My Husband’s Wife - Chapter 6
Since the young master of the Xue Enterprise had absconded from his duties as the heir, it fell to his wife to stand in for him. My title was Secretary to the President. Mother’s plan was for me to watch and learn at her side, I was in apprenticeship. Often I was assigned to a team to direct a project as a supervisor from the President’ s Office. Although Xue was a nepotistic enterprise, it did not suffer those who could not produce results.
It was fine as a member of the illustrious Xue family to be lazy or useless but not in the company. And though I wasn’t born a Xue, I had married a Xue. I had to work hard, to do my best, to do better than my best. I had to be an asset to the company. To prove that Mother was right when she chose me to succeed her. Her grace of saving me when I was drowning and desperate could not be degraded.
So I lived on tenterhooks like that for a while. Was I miserable? I do not think so. I was often in pain but I was also satisfied and pleased and grateful. While meeting Mother’s expectations was both scary and exhilarating; I slowly learned not to be terrified of failure, not because I would succeed each time but because I realized that terror changed nothing and only hindered business negotiations. I loved my husband and had now fallen in love with him but our relationship was still the same.
Sometimes he ignored me, sometimes we quarreled, sometimes he flaunted his latest girlfriend in my face, sometimes he flirted with me. Most nights we slept in separate rooms but sometimes without rhyme or reason, he would find his way to my bedchambers to exercise his conjugal rights and torment me through the night. I liked those nights. I liked those nights because if I persevered till he fell asleep I could indulge myself and simply look at him.
I had learned that I really liked to look at him asleep. I never touched, I just watched, I didn’t want him to know of my feelings. I always was in the habit of amassing my joys when they came, so I liked those nights.
I, Su Yue, neither regret marrying Xue Yuwen nor loving him, but every day I wish earnestly that I was not in love with my husband. Sometimes I pray for it, to fall out of love with our young master Yuwen.
I sometimes recalled the past me. Despite reaching the age of 25, I hadn’t fallen in love even once, I hadn’t even had a crush. At most, there had been a few males I had admired or respected. I had rejected both subtle and overt attempts to court me, I was waiting believing that I would fall in love naturally but I was no longer a teen, I was 25 and I didn’t have a single romantic encounter not even a one-sided crush to my name.
As days passed by, I came to accept that I wasn’t going to fall in love magically. Dan came into my life just at that time, at an opportune moment. I decided to date first and see if any feelings would develop. To my surprise, I really fell in love or I believed I did. We dated without problems, we were like any ordinary common couple. We were happy, I was happy, everything was fine until a woman came up to me one day and introduced herself as his wife.
It was such an unbelievable circumstance. Was he too smart or was I too stupid that I had dated the man for almost a year and never once even suspected a thing? It was simply unbelievable. I couldn’t accept her word for it. No matter what there had to be a mistake. I had spent a full third of the money I had been saving for marriage to Dan on various investigation agencies. The results were unanimous, I had been deceived and brilliantly deceived for that matter.
He wasn’t even one of those legendary weekend couples, his wife and child were living in the same city and breathing the same air as me, as foolish little me. I had been fighting to remain calm since that day but looking at the pictures of the happy little family, not just my world, my convictions also crumbled. What did I really desire? What was I searching for? I had believed Dan to be a good man. I had trusted him enough to start planning a future with him. And yet I had been wrong?
His act wasn’t as a result of a moment of weakness, I wasn’t the first girl that had been played, very likely I wouldn’t even be the last.
His wife was too calm confronting me. I couldn’t understand that calmness then. Now standing in a similar role as she, sharing dinner tables with Yuwen’s girlfriends either acknowledged or suspected, I understand. Staring our husband’s infidelity in the face, we are both wearied and distanced. We have to be distanced otherwise we would go mad. How ironic that I ended up in a similar position as the bearer of the news that set me on this path. Life really can be amusing at times. I just wish the joke wasn’t being played on me.
I still wonder, does she also love her husband despite his despicableness? Or does she stay for duty like me? If asked to bet, I would bet on duty. If ever there was any love, it must have been tired and limp by now. She had invited her husband’s girlfriend for tea. She hadn’t screamed or even accused me of anything. She had just introduced herself and left. She hadn’t threatened, she hadn’t begged. She was just so very polite.
Like her, I too am always polite. I smile at them and sometimes when I go mad when I am forced to the edge, I ask them out for dinner. I watch Yuwen accompany them. Am I hurt watching him sit at another woman’s side and fawn over another woman? I am. Yet, I have to do this. Sometimes I can’t help but want to check the temperature of our relationship, more times I need to remind Yuwen that I am still his wife.
He has tried to hate me for almost four years now, he doesn’t seem to have had much success. But he doesn’t love me either. I don’t think Yuwen has even once fallen in love in his life. Both I and his many women can make him mad with lust, with desire but I don’t believe anyone has ever occupied his heart. Perhaps this is only what I want to believe; since I am not loved, perhaps I wish to comfort myself that the others aren’t loved either. I do not know. Still, it doesn’t change this fact, I do not think my husband has ever loved anyone. I don’t think he will love in the future either.
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