alex stood at the opening of the wide double doors of his mansion, his jaw set. He didn't even think of knocking; he walked right in. Evelyn reclined on the sofa in the living room, her eyes cold and calculating as she turned to him.

"What then, Alex?" she demanded, her voice thick with contempt.

"I can't do this, Evelyn," Alex stated. "I can't lose Maya. If the price of keeping my job here is sacrificing her, then I don't want to keep it. I'll resign."

For a moment, Evelyn's composure broke down. "You'd give up everything? Your job, your reputation."

"Yes," he interrupted. "For a title means nothing to me if I have to give up everything that matters."

Evelyn's hands trembled. This was not supposed to occur. If he left the firm, if he pursued Maya... then the board of directors would call for his resignation, and the scandal would mushroom. The gossip about her failed marriage would turn into a hurricane.

"Seriously?" She shook in her voice. "You'd destroy all that we've built, all that my father put in your care, for her?"

"Everything your father gave me?" Alex laughed bitterly. "That's exactly it, Evelyn. It was never ours. It was always a leash. And I'm tired of pretending."

A cold silence settled between them. Evelyn felt her world cracking. If she pushed him away, he would choose Maya, and then the whispers, the pitying looks, the truth about Jason's paternity... it could all come out.

"You have no idea what you're doing, Alex," she gasped.

"No, I do finally. I'm done living a lie."

Evelyn stared at him, horror clawing its way through her. Divorce would question things, ask questions... and the secret that she had held for so long could be exposed. The secret is that Jason wasn't his son.

She couldn't let this happen.

"Fine," she sighed, stifling her pride. "You want to keep your mistress? Go on. But we do this my way. Publicly, you're still my husband. You retain the CEO chair. We ride out this scandal together. You play with your. Maya. in private, and this family stays intact."

Alex's jaw clenched. "This is not a marriage, Evelyn."

"It never was," she flashed back. "But you're not going to destroy my life because you fell in love with somebody else."

Alex turned on her, his anger and remorse seething in his breast, but he said no more than this, "I don't want to keep Maya as a mistress, Evelyn. I want to make her my wife." Alex's words cut the air like a knife.

Evelyn's face fell at the power of his words.