Chapter 10
Frieda sighed in frustration as she looked at the papers lying on her desk. Chris needed to sign them, and she was not sure when he was coming in. these papers had to be handed in tomorrow.
She had no choice left but to take the papers to Chris's house and get them signed there. However, she did not want to go to his house. She did not want to face him, not after the night he had spent at her place. Then, she really had not known about his marriage, no one had.
She only found out about the truth when one very enterprising gossip columnist published an article regarding Chris's "Mystery wife" in the tabloids. Apparently, they had been seen at a social event, and their engagement and marriage had been a hush-hush affair.
Frieda knew that when it came to conventional morals, her list had precious few, but even she drew a line at sleeping with married men. Her father had cheated on her mother, and she had seen firsthand all the pain that her mother had gone through. She had vowed that she would never cause that kind of pain, never inflict it on anyone. But she had. Unknowingly, yes, but she still had. She closed her eyes and cradled her head in her hands. She wondered what Chris would do when he saw her. Would he pretend to ignore her? Maintain a professional visage? Or would he get angry? Maybe he would feel extremely guilty. Frieda hoped it was the latter. She liked Chris, maybe even loved him, and had once looked forward to a long term relationship with him, but she felt that he needed to feel guilty for what he had done.
"Oh Cassie," she groaned. "Just why did you have to get so lucky?"
The fact that Cassie, introverted Cassandra Stevens, was Chris's wife had thrown everyone in the office for the loop. There had never been anything between them, and all the employees had been astounded when they found out about the marriage. Many snickered that it was a desperate move on Cassie's part to snare a wealthy husband. She had probably got herself pregnant and had trapped Chris into marrying her. Some others said that Chris was marrying Cassie out of pity, or some such codswallop. Frieda didn't believe all that. She did not know Cassie personally, but she knew that Cassie would never try and trap somebody into marriage, nor would she be able to live with someone who pitied her. No, there was another reason.
"Of course," she told herself. "They could be deeply in love and you never noticed."
"Then why did he sleep with you?" another voice in her head contradicted the first. "Why did he cheat on her?"
Frieda rubbed her eyes and stood up. There was no point in muddling over all this right now. What had to be done had to be done. There were no two ways around it. Dropping in at the reception to clock her departure, she carried necessary papers and got into a company car to go to Chris's house. She hoped she found her answers there.
---
Chris and Cassie strolled arm in arm behind James and Ann. James had wanted to go out again today and had insisted that Chris accompany them. To his surprise, Chris readily agreed.
Now, they were walking back home because James was tired. Laughing and joking, the group entered the house through the kitchen door, not noticing the black BMW parked in the drive.
"There's a Frieda Sommers waiting for you in the hall," Mrs Potts told Chris when she saw him. "She has some papers that you need to sign."
"Frieda, yes..." Chris said, paling slightly. "You guys just stay here, I'll be a minute."
"Okay," Cassie said, looking a bit surprised. "Take your time, we'll just go to the balcony and bask in the sun like lazy cats."
"You do that," Chris said, a forced smile on his face. He did not notice the tightening around Ann's mouth. She had guessed, correctly, why he was being so abrupt. She sent Cassie and her father upstairs, and sat down in the kitchen, where she would be able to hear what was being discussed if she listened carefully.
"It better not be what I think it is," Ann thought grimly. "For Chris's sake, it better not be."
---
Chris walked into the living room, bracing himself for the pass he was sure Frieda would make. Maybe there would be tears, he did not know what to expect. But he knew that having her at his house was trouble. He saw Frieda seated in a corner of the room, legs crossed demurely, eyes hard. She had papers in her hands, and rose when Chris walked towards her.
"Good afternoon Mr. Quentin," she said, her voice expressionless. "I have some papers that needed to be signed. I didn't know when you would come to the office next, so I thought that I'd bring them over myself."
Chris nodded, taken aback. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not this.
"You'll need to go through and sign them all by today. Most of them are due soon. You'll also need to come to the office sometime this week."
"Yes, I will do that. Are you going to wait here till I finish this?" Chris asked, still unable to comprehend why she was being so detached. He had expected some anger, maybe even tears, but not this cool demeanour.
"Yes." Frieda answered her gaze cold as she replied.
"Okay," Chris said, confused, but he was not displeased. If she chose to not address the issues between them, then it did not do him any harm. He had wanted to apologize, but looking at her, he felt that it would not b the right thing to do.
Time passed quickly as he immersed himself in the papers. He had to ask Frieda to help him in some areas, as he had not visited the office in a while, and was impressed by the amount she knew.
"She'll need to be promoted," he thought as she pointed out a small, but immensely effective clause that could be added to make the deals that they would sign more effective.
Nearly two hours later, Chris signed off the last paper. With Frieda's help, he had made two piles of the documents, one that was fine as it was and the other which needed a few changes. Cassie had come in for a short while and had helped with a few of the design specific documents. Frieda was friendly to her, and even laughed when Cassie made some dry remarks. But when she turned to Chris, her eyes become cold again.
"I'll drop in at the office the day after tomorrow to review these," he said pointing to the second pile.
Frieda nodded and carefully put the papers back into their respective binders and into a mailbag. Chris accompanied her to the car and stood as she carefully put the papers away. Then, she turned to him and Chris was taken aback by the hurt and the anguish that he saw in her eyes.
"Why did you cheat on Cassie with me?"
The words were spoken in a whisper, but the pain in them was quite obvious.
"It's..." Chris said, but stopped when he saw the expression on her face.
"I may not be a woman of very strong morals Chris, but I draw the line at sleeping with married men. I did not know about your marriage that night. If I had..." she trailed off, a small tear rolling down her cheek,
"This can never happen again. You have hurt me very badly. Like a fool, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could actually try to have a relationship with a person, but I was wrong. Just, don't cheat on her again will you? Cassie's a good person, and she doesn't deserve a cheating husband."
Chris look at her, absolutely stunned. As Frieda opened the door to get in, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. She flinched away from his touch, but stood and looked at him, waiting to hear what he wanted to say.
"I.....I wasn't exactly married when we slept together," he said softly. For some reason, he felt that he could trust her with the truth.
