Late afternoon, when she could no longer stand the hunger, June made her way down, thinking she was home by herself. Thank God. Facing Chad with the knowledge about the night wasn't something she was ready to deal with yet.

When she went about getting herself an instant cup noodle from the cupboard in the laundry, she heard a woman humming in Chad's office.

June opened the door, thinking Chad had left the radio on or something. Instead, she spotted a tiny woman sitting in his chair, her ballerina feet up on the table, her pixie blonde hair visible over the rim of the journal she was reading. The same journal Chad wrote in often and guarded with his life when she was around.

"Who are you?" she asked, unable to help herself. She'd never seen this woman before, and it was a fair question. What the hell was this woman doing in Chad's writing space, reading his current work as if she owned the place, more or less?

The woman calmly looked up from the journal and smiled. "Hi, I'm Zach's wife, and you are?" she asked, getting up from the chair with the most inquisitive look on her face, scanning June from head to her toes like one looks on at a piece of art, or a fly they are considering the fate of.

Who is Zach? June wondered before it occurred to her that Zachary Eve was what the woman meant. "You're his wife?" she asked suspiciously, trying to spot a wedding ring on the woman's tiny fingers. She knew for sure Chad didn't have one, never did, not even the hint of a band with a pale ring around his skin. 

The woman nodded cheerfully. "I get that a lot." She laughed, approaching June in one of Chad's regular sweater, the light blue one that helped bring out his playful eyes. June didn't like it on the woman, not one bit. "I don't stay with him very much because my work requires me to travel a lot. It's a more long-distance relationship nowadays, honestly. Sometimes I think he forgets he's married. But whenever I'm in town, we try to rekindle things. You know how it is?"

June wasn't sure how to react to the half-naked woman in Chad's office, claiming him for her own. It wasn't the first time she'd bumped into one of Chad's lady friends, and it may not be the last either, she thought ruefully. What did she know about how rich-and-famous lived? Nada. Nothing. Maybe this was normal, their normal.

"Well, he's not home," she blurted, hearing her stomach grumble from the almost forgotten hunger. She headed back to the kitchen, not really wanting to deal with Chad's drama.

Cassie followed behind. "And you are?"

June popped the cup of noodles into the microwave and turned in on. "June. I'm a flatmate," the word tastes like chalk on her tongue.

"You'll kill yourself that way." Cassie walked around and turned the microwave off to June's surprise. "Why don't you sit down and I'll whip up something more edible for the two of us and we can get to know each other a bit."

June obliged. She wasn't about to pass up a cooked meal, even if the woman was slightly odd and way too friendly. "Sure, what do you want to talk about?"

Cassie smiled as she easily found her way around the kitchen. Her familiarity with it was wonderful to watch a master in her domain. Maybe the woman was right, Chad was married, and he pretended to live as a bachelor when she wasn't around.

"What do you do for work?" June asked in awe.

"I'm a chef, or I used to be. Now I help failing restaurants refit and redesign their kitchens, so they are more in line with current trends." She held up an onion towards June. "You're not allergic to anything, are you?"

June shook her head, "I don't think so, except lactose, maybe. I love milk, but I can't drink too much of it."

"Good." She brought out the chopping boards and knives and expertly set about peeling and chopping vegetables she'd been able to find in the fridge. "Get looked at. Lactose intolerance is common with your people—except maybe the Mongolians. I'm sorry. I'm assuming you're Asian." She waved at June's eyes, which were Asian, given the fact that she was half-Asian.

"Ah, my dad is—was, Japanese." She cleared her throat, fighting the lump that was threatening to clamp it. She forced a tight-lipped smile.

"You have beautiful features," Cassie said, returning June's tight-lipped smile with one of her own, deftly chopping the ingredients. She eyed the younger woman from the corner of her eyes every so often, as subtly as she could. "So, where did Chad find you, June?"

"I'm sorry, find me?" June glared in shock. Had Chad told her the one thing she never wanted another soul to find out, that she was homeless, and he'd brought home one day out of pity?

"How did you two meet? I mean, not that I'd put it past Zach to find another lady friend when I'm not here. We're open like that."

June frantically shook her head. "Oh no, no, it's nothing like that. He and I are friends, just friends. In fact, I'm dating someone else and I haven't told him yet," which was an utter lie, but the woman didn't know that.

Cassie considered June for a moment. "So you've never slept with him?" she asked, casually brandishing the knife as if it was an extension of her hand. "Not once? You live with Zach in the same house, and still nothing?"

June shook her head, slightly terrified that a photo of her would splash the week's Sydney Morning Herald as the tragic tale of a lover's triangle gone wrong: Beautiful but deranged wife of the famous romance author, Zachary Eve, mistakenly kills his ward in a fit of rage and jealousy.

She stood from the chair slowly as she spoke. "No. I respect Chad... Zach, and I'm not that kind of girl, honestly. Why did he say something?"

Cassie burst out laughing as the colour from June's face drained. "Relax, hun. I'm teasing you. If you were sleeping with my husband, I think I would know."

She returned to chopping and soon was whisking eggs into a bowl. "So? How did you meet him?"

"Well," June began, a little shaken, but sat back down on the stool. "Chad was friends with my parents it seems and when they passed away last year, he took me in, because I have no other family here."

"Here?"

"I wasn't born in Australia, we came here when I was five or six, I think." June smiled at the memory of her parents. She missed them a lot, but this was the first time she felt comfortable enough to talk about them without wanting to punch a wall. "Chad didn't tell you about me? Staying with him?" She eyed the woman curiously.

Cassie shrugged it off with a dismissive laugh. "You'd think we are married just in my head. Fame's done something to him. We're more strangers these days than lovers."

June nodded, watching the woman toss a perfect omelette on the frying pan. As the folded eggy goodness flew in the air and landed on the pan, her stomach grumbled loudly. It made Cassie laugh.

Cassie dropped the omelette on a large plate between them and passed June a fork from the drawer. She started digging into the other half herself. "He'd mentioned in passing that he had company at home. I never thought to ask who." She viciously cut a piece of omelette and shoved it in her mouth. The action made the small hairs on the back of June's neck stand up, but she chalked it up to the sound of the fork against the china.

She'd probably feel the same way the woman was feeling if Chad had been her husband, and had been hiding things from her, things like, a strange woman living with him, claiming to be his flatmate, and only his flatmate.

"Sorry, I didn't even catch your name." June sheepishly bit into her first piece and moaned. "Oh my God, this is so good."

Cassie smiled in satisfaction and watched June eat another bite. "I'm Cassie. It's actually Cassandra, but Za... Chad hated it, so Cassie it is."

"How did you two meet?" June asked, ignoring the vibrating phone in her pocket. It was probably Ben, the guy she suddenly decided would be the fall guy if dating would be a topic again.

"It's a long story."

"I have time."

Cassie smiled, ear to ear. "Sure, let's grab one of Chad's finest wines and have ourselves a girl talk on the couch. I haven't had one in a long while and I believe I need one."

"Sounds great." June dug into another bite of food, too lost in its deliciousness to see Cassie's frosty look. As if June was a mere bug, she wanted to squash.

"Great!"

♡

On the couch, drinking one of Chad's vintage wines, Cassie began. "It was almost ten years ago. I was standing in line to grab an autograph—one of his earlier novels. Back then he was just starting to get big. Anyway, there I was, holding a copy of his, Her Charming Man, when I laid eyes on him, and I was a goner. You know, the whole love at first sight kind of thing." And so Cassie relayed their romance to June until they polished the wine, the dirty dishes lay in the sink and she spied an incoming message on June's phone as it sat on the coffee table. A message from Chad saying he was heading back and asked if June wanted him to bring anything?

"Oh, gosh, look at the time." Cassie stood up, eager to leave. She rushed around grabbing her belongings from the bedroom or the study and stuffed it into a duffel bag. She even gave June a quick peck on the cheeks goodbye.

"You're going?"

"I can't wait any longer for him to get home or I'll miss my flight back. I have a huge settlement tomorrow morning that I must get back tonight." She reached for the door. "Since it was my day off, I thought I would surprise him today, but unfortunately he never made it back in time. My flight leaves in a couple of hours."

"He'll be here soon though," June offered, looking at the message on her phone.

Cassie beamed up at June. "You're sweet, my friend, but this is how our life is. Why do you think he writes all those romances?" she asked teasingly as she stepped out the door. "Because we don't get enough time together. Ciao Bella, see you next time."

June nodded and waved goodbye as the woman got into her small Echo and drove off into the night. "Rich people!" she muttered, closing the door, baffled, but not entirely surprised. "And here I thought he was semi-normal." She made her way up to her room, talking to herself. "And he's married? What the hell?"

June collapsed onto her bed, exhausted and very much over her embarrassment. She was staring at the ceiling, at the shadows dancing on it, when Chad pulled into the driveway.

"I need to move out," she rambled. The thought had been bugging her since she met the wife. The man had a wife! And to think, hours earlier, she hadn't known how to feel. Happy that he'd 'seen' her last night and still respected her enough not to do anything she'd regret in the morning? Or sad that he had and yet they'd ended up where they'd always been, friends and in separate rooms?

"June?" came a soft knock on her door. "Can we talk about this morning?" Chad stood outside the door. She, however, couldn't bring herself to invite the man in. He was married. It changed things, a lot of things, and pointedly how she was not to feel about him.

She remained quiet and waited until she could hear his footsteps retreat. "Damn you, Chad Gilligan!" she whimpered into her pillow, a drop of tear gliding down her cheeks. "Why do you have to be married too?"

That night, after many months, she cried herself to sleep over another man who'd stolen her heart, and he too was married.

(Image by StockSnap on Pixabay)