Chapter 1
When people ask me what marriage feels like, I say it feels like Heaven.
Marriage makes you feel content and at peace, no matter what your life is like, especially with the man or woman you love the most.
No matter where the wedding takes place, or how long I have to wait for us to get married, and no matter how difficult the challenges we face before the wedding, it will always feel like I’m in Heaven. A kind of Heaven I never want to let go of.
That’s exactly how I felt when I married Lester.
When he asked me to marry him, it suddenly felt like he brought Heaven with him so I could experience happiness by his side. That’s how happy I was, knowing we were on the same page.
At this age, I tell myself that I need to hurry in other aspects of my life because I’m not getting any younger. With every passing day, my life is slowly shortening... In short, I’m getting older.
“It would be better if we got married in California.”
He insisted that we get married in California, even though we could have easily gotten married in the Philippines since we were both single at the time.
“Okay, wherever you’re happy, that’s where I’ll be too.”
But I was too innocent to suspect his hidden agenda.
Even though I was already thirty-four when I married him, I remained foolish in love, especially in my love for him. I was too naive to care about anything else. All I knew was that I wanted to marry him as quickly as possible.
I just wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, believing that he also wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I knew many people opposed our marriage, saying he was too young for me and that I was too old for wanting someone younger.
He was only twenty-five. But does age really matter when it comes to love? What if I’m older and he’s younger? I just couldn’t understand why they had to oppose us back then.
The only important thing is that we love each other, right?
They told me that eventually Lester would look for someone younger and fresher than me. They even said that maybe Lester was only after my money because I was rich while he was just an ordinary employee at a construction company when we met.
I was too dumb to listen to anyone else’s opinion except his.
“I, Yanna Cassandra Ford, take you, Lance Lester Madrid, to be my husband. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. In the presence of God, I make this vow.”
My tears kept flowing as I remembered how Lester looked at me while standing in front of me, smiling as if he couldn’t hide the joy in his heart.
He stared at me like I was the most beautiful gift he had ever received in his entire life, like I was a treasure he needed to protect.
I felt the same way about him, and I won’t deny it. He was the happiest thing that ever happened to me. Many people opposed our marriage, but I didn’t let it affect me because I loved him that much.
For the rest of my life, Lester would be the only one I would love.
Lester accepted me despite my age, my imperfections, and how flawed I was. It was the best day of my life, and it always would be.
But that was just how I thought it was.
“Ohhh, yes, Lester... you’re so good, ah, I love the way you swirl your tongue...”
Now, the memory of our marriage makes me smile and feel an incurable, overwhelming pain at the same time.
I never thought that our fucking marriage would be both the best and the worst part of my life, especially at this moment. That marriage brought me to heaven only to drop me straight into hell.
I suddenly felt a sharp sting in my chest. It was like being stabbed repeatedly with a knife, but even that description feels too shallow for what I’m honestly feeling right now. I can’t explain how painful it is to see my beloved husband making out with someone else.
I felt like my entire world was collapsing as I watched my husband kneeling, his face buried between a woman’s thighs. The woman he was pleasuring was casually sitting on my husband’s desk with her legs spread wide, giving him easy access to pleasure her.
It was a side view from where I stood, so I couldn’t immediately see her face.
She was leaning on her elbows on the brown desk, not knowing where to turn her head because she couldn’t handle the pleasure Lester was giving her with his tongue and aggressive sucking on her pussy.
How did I know? I could clearly hear the obscene sounds they were making from where I was standing.
We had been married for three years. I thought it would last forever, but it didn’t.
Why was I so blinded by love for him that it never crossed my mind that he was still young and would surely look for another woman who was younger and better at pleasing him than me? Why didn’t I believe what other people told me before we got married—that he might have other motives?
I trusted him too much, and that trust shattered me into pieces.
This was the first time I had ever seen him this excited during foreplay. Maybe he really loves adventurous sex after all. I used to ask him to guide me because I was naïve about it, but he never wanted to teach me anything. He didn’t even want to have sex with me.
I thought he was just tired, so I tried to understand him.
That’s why even after several months of not being intimate, he didn’t seem to care. It turned out he was busy with someone else.
He didn’t want to try adventurous sex with me, but here he was doing it with her... and as I thought about that, I realized she looked familiar.
Her silky black hair reaching down to her waist, snow-white complexion, and her almost perfect body.
“Francine?”
Shock and fear were evident in my voice when I realized it was really Francine. Only then did I fully see her face, and I almost froze where I stood.
It was Francine.
Francine, whom I thought was my friend.
Francine, who used to be my employee, but because I trusted her completely, I promoted her to become Lester’s secretary in the company I helped him build.
Francine, whom I thought was innocent and harmless because talking to her always lightened my mood.
Francine... the woman my husband was currently devouring.
So much information flooded my mind that I didn’t know whether to lose control and kill them both or just stay rooted in place. Even if I wanted to move, my feet wouldn’t obey me.
I didn’t even have the strength to let go of the black forest cake I had bought for him to celebrate his new project... a project I had almost single-handedly managed.
The only thing I could do was grip the cake box tightly, as if it was the only thing keeping me sane.
“Yanna?” Lester immediately stopped what he was doing when he heard my voice.
I saw his entire face turn pale when he saw me standing in front of them, but my attention wasn’t on that. My focus was on his lips, which were still wet and glistening with Francine’s juices.
I felt like I wanted the ground to swallow me because even though I desperately wanted to approach them, my feet felt nailed to the floor.
“Continue, Lester. Don’t mind your wife, let her enjoy the live show,” Francine said in a seductive tone as she looked at me. “You wouldn’t mind the live show, right? You can touch yourself if you want. We won’t mind.”
She even winked at me after saying that, as if she didn’t feel even the slightest bit of guilt.
Francine looked at me mockingly before grabbing both sides of Lester’s head and guiding it back to her pussy. She spread her legs even wider, causing my husband to smile broadly, then wrapped her thighs around his head.
They did it as if I wasn’t even there in front of them... as if I were just a ghost they couldn’t see, or merely an audience watching their lewd performance.
That was when my chest tightened painfully and the heat in my blood slowly rose to my head.
I knew I was in Madrid Constructions and that I had no allies here because everyone’s loyalty was to Lester, but I couldn’t stop myself from approaching them even though they were humiliating me right to my face.
Right to my face.
“Screw you, Francine!”
That gave me the strength to throw the cake I was holding to the side of the office, as if throwing away the last of my patience with it. When I reached them, I kicked Lester hard in his manhood before going back to Francine.
I knew Lester would try to stop me, so I disabled him first so he couldn’t move.
I grabbed Francine’s hair with all my strength and pulled it as if I wanted to rip every strand out... as if doing so would remove the pain in my heart.
She immediately pulled my hair back, which hurt my scalp, but I no longer cared. I might look pathetic right now, but that wasn’t what was running through my mind.
What mattered to me was hurting her badly enough to ease the pain I was feeling.
