Chapter 2~ A substitute
Tessa wiped her tears and rushed to the bathroom. She refused to accept that Aaron took a sudden turn in their relationship and decided to fire her.
Everything was going well, or so she thought. He was kind to her during the day at the office and later in the night, he wouldn’t let her go until her legs began to shake.
She failed to believe someone who was so passionate in bed didn’t love her. Besides, he was her first. She wasn’t willing to give up that easily.
Perhaps he had heard some rumours or thought she did something and that made him break up with her.
Tessa was madly in love with Aaron. She would go to any lengths to make things right. After showering, she picked up her phone and tried to call him but the call went unanswered.
As her heart continued to sink into her stomach, she typed in a message.
[Aaron, I’m sorry if there’s anything I’ve done to upset you. I love you so much. I don’t think I can live without you. Please hear me out. I’ll be coming to the office to return the cheques you left. In case you thought I was with you because of the money, that’s not true. I’m not that type of woman. I may come from a poor family but I believe in working hard. This is the reason I pushed myself to work harder than everyone else because I want to depend on myself. I love you genuinely and I’m willing to prove that to you. I hope you can give me another chance.]
She sent the text and waited until it showed that it had been delivered. But even after waiting for ten minutes, there was no reply from Aaron.
Tessa swallowed the stubborn lump in her throat and grabbed the cheques before walking out of her apartment. If he didn’t want to answer her calls, then she would see him physically.
Tears were threatening to fall from her eyes on her way but she blinked them back. It’s not over till it’s over.
When she arrived at the company, Tessa immediately rushed towards the elevator and went up to the CEO’s office on the topmost floor.
What she didn’t know was people were staring at her and whispering to each other. She was more focussed on meeting Aaron and begging him to take back his words.
She had just passed the assistant’s office when a voice made her stop in her tracks.
“Tessa, the CEO is not yet in.”
Tessa whipped around and forced a smile at the young woman who was standing by the door to the assistants’ office.
It was none other than Nora Miller, the junior assistant and her subordinate.
Tessa frowned. “Where is he?”
It was strange for a workaholic like Aaron to not be in the office at 10:00 am. She thought he had come straight to the company after he dropped that bomb on her.
She was about to go look for him but she realised she didn’t know where he stayed. They mostly spent nights at the apartment he gave her. She had never been to his real home.
Now that she thought about it, she had been naive. How could she date someone and not know where their home is?
Of course, she knew the address since she was his assistant, but she hadn’t been physically there to know where exactly the house is. Aaron hadn’t offered to take her there either.
“Tessa, is something wrong?” Nora asked because Tessa was acting weird today. She wasn’t even in her usual formal office attire.
She was wearing a white tee and some blue jeans and her hair was let down messily.
Tessa was startled by the question but she quickly composed herself and shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I’m off today but there’s something I want to discuss with Mr Wentworth. He’s not picking up my calls.”
Nora looked at Tessa incredulously. “The CEO might not come in today. He’s gone to receive someone at the airport. Didn’t you know that? I thought you were with him that’s why you didn’t clock in.”
A feeling of unease crept into Tessa and settled in the pits of her stomach. She held back from looking shocked and chuckled awkwardly.
“Ah, Mr Wentworth must have felt sorry because I wasn’t feeling well. Perhaps he didn’t want to overwhelm me. Who has he gone to receive? Is it an important client?”
Nora suddenly giggled. “Mr Wentworth went to pick up the woman he loves.”
Tessa didn’t hear what she said after those words as they continuously resonated in her ears.
‘Mr Wentworth went to pick up the woman he loves.’
‘The woman he loves.’
Her stomach turned but Nora’s voice snapped her out of her reverie.
“It is said that Mr Wentworth has had a crush on his childhood friend for a long time. He’s always been waiting for her no wonder he doesn’t fall in love with someone else. Isn’t it sweet? I hear they are going to get married soon. She’s been doing her studies abroad and she’s also a famous pianist abroad. Let me search for her and see what she looks like. I heard she’s a beauty.”
Tessa was frozen on the spot as she tried to register the words that Nora had just said. Aaron had someone he had always loved and he would get married soon.
Why was he with her if that was the case? Why did he take her virginity? Why did he string her along and give her hope when he had no plans of marrying her?
Tessa felt like an iron hand was squeezing her heart. She could feel the pain in the pits of her stomach as if someone had punched her in the gut.
Two years!
Two f**king years! She had wasted it on that man! Loving him with all her might! And all her soul! Making his meals, giving him good sex and breaking her back to contribute to the progress of the company, thinking she was doing the right thing as his soon-to-be wife.
Yet he didn’t have the audacity to tell her he was in love with someone else. Tessa’s heart ached and she felt like a fool.
Nora’s words were like a stab in the chest.
‘They are going to get married soon.’
‘She’s a beauty.’
Tessa didn’t know what to do. She clenched her fists so hard, her nails dug into her palms. How could he do this to her?
“Oh, I’ve found her! Take a look. Her name is Serena Winston. She’s twenty-four years old and her father is the owner of the Winston group.”
Nora enthusiastically showed Tessa her phone while listing the said woman’s qualities.
Her eyebrows creased when she saw her picture on the internet. The woman in the picture had silky dark hair with the greenest eyes she’s ever seen. Fair skin like snow-white and petal-like pink lips.
Tessa’s heart thudded twice. The woman in the picture looked oddly familiar but she didn’t want to think deeper into it. Nora had noticed it though.
“Oh, my G*d! Tessa, you look like her! Same eyes, same hair and skin! If she wasn’t a rich woman, I would have thought she was your twin. You two are so similar.”
Nora didn’t know that her words were cutting through Tessa like a knife cuts through butter. She didn’t know Tessa had just received the shock of her life.
The man she thought was her world turned out to be a liar. A lightbulb went off in her head and her chest constricted.
‘He made me a substitute for her. I was his fake Serena while he waited for the real one to return. No wonder he gave me money and was in a hurry to chase me away.’
Tessa felt like she had been hit by an avalanche. If she knew this would be the outcome of her love, she wouldn’t have fallen for Aaron in the first place.
How was she supposed to live without him now? How was she supposed to carry on? All she had been living for is him for the past two years. She even took extra short courses to be able to run the company better since she thought she would one day become his wife.
“I can’t wait to meet the lady boss-”
“Nora,” Tessa stopped her. She couldn’t hear any more of the words. She was dying of jealousy.
Serena Winston looked more sophisticated and elegant. Her on the other hand, she looked average. No wonder Aaron rushed back to his crush the moment she returned to Ashford City.
“Huh? What’s wrong, Tessa? You look pale,” Nora asked but Tessa forced a smile at her.
She didn’t want Nora to know what had happened to her. Nora was hired a month ago by Aaron and now Tessa knew she was brought in as her replacement for the senior assistant position.
“I’m still feeling under the weather,” Tessa faked a cough. “I’m going back now. Will you do me a favour and give this to Mr Wentworth?”
She handed over an envelope where she had placed the cheques and left, not wanting to meet Aaron with the love of his life in case they decided to come to the company.
When she reached the ground floor, this was when she noticed that several eyes were on her and she could now hear what they were saying.
“She looks distraught, she must be sad that the real lady boss has landed.”
“I know right? She thought she had hidden it well but we all knew she was the boss’s mistress. How shameless. She joined this company by opening her legs and she still has the audacity to look like a victim. She’s so loose. I knew the boss would get tired of her.”
“Her golden days are finally over. She thought she owned the Wentworth group. She’s just a wh*re who was an SA during the day and a mistress at night.”
Tessa’s heart sank further and further to her feet as she walked out of the company with her head lowered in shame. It turned out everyone knew she was Aaron’s mistress.
Everyone knew she was a substitute.
Everyone but her.
Just as she had stepped out of the company, a convoy of cars suddenly pulled up at the entrance. Knowing these black Bentleys belonged to Aaron, she quickly hid behind a pillar so as not to be seen.
It seemed Aaron was determined to tell the world about the woman he loves because he never used the main entrance to show up at the company.
Tessa watched in agony as he stepped out of the car and opened the door for Serena. He placed his hand on top of her head to prevent her from hitting her head and when she stepped out, he took a moment to smile warmly at her and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
All the while, Tessa watched this scene while she felt like someone was cutting out her heart piece by piece.
She gasped and clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her s*bs. Meanwhile, Aaron seemed to have sensed a gaze on him so he turned his head but Tessa avoided his gaze, hiding completely behind the pillar.
He frowned when he saw a faint glimmer of the end of an elbow but Serena h**ked her arms with his and his attention returned to her.
“It’s good to have you back,” he whispered to which Serena replied.
“I’m back to keep my promise of being your wife. I’m finally ready to marry you, Aaron.”
The couple smiled at each other lovingly before walking into the company. All this was seen by Tessa from the corner where she was hiding pathetically.
At that moment, she had made up her mind to give up on Aaron.
