I was on probation, trapped under the watchful eyes of my cruel husband.
The atmosphere at the villa was stiff and filled with tension. All the servants seemed ashamed to look me in the eyes. It wasn't hard for me to put to put two and two together. James had bragged to them that I had come crawling back to him. I think they were disappointed in me.
I would let them believe his narrative until he trusted me enough to give me back my phone. I would have to call my secret contact to rescue me. My secret contact had told me it was not the right time to reveal himself to James. I respected his decision and I feared that he would break it for my sake. I did not want to imagine my secret contact carelessly revealing his identity by storming into the villa to find me. He was bound to suspect that James had something to do with my sudden disappearance.
It had been three days since I had agreed to play along with James' lie. Life at the villa seemed to have returned to a stupid kind of normal. James still fawned over Mona while giving me the most minimal attention. It was better that way. I played the docile stupid wife just so he would let his guard down once again.
"Congratulations Ronica," James told me that morning at the breakfast table. "Keep this up and you can host your useless concert." James pushed my phone over to me. "It's tapped so no funny games, okay?"
"Agreed," I said stiffly. He would be watching my financial expenses. He would be listening to my calls. Reading my text messages. I was trapped.
"I changed your SIM card," he smoothly announced.
"What? Why?" I protested.
"A spam number kept bombarding your phone with calls and messages. It irritated me to no ends. Why? Does that mean anything to you?"
"No," I lied.
Now I could not reach my secret contact and he could not reach me. I was well and truly trapped.
James escorted Mona adoringly to the breakfast table. She shot me a dirty look whenever James wasn't looking. She looked incredibly smug even though I could tell she was disgusted by the inconvenience of me being around James. I felt a bit sorry for her. She had no idea that James was telling the people that really mattered that I was the one pregnant. James was just a callous man who thought he could eat his cake and have it. He didn't care about Mona or I or even his child. All he wanted was his damned inheritance.
James announced that he was going to work. He fawned over Mona some more before leaving.
"You know my Jimmy is only keeping you around just until Patrick gives him the family business. You mean absolutely nothing to him," Mona said when it was just the two of us and some servants who were out of hearing distance. I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling.
"You are beginning to sound like a broken record. Turns out you don't need me to hear you. You just need to hear yourself. James did not love me forever. You are scared he would treat you the same."
"Shut up. I am pregnant with his child. I am different from you."
I scoffed and stood up. "Mona you've made your point. James is all yous. Since we were young, you've always wanted anything that was mine." As I was about to leave, I stopped. Something was terribly wrong. My breath seized and I began to feel dizzy. I was having an allergic reaction. How? I crashed to the ground and tried to find my handy EpiPen.
"I can have everything that is yours, including your life," Mona sneered. She kicked away my EpiPen as soon as I found it. I painfully gasped for breath.
"Don't worry Ronica, you're not going to die. I just need you to be too sick to attend our high school reunion so that I can take your husband and spread nasty rumours about you."
Mona's cackling laughter faded in and out of hearing as I lost the struggle and everything went black.
***
When I was in coma. I dreamed about my childhood memories. The prominent Risconce family coming to the orphanage to adopt a daughter.
Choosing me.
Mona hiding in a corner to watch while the other kids bid me happy farewells. Since I had known Mona, she never liked me. Even when she reentered my life in high school after winning a shady scholarship, she always opposed me. She was also my academic rival. I was already dating James then when Mona came along. Mona had done everything in her power to steal James from me but James stuck to my side like a loyal puppy. I thought then that it was because he loved me. Now, I knew better. He had only pursued me to win his father's approval and be connected to my family's money. My family saw through James' facade but I was too blinded by love I chose to leave them instead, permanently cutting James from their wealth and power as a result. I thought that I was enough for him.
I woke up from my coma. The doctors were praising my resilience and expressing how it was a miracle that I had woken up so soon. I briskly asked for the date and they told me. I had been out like a light for seven days.
"I am ready to be discharged," I proclaimed.
I had a high school reunion to attend.