Chapter 9: Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Amelia West - Jacobs
POV
I walked into the Jacobs house; the house was quiet. Quieter than When I lived here. It was unsettling. This used to be my home. I looked around the living room, the house was clean, too clean. Not when Stella’s always leaving her toys around the living room.
She’s never played in the playroom I had decorated. I saw on a mom blog, beige was a great colour. I had hand made toys by a French artist and the room was decorated by a famous celebrity interior designer.
Yet she’s never even set foot in the room even when I tried to speak to her about it. Chase wouldn’t let me. He kept going on and on about how she could play with what she wanted and where she wanted, this was her house.
I couldn’t even bring friends over because the house was always a mess. It was so upsetting. I got a penthouse apartment after our split. Its nothing compared to this place though. If he would let me I would have taken this place in the split.
This house looked nothing like how it did when I used to live here. This used to be my home, but Chase didn’t want that. He wanted me gone because he could see Stella’s worth. Stella had the looks to be a star and would make me millions, but he didn’t want that. I didn’t understand it. Why didn’t Chase want that? When we got married I thought we had the same goals.
He’d already knocked up some rando chick, so I wouldn’t have to destroy my body to give birth to a child. Plus it was a girl so I didn’t care. We could get a surrogate for a boy. It would be perfect.
But Chase didn’t want that. He only married me for Stella’s sake. The man didn’t even know how to love his own shadow yet alone me.
I was going to make millions from Stella being a child actor. It’s why I was fighting for custody.
I was chosen by his father to be his wife and the mother to his daughter. His father wasn’t very happy with him for having a baby with a woman and he couldn’t even remember the woman’s face.
He knew he met her in a bar but nothing other than that.
I did some digging too. But I never found the woman. I couldn’t even find her in the security cameras at his brother’s company.
It’s like the woman was a ghost. I thought the child was her way of getting money or even worm her way into Chase’s life but the woman never even showed her face.
A part of me wondered if Stella took after her mother. She was nothing like Chase or I. Though I had nothing to do with her genes.
I was going to make her a star. Chase should be grateful. She would be set for life. She would have her career and life set before she even went to school.
The house used to be filled with noise, the kind of noise that would give you headaches for days. Stella’s laughter, the nanny’s voice or Chase’s voice.
Instead I heard nothing. I walked towards Stella’s bedroom. The door was half open, I pushed it open and what I saw made my breath stop.
Stella was lying in the middle of the bed spread eagle, with Chase on the left side of her on his side facing her and a woman I didn’t know on the right on her side facing Stella too.
Their hands were intertwined over Stella’s small chest, fingers laced together like a family sleeping together in their daughter’s bed. They looked like a real family. Like they belonged together. Chase and I didn’t even share a room when we were together. Yet here he was sleeping with another woman. I had my own room in this house because he said he slept in the same room with Stella most night’s. But he never even tried to sleep with me.
I’ve never seen him like this in the three years we were married. Not even when I tried to make our marriage work. There was a time I even tried to seduce him, by getting him drunk first, but it didn’t work. He never wanted to share anything more than his daughter with me. Even then he was guarded against me. He didn’t fully trust me with Stella. He would always be watching over my shoulder making sure I wasn’t doing anything to hurt her.
Like I’d hurt her. She was meant to be a star.
He didn’t trust me when I wore his name at the end of mine, I added his last name to mine, like Kim K did with hers. He didn’t trust me when I played the role as wife and mother he needed me to play perfectly.
My chest tightened painfully. I tried to always keep my emotions out of it when it came to Chase. Being emotionally involved with him always hurt more than it was worth. Yet it still hurt to know that I was the problem. He just didn’t want those things with me. He was fine with anyone else. Some unknown woman was in our daughter’s bed with him months after our split. Our divorce wasn’t even final yet.
Chase had moved on without me. Did he believe she was better than me?
Who was this woman? The last I spoke to Stella, she didn’t mention this woman. Where did she come from? She didn’t look familiar to me at all.
Something inside me snapped. It made me feel like I wasn’t enough. "No." I muttered to myself. I was enough. Chase just didn’t want to see it.
Anger bubbled in me, and a scream tore through me before I could stop it. I was just so angry at Chase and the sight of the three of them.
All three of them startled awake.
It all happened so fast, one second the woman was on the bed and the next in a blur she had my arm wrenched behind my back, my face on the floor and she was on top of me.
I let out another scream, this time in pain.
Who the hell was this woman?
"Get off her!" Chase shouted from across the room. I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see anything but the legs of the bed.
Chase grabs her into his arms pulling her off me. Finally I was free. I was trembling all over. I felt both humiliated and scared.
My eyes met Stella’s she sat straight up in bed, her eyes wide.
"That was so cool!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands. "Carly did a flip and everything!"
Chase froze and looked over at Stella.
The woman’s name was Carly. She was still in Chase’s arms. She looked as shocked as I felt, staring at her own hands like she didn’t recognize what she’d just done. Neither could I.
My arm was throbbing, my dignity was now in ruins.
This woman wasn’t just replacing me. She was bloody dangerous. Why was she near Stella when she’s this dangerous?
I had an interview with a magazine later, I can’t go in a cast. I was getting a lot of media attention because of our split. I was getting a lot of movie scripts. My agent and manager were both ecstatic.
They were hoping Chase and I would get back together. It’s why I came over.
I wanted to ask Chase to get back together with me. To help with my public image. To better my career. We got into this and he promised me, his brother would help me with my career.
===
Carly Lewis
POV
I stare at my trembling hands, in shock. I don’t know what came over me, I moved on pure instinct. Instincts I didn’t even know I had.
I didn’t even know I could move that fast.
I-I hurt someone. My hands trembled.
I saw blood on my hands.
My eyes were seeing things because the next second the blood was gone.
Just like that night I saved Stella, I moved like I’ve been training my entire life, that wasn’t self-defence. This was something more than that.
Who was I before I woke up in that hospital three years ago? Was I always Carly Lewis? Who was I?
I couldn’t register what was going on around me. My mind was racing.
What if I accidently hurt Stella one day? Or Koah. Koah already looks like she’s been put through the wringer. I didn’t want to add to her trauma.
Would Chase trust me with Stella after what I did to this woman? Was she Chase’s wife?
I didn’t see any pictures of her around the house. Then again I didn’t see Chase in any of the pictures other than the picture on Stella’s dresser.
The house was set up with Stella on almost every wall.
I was getting distracted. I was a danger to everyone around me. My body reacted to situations without my brain being able to keep up until I’ve already hurt someone.
Did I grow up overseas maybe? Somewhere far from here, somewhere I wasn’t safe?
Everything felt so unfamiliar with me. Is that why I couldn’t find out who I was? But Carly Lewis was American.
Was I part of a criminal organization? God I was a criminal, wasn’t I? Oh Lord what have I done? If I got Chase and Stella into trouble.
