AMB~she~OUS

FIFTY [III]

"Excuse me ma'am but there's someone here to see you."

"I told you I didn't want any guests." I frowned at the maid.

"Yes but it's Mr. Daniels' ex-fiance, she said it was urgent."

Stella? What the hell did she want?

"It's alright, escort her to the study, I'll be with her in a minute and please tell everyone that they are dismissed for the day, I want to be alone."

I had been having trouble with seeing people around thus I sent the maids home early every day and declined all the guests' visits. Alex was convinced I was sliding into depression and my mother was constantly on my case asking me to move back home.

"A card would suffice if you're here to offer your condolences." I said to Stella once I spotted the bouquet of flowers on the desk.

"I didn't want to be rude so I came here myself. We were almost family, it's the least I could do." She smiled widely at me, there was absolutely no sincerity in her words so I ignored her.

"What do you want Stella? I doubt you just came here out of the goodness of your heart."

"Straight to the point I see." She giggled before deciding to take a seat.

I rolled my eyes and rounded the desk to sit in front of her.

"Get to it."

"Now that your husband is dead, don't you think it's time you just made yourself scarce from Nick's life?"

What? Who the hell did this girl think she was?

"Pardon?" I spoke carefully not to lose my cool yet.

"I mean there isn't much left for you anyway and I'm sure Nick doesn't need you." What the hell was the girl smoking? To have the audacity to come into my house and tell me that I needed to be scarce. It was so ridiculous I laughed out loud.

"You listen here, I will not allow you to come into my house and tell me what I should and shouldn't do. Maybe you should be the one to make yourself scarce 'cause I know for a fact Nick doesn't need you." I seethed.

"You knew that Craig wasn't his father and still kept it from him. You don't care about anyone else but yourself."

Did Nick tell her that? Is that what he thought of me? Seeing how he had confided in her, it looked like the two had been seeing each other. I felt a little hurt by that but didn't let it show.

"You don't know what you are talking about. I care about Nick and whatever I did was for his own good." I shouldn't have been explaining myself to her but I couldn't stand her accusation because it wasn't exactly false.

"Then I'm sure you are willing to do it again." Her face suddenly changed, a much more sinister look taking over.

"What?"

Stella reached into her bring and brought out a white envelope and placed it in front of me.

"What is this?" I asked my hands hesitantly reaching for it. In my experience nothing good ever came out of such envelopes.

"Seems like your husband had a thing for women with such damaging secrets."

Inside the envelope were a bunch of photos of Nick and I. Most of them were of us in Switzerland and a very affectionate one of us at the cemetery days before his mother's death anniversary.

My eyes bulged in shock, had she been following us the whole time?

"You see I found it weird how Nick suddenly wanted to end our relationship. He wasn't exactly in love with me but he wanted to make it work. I knew something was up so I did what any crazy ex-girlfriend would do. Imagine my surprise- no imagine how shocked the world would be once this gets out." She explained nonchalantly.