He Called Me the Other Woman,So I Walked Away

Your mother was the other woman. So what does that make you?

Adam Sanchez slid the custom ring onto my finger, then asked me that out of nowhere.

I stared at him, stunned. Adam, what are you talking about?

It makes you the other woman too, babe.

I didn't understand. His expression was dead serious. "I want you to become my secret lover."

"There's a new secretary at the company. She's sharp, she's beautiful, and I want to marry her."

"Then what am I?"

He arranged his face into something resembling regret. "Your mother knew she was a mistress and chose to be one anyway. Why can't you?"

It took me a long time to speak. "My mother is my mother. I'm me. I won't be anyone's mistress."

"Is that so?"

He let out a mocking laugh. "Then we're done."

"Fine. Done is done." I had sworn to myself a long time ago that I would never be the other woman. Not in this lifetime.

But Adam didn't know that.

He reached over and stroked my hair, gentle as ever. "Don't be silly. Stop throwing a fit. Without me, how would you even survive?"

"Your mother was cyberbullied until she killed herself. Your father won't even acknowledge you. I'm the only reason nobody dares laugh at you."

I let out a quiet laugh. Who said he was the only reason nobody dared laugh at me?

I had an aunt. Aunt Caroline. Her business had grown enormous, and overseas, she answered to no one.

Last week she'd tracked me down and asked if I wanted to go abroad with her.

I'd said no because I couldn't bear to leave Adam.

Now...

I pulled out my phone and sent Aunt Caroline a message.

Auntie, I've made up my mind. I'll go with you.

She replied instantly: Wonderful. I'll send a private jet for you in three days.

It should have been good news. But the tears slid down my face before I could stop them.

My chest ached, a sharp, venomous sting, like something poisonous had sunk its teeth in.

I had been planning to tell Adam about Aunt Caroline as a surprise.

There was no point now.

Adam saw me crying and assumed I couldn't bear to lose him. He reached over and wiped my tears with his thumb. "See? The second I mention breaking up, you're in tears. If I ever actually left you, you'd probably fall apart completely."

"Throwing tantrums with me won't get you anywhere. The only way you don't end up alone again is if you keep doing as I say."

I sniffled and said nothing.

Adam took my silence as surrender. He turned the key in the ignition, then stopped halfway.

"Oh, right. Starting today, when you ride in my car, you sit in the back. She told me the passenger seat is hers and hers alone from now on. I gave her my word, and I'm not going to break it."

He turned to look at me. "You know me. I've always been a man of my word. I promised to take care of you for the rest of your life, and even though I'm marrying someone else, I'll still take care of you."

A smile spread across his face. "You probably don't know this yet, but in three days, she and I are going to register our marriage. I had to beg her for ages before she finally agreed. I can't afford to upset her again. She's not easy to coax like you are. She says she's a red rose, and if you love the flower, you have to accept the thorns."

Adam was lost in his sweetness with her. But I felt as though those thorns had pierced me instead. A sharp, stinging pain shot through my palm.

I looked down. When I'd been unbuckling my seatbelt, my hand had caught on an earring left on the seat. Its pointed back had broken the skin.

I opened my palm. Blood was already pooling.

Adam saw it too. His voice spiked. "How could you be so careless?"

For a split second I thought he was worried about me. I was about to say it was nothing, that this tiny pain was less than a fraction of what I felt inside.

Then his next words sent me plummeting.

"That's her earring. She's a germaphobe. If she finds out her favorite earring got stained with your blood, she'll be furious."

So my blood was dirty to him. The pain in my hand throbbed up into my skull, making the world tilt. I stared at him, blank-faced, for what felt like forever before something that might have been guilt flickered across his expression.

He lowered his gaze. "I'll let it slide this time. I'll cover for you. But don't touch her things again."

Then he pulled out a sanitizing wipe and began cleaning the earring. Carefully. Methodically.

My palm was still bleeding. I could feel it trickling down to my thigh now, warm and steady, but I sat there like a fool. I couldn't form words. I couldn't make my hands move to stop it.

I just sat there. Perfectly still.

When he finished wiping it down, he wrapped the earring in a clean tissue, placed it gently in the glove compartment, and only then turned to look at me.

"What are you sitting there for? I told you to move to the back seat. Did you not hear me?"

Something in my brain finally reconnected.

"Don't bother. I'll get a cab."

"Fine," Adam said. "I have a company gala tonight anyway. I need to take her to pick out a gown. Get yourself home."

He let me out of the car and hit the gas, tearing off into the rain without a backward glance.

It was pouring. An absolute downpour.

He didn't even toss me an umbrella.

I made it to the bus stop soaked through to the bone. Every person waiting there looked at me like I was out of my mind.

And maybe I was. Because even now, even after all of that, my stupid brain kept replaying every kind thing Adam Sanchez had ever done for me.

The truth about my mother came out the year I turned eighteen. She was the other woman.

She'd driven the man's wife to suicide, along with the unborn child the wife was carrying. My mother thought that would clear her path. She thought she'd finally take the wife's place. But after his family was gone, the man woke up. He cut my mother off completely.

She tried to use me as leverage. He didn't flinch.

In the end, my mother had no choice but to raise me alone.

The reason it all resurfaced eighteen years later was because the man posted a public confession online.

People condemned him, and in the process, they dug up my mother's identity too.

Once my mother was exposed, it didn't take long for them to find me.

Even after the cyberbullying drove my mother to jump from a building, the women who'd been wronged by mistresses like her still didn't let me go.

They were everywhere. Inside school and out.

The classmates were milder about it. They'd whisper and point when I walked by, saying women like my mother deserved to die.

The women outside the school gates were far worse. Every day a crowd of them waited for me with rotten eggs and spoiled vegetables.

"A mistress's daughter will grow up to be a mistress herself," they'd say.

"Look at that face. She's even more shameless than her mother."

I knew my mother was guilty. I knew I wasn't innocent either. So I never fought back. I let them take it out on me.

That went on for the better part of a year. And then Adam Sanchez stepped in and saved me.

"Who says a mistress's daughter is destined to become one herself?"

He grabbed one of the women by the arm and asked, "What does your daughter do for a living?"

The woman puffed up with pride. "My daughter's an accountant at a big firm."

Adam turned to her. "And what about you, ma'am?"

The woman stammered, unable to answer. Another woman answered for her. "Her? She cooks meals at a construction site."

Adam smiled. "See? Your daughter turned out nothing like you."

After that, fewer and fewer of them came looking for trouble.

My life slowly found its footing again. And then Adam began pursuing me in earnest.

He held an umbrella over me in the rain. He shielded me from the sun when it was bright.

Every night after study hall, he walked me back to my dorm without being asked.

In the cafeteria, whenever he caught classmates dumping leftover soup and scraps onto my seat out of spite,

he'd step in. "Which one of you got to choose your parents before you were born?"

The class fell silent.

Adam continued, "Then let me ask you this. Can any of you guarantee that every single one of your parents and ancestors was a saint?"

One by one, they lowered their heads in shame. I was won over too, by that razor-sharp sense of justice and the silver tongue that delivered it.

I said yes when he asked me to be his girlfriend.

Honestly, before I met him, dating had never crossed my mind. My mother's scandal had left deep scars, and I carried that darkness everywhere I went.

He was the light that found me there, warming every shadow until it was gone.

And now here I stood, drenched in a downpour, unable to make sense of any of it.

How could someone that good become the man standing in front of me now?

My vision went black. I hit the ground.

When I woke, it was already night. I was lying in a hospital bed with an IV needle taped to the back of my hand, fluid dripping steadily into my veins.

The doctor said, "You've been under too much emotional stress. You need to stay calm and rest."

I said, "Okay."

The word barely left my mouth before my phone rang.

It was Adam. I hesitated, then hesitated again, and still picked up.

"Valerie's gown got dirty. Go get that Starlit Night dress I ordered for you and bring it over. She needs a change."

So her name is Valerie. I repeated it silently to myself.

Starlit Night. Adam had commissioned a designer to tailor that gown to my exact measurements. It was meant for the party on our wedding night.

He used to refuse to let anyone so much as touch it. He said even a fingerprint would taint what it stood for.

Now he was tossing it to someone else like it was nothing.

Maybe it really was nothing anymore.

Still...

"Adam, I'm on an IV right now."

"You're perfectly fine. What do you need an IV for? Don't you dare throw a tantrum right now, or I swear you'll regret it."

Fine. One last thing. Consider it repayment for the day you saved me.

I didn't wait for the drip to finish. I asked the nurse to pull the needle, walked back out into the storm, took a cab home, grabbed the gown, and delivered it to him without stopping to catch my breath.

Adam said, "Valerie's waiting for you at the entrance. She wants to say thank you. Be gracious about it."

I gave a quiet "mm" and hung up.

But what Valerie gave me wasn't a thank-you. It was a slap across the face.

I never saw it coming. My head snapped sideways, my body spinning half a turn, and the gown slipped from my hands onto the ground.

Valerie burst into tears instantly, her voice trembling with wounded innocence. "I told you, if you didn't want to bring it, you could've just said so. Why did you have to throw the dress on the ground?"

I've never been good at reading between the lines. I had no idea what she was playing at.

But Adam seemed to understand perfectly. He strode out of the hotel in seconds.

Valerie turned on him immediately. "Adam, is this what you meant when you said she'd behave? That she wouldn't give me trouble?"

Adam glanced at the gown crumpled on the ground, and just like that, he'd made up his mind.

Another slap landed on my face. "I've spoiled you rotten, haven't I? Apologize to Valerie. Now."

I laughed. The kind of laugh that comes when fury burns past its own limit. "Adam, do you even hear yourself? Did you bother to ask where the handprint on my left cheek came from?"

Valerie didn't even try to hide it. She tugged at Adam's sleeve, blinking up at him. "I hit her. Are you going to be mad at me, Adam? I just lost my temper when she threw the dress on the ground. I couldn't help myself."

"You know how I am. I've always had a bad temper."

Adam pulled her against him by the waist. "I'm not mad. She deserved it."

Valerie flashed me a triumphant little smile.

I smiled too. Tears spilled down my cheeks, but I smiled. I'm the fool here.

But even a fool only had to endure three more days of this. Three days, and I would vanish from their world for good.

Adam, I hope you don't end up the same way as the man who ruined my mother.

Eighteen years later, she'd still be repenting online for what she did that night.

"I'm sorry, Valerie. I shouldn't have thrown your gown on the floor."

But Valerie had no intention of letting me off that easily. "An apology should look like an apology. Otherwise, I'll think you're not sincere."

"Then what would you have me do?"

"Tell everyone here that you wanted to be Adam Sanchez's mistress. That you're just as slutty as your mother. Oh wait, no. You're worse than your mother."

"I don't want to be anyone's mistress. Adam and I are done."

I even pulled off the ring right in front of her. The one I'd planned to wear at our wedding.

"Take it back. We're finished."

Adam froze mid-step. He didn't reach for it. The ring hit the floor.

"I say you wanted it, so you wanted it."

Valerie grabbed a fistful of my hair and dragged me into the hotel banquet hall.

"Everyone, come look! Here's a woman who was begging to be someone's mistress!"

Someone asked, "Isn't that Adam Sanchez's girlfriend?"

"Not anymore." Adam's voice was flat. "My girlfriend is Valerie Herring. The new secretary at my company."

"Ah, that explains it." Knowing laughter rippled through the crowd.

A woman stepped forward. "I always said a mistress's daughter would grow up to be a mistress too. And to think, Adam, you used to defend her."

Valerie chimed in. "Oh, she even slapped herself across the face twice, trying to get his sympathy."

"But our Adam is a man of principle. He'd never fall for that kind of cheap seduction."

As she said this, Valerie leaned into Adam's chest.

I saw the way his expression twisted, something deeply uncomfortable passing across his face. But his mouth still moved in agreement. "Whatever you say, babe."

The words cut into me again. I opened my mouth to explain, but before I could get a single syllable out, someone threw a glass of champagne straight at my face. "You're a disgrace to women everywhere. Are there no single men left? You had to go after someone who's taken?"

The alcohol hit my open mouth. I choked, gasping, unable to speak, coughing so violently my ribs ached.

Then someone else followed suit, splashing another glass across my face.

"Homewreckers deserve to die."

After that it was one glass after another. Some drenched my chest. Some poured over the top of my head.

Someone grabbed my jaw, pried my mouth open, and kept pouring liquor down my throat.

I was the one being humiliated, branded a mistress, brutalized in front of everyone. And Valerie, the real other woman, was nestled in Adam's arms, laughing like she'd never been happier.

I couldn't even cry out that I was innocent before they shoved me to the ground. When the drinks ran out, they used their fists. Their shoes.

There it was. The thing I'd feared most had finally come.

My mother had lived through this exact nightmare before she died. The mob, the humiliation, the hotel. In the end, the shame was too much for her. She climbed to the rooftop and jumped.

That was why I'd broken things off with Adam so decisively. Because I was terrified this day would come.

And it came anyway, dressed up as justice, delivered through a lie.

The shadows Adam had once chased away gathered again, darker and thicker than before, closing over me. There was no light left in my world.

The light that had once shone on me was shining on someone else now.

I saw it. Adam was smiling at Valerie. Smiling so wide his eyes glistened with tears.

How happy he must have been.

Adam Sanchez. Why was the person who pulled me out of hell the same person who threw me back in?

Something snapped. I tore free from the crowd like a woman possessed, stumbled into the elevator the way my mother once had, and rode it all the way to the hotel rooftop.

Maybe because he remembered my mother too, Adam came running after me, his face white with panic, screaming, "Rosie, don't!"

But I didn't follow my mother off the edge.

I went up. One rung at a time, I climbed the ladder hanging from the helicopter above.