𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐓𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 | 𝟏𝟖+ (EDITING)

32.

And that is exactly what I did.

At the ripe age of twenty-one, I had the fortune of meeting Sarah. She came strutting into my club, stole the attention of every single man that had the luck to be in the same room as her and had each and every one of them offer to buy her a drink. She turned them all down.

I stood in the private room, overlooking the lit up dance floor and caught sight of her. Long blonde locks whipped across her face as she danced for what looked like hours. The first thing I took note of was her undeniable feistiness. I saw the pride in her eyes when she pushed every other man away from her. She knew they were no good for her.

I then went on and tried my luck with offering her a drink, my mind lingering on my wife and beautiful son who I had missed so dearly. I couldn't wait to get home.

Surprisingly, she accepted. Sarah was never shy. She strode into my private area as if she owned the place. "Holy shit man. You're the owner? This is sick." She was never one to hold her tongue either.

The little spitfire and I became good friends almost instantly. I often found her at my dinner table, spilling her relationship issues to my wife and I, not daring to filter anything around my kids. Who she never really seemed interested in anyway.

She was a breath of fresh air, and after the tragic death of my wife. She took it as an opportunity to infiltrate my life in unimaginable way, inevitably turning it upside down.

And soon enough, she became Sarah Moritello.

I looked past all her personality flaws, I looked past the greed, the sudden hunger for money she possessed over the years. I made myself believe I loved her, and that she loved me.

Sarah was the one for me. That is, until, she wasn't.

Because there came Gianna Vidal at the perfect time. The ultimate sin. It felt as if the universe was laughing at me, dragging the petite brunette into my life when I was at my lowest point in my marriage. I felt an odd sense of déjà vu, perhaps life was indeed just a continuous cycle because there was no way meeting her was purely coincidental.

Now, I don't believe in fate—nor do I have strong beliefs in destiny. But everything I claimed not to believe in, was somehow understandable when I had met her. She was the big plot twist in my book of life. The surprise ending.

But as all good villains do. I ruined her.

"Alex, honey? Are you coming down for dinner?"

I focused my attention onto Sarah who stood against the door, eyebrow quirked up in question.

I tried to find her. The fireball I had met almost fifteen years ago. I looked past all the betrayal, the lies, the arguments, but I couldn't. As much as I tried searching. The Sarah I once knew was long gone.

"I'll be done soon." I mumbled, still not over our little spit earlier.

Satisfied with my answer, she swiveled around on her tall heels and walked back into the kitchen.

True to my word, I walked into the dining room soon after to find Sarah placing what looked like chicken alfredo onto two plates.

She cooked?

"Where are the kids?" I asked, taking my seat at the head of the large table.

"I set them down for a quick nap, I made sure to feed them beforehand."

I nodded and watched closely as she poured our most expensive champagne into two tall glasses, handing me the first.

"Let's dig in."