Instead of waking up to the sight of my cheating, lying bastard of a husband, I awoke to find his side of the bed empty and the sound of the shower running.

Even in my half-asleep-dazed state, I forced myself into a sitting position as this was the perfect time to finally get some answers. More specifically, to find out just how long this charade with Roxy had been going on.

I knew that cheating was cheating and it didn't change that fact, but if it were just a one-time thing, perhaps what we had was worth fighting for. Perhaps we could be saved.

The moment I had typed in his pin which he was stupid enough to keep the same despite having so much to hide – though I had never looked or even felt the need to look through his phone like this – I visibly hesitated. I couldn't help but chew on my bottom lip; a nasty habit whenever I was unsure of something.

If I looked through his phone now, regardless of what I saw, there would be no coming back. I wouldn't be able to make excuses for him. He certainly wouldn't be able to talk his way through it whenever I did feel ready to confront him. This was a big step to take because what I would see on his phone now, I wouldn't be able to unsee.

Of course, that also required some level of truth and confession from me, as well.

Pushing the sudden thought of Randy from my mind, I forced myself to proceed before I chickened out as right now, it felt like someone was doing somersaults in my stomach with how nervous I was feeling; scared of all the things I would discover about Sung that he had purposely kept from me. For how long? I was about to find out.

Unfortunately, not that I was all that surprised, the last text message was from Roxy. It was a good morning text followed by a provocative picture of her in bed, clearly naked under the sheets.

Clenching my jaw at the obvious pointer to the fact that this was only a one-time thing, a slip up on his part, I forced myself to continue scrolling up.

Scrolling further up, I was also not surprised to find that they had been texting yesterday as well. However, I was appalled to find him texting her at certain points through dinner as well as late last night, even after he had denied me sex as he was too tired. Yet somehow he wasn't too tired to text back his mistress after I had fallen asleep.

I don't understand why you have to take her out to dinner

And to Nobu, no less

You know that's our place

Our place? I couldn't help but think. When did my favourite restaurant turn into their place? When did they even get a place? Probably around the same time they started sneaking around together behind my back.

We've spoken about this before

I'm still married to Valentina and she's been away for two weeks

I'm allowed to be excited about my wife coming home

Valentina? Sung only called me that when we were arguing, having opted to dub me as his baby very early on in our relationship. That, or Val at the very least as everyone else called me. It was hardly ever Valentina so when did he start calling me that?

And what about me?

Just because I went out to dinner with her doesn't mean that I don't love you

We've been over this, Rox, babe

I love you and you have nothing to worry about

I just can't divorce Valentina

I still don't understand that rationale

Why can't you just give her a divorce and be done with it?

At least we wouldn't have to sneak around some more

Seeing as Sung hadn't bothered replying to that message, I had no idea what his response would be. All this time, I had thought that we, as well as our relationship, were solid but clearly not.

For whatever reason, he felt compelled to stay married to me even though he claimed to be in love with Roxy. Yet only yesterday he had said those same exact words to me.

Gulping in an attempt to bottle my emotions, I couldn't help but scroll further up, allowing my curiosity to get the best of me.

Other than a tasteless few nudes that they sent each other, they were quite a few raunchy texts. Most of them made me feel sick to the stomach as this was not the Sung that I had come to know and love. While I had nothing against the occasional dirty talk – but rather enjoyed it at times, especially during sex – Sung had never been a fan of it.

In fact, we mostly had vanilla sex and only ever indulged in anything spicier than that after a lot of convincing on my end but it appeared that with Roxy, he was a whole new man.

Why couldn't he be that man with me? Why did he feel the need to hide that part of him from me? Especially when he knew for a fact that I would have been very accepting?

Yet clearly, I was not capable of bringing out that side of him, or perhaps, it was the thrill of having to sneak around with her. Either way, from all of these messages that I was looking at, I couldn't help but wonder if we would be able to bounce back from this.

Would I ever be able to look at him the same after these messages? After he had been cheating on me for over a year? Would he be a hypocrite and blow up at me for cheating on him the once?

When had we headed down this path because the last time I had checked, the both of us were perfectly happy? It was evident now that I was delusional.

A person happy with their marriage didn't cheat.

While a part of me had wanted to believe that it was only a one-time thing, I had very quickly learnt that, that was far from the truth as I continued to scroll up. When my finger started to cramp from so much movement, I was absolutely horrified to find that even in February, they had been going strong.

Specifically, Valentines weekend.

I remember planning a romantic staycation at home where we would detach ourselves from work, all responsibilities, from everything and just enjoy the two of us. Sung had seemed somewhat excited about it at first, but then he was forced to pull out last minute due to needing to go away for some unforeseen business which Frank couldn't attend to.

Like the naïve little wife that I was, I had believed my husband but snooping through his phone now, it was obvious that what he had convinced me was nothing more than a business trip he didn't even want to be on and couldn't get out of, was actually a romantic Valentines weekend away with Roxy.

While I had been miserable and alone, feeling bad that he had to miss out on everything because of work, he was having the time of his life fucking a woman that was very obviously not his wife.

Seeing as it was late September now, that meant that Sung had been cheating on me for over seven months now, especially since I sincerely doubted that the first time that they had done the nasty had been on a romantic getaway. Surely, they had built some sort of relationship together before they decided to go away together.

Thinking of it like that right now, I couldn't bring myself to feel bad for picking up Randy at a bar and getting a room with him for the night. While I was still disgusted with myself for doing such a thing to him, for betraying the sanctity of our marriage vows, it appeared that moment with Randy could barely be considered even an injustice against all that Sung had been doing behind my back.

But I also knew that it didn't quite work that way.

I knew I was probably doing more harm than good, but I couldn't help myself as I reached for my phone and started taking pictures of a few particular messages, both for my own personal use and for future proof in case he got nervous and decided to delete it all.

While I didn't know Sung to be sneaky like that, it now appeared that I didn't know as well as I thought I did.

Just as I had snapped the last and most despicable sext between my husband and his mistress, the shower turned off, and with only a few moments to spare, I placed his phone back on his bedside table and hid mine under the covers before making a show of just waking up.

"Morning, baby." Sung greeted me with a wide grin as he stepped back into the room with only a large, fluffy white towel wrapped around his waist, his hair still a little wet.

In the past, when I caught him still wet and dripping from the shower, I couldn't deny that I usually tried something, and more than half the time, it worked out in my favour but not so much in recent months. Now I knew the reason why and unlike last night where my advances had been pathetically rejected, I merely smiled at him.

"Morning, Sung." I greeted him with a small smile as I made a show of sitting up in bed and stretching my arms above my head as if I had just woken up.

"Sleep well?" He hummed aloud as he walked past the bed and into the wardrobe area of the room to get dressed for the day.

Humming in response, I picked up my phone and aimlessly scrolled through social media like I did most mornings but today, my heart just wasn't in it. I wasn't in the mood to double-tap any pictures or send funny memes to the girl's group chat.

"Well, I have to get going, baby. I'm thinking that today is probably going to be another long day at work so I wouldn't wait up for me if I were you." Sung mentioned as he stepped back in the room, his fingers working to straighten out a tie that I didn't recognise and he certainly didn't buy for himself as that was just something he never did.

In fact, all of the ties that he owned were either from me or his mother but I knew for a fact that this one was from neither of us, having never seen it before.

"That's a nice tie." I hummed in observation as he walked past me to reach for his phone. "Is it new?"

"This old thing?" Sung murmured back in response as he made a show of glancing down and smoothing a hand down the material, almost as if he hadn't realised that he had picked out this specific one to wear today.

"Doesn't look old to me." I couldn't help but snort, making a show of leaning in to get a better look at it.

"I must take good care of it." He shrugged before grabbing his phone and briefcase, clearly not wanting to linger on this topic for too long. If he didn't have anything to hide, I'm sure he wouldn't have minded discussing where this tie had come from.

If I hadn't gifted him the tie, his mother hadn't gifted him the tie and he hadn't bought it for himself, it must have been Roxy. However, it appeared that my husband wasn't man enough to admit that to me because how does a husband admit to his wife that his mistress had gifted him a tie and he had subconsciously chosen to wear it knowing very well that said mistress would be overjoyed at the sight?

Regardless of all of that, I dropped the topic and merely smiled politely back at him in response. My head wasn't in the right place for a confrontation today.

Sending out an emergency text the moment he kissed me goodbye and headed out of the bedroom, not even half an hour later, the girls had all pulled up in the driveway. Sans Honey who was still on the school run but texted she would come here straight after that.

"What's going on? What's the emergency?" Zara questioned the moment she stepped in through the front door, having picked up Rashmi and Sophia along the way.

"Is someone hurt?" Sophie questioned as she walked past all of us and made her way to the kitchen, already searching the cupboards for that special bottle of Dolce which she knew she could only find here.

"Did you kill him? Did you call us over here because you need help burying the body?" Rashmi grinned as she headed into the living room and dropped herself in the middle of the couch, making herself at home.

"Kill who?" I crossed my arms over my chest, my eyebrows furrowing together in confusion.

"Sung." Her evil grinned tipped higher.

"No." I snorted and rolled my eyes before dropping myself next to her on the couch, pouting slightly.

"But you wish you could?"

"Maybe." I chuckled quietly, only half-serious.

"Please don't kill anyone." Sophia groaned as she joined us in the living room, a fresh new bottle of exclusive wine in hand as well as a few glasses. She carried two in her free hand while Zara helped with the other three.

"Why not?" Rashmi grinned, unabashed. "I'm sure her trust fund is deep enough to get her out of it."

Gasping lightly in surprise, I thumped her on the shoulder before throwing my head back and laughing, already feeling slightly better after all that I had learnt these past two days.

When Sophia handed me a glass of wine even though it was just past nine in the morning, I felt even better.

Moments later, the doorbell rang and Zara offered to let Honey in. As she rushed into the living, she dropped herself next to me on the sofa and pulled me in for a very much-needed hug. Before I knew it, we had all piled onto the sofa in a big group hug but this time, I refused to cry as Sung-min Kim simply didn't deserve my tears.

Now that everyone was here, it was time to spill the beans or rather, show them the pictures.

"So, what's the emergency?" Honey questioned with a mixed expression on her face, the room going deathly silent at the sound of her question.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I glugged back half the contents of my wine and sighed in frustration, knowing that this wasn't going to be an easy conversation.

-

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Layla Knight

26.12.2020