A/N: Hello all. I'm sorry many of you were waiting on an update of NIMWD, but I promise you, I have not abandoned it, nor will I ever do that. Real life has been real hard these past few months and at a certain point, I actually felt like I would never have the time to write again. However, the second I got a chance to write, I got this idea in my head that wouldn't leave me. And the muse gets what the muse wants, otherwise, she'll hide away again!

This is a short story, 4 chapters in total. It's already complete, so I'll be posting one chapter each day. I hope you enjoy this one.

Please keep in mind that at least Christian will be OOC in this story. There's not BDSM, no abuse in Christian's past, no Elena.

Chapter 1

Ana POV

I wake up with a start at the sound of someone moving around in the bedroom. I quickly glance at the bedside clock as soon as my eyes adjust to the darkness, and I see the time approaching 1 a.m.

"I'm sorry. Did I wake you up?" My husband's voice sounds in the room, making me sigh.

"It's ok." I say as I sit up in bed. "Is everything ok?"

"There's an emergency at the office. I have to go check it out." He says, his eyes not even meeting mine as he gives me his usual excuse.

Sometimes I wonder if he really thinks I believe him or if he knows that I know he's lying, but he just goes with the flow.

"Can't someone else take care of it?" I ask my usual question, already knowing the answer he'll give me.

"You already know that answer, Anastasia." He says, his voice filled with irritation and a hint of annoyance. "I'm the boss, I should be there whenever anything happens. Lead…"

"Lead by example." I finish for him. "Yes, I know."

"Don't roll your eyes at me!" He snaps, even though his eyes are fixed on his arm as he puts on his Rolex; the one I got him as a wedding gift.

The mere thought of the inscription on the back of that watch makes my stomach coil with disgust.

Love + Loyalty + Trust + Great Sex = A Great Relationship

I was all smiles when I ordered it with the inscription, and the sales guy couldn't stop smiling when he read what I had written on my purchase order. Back then, I was sure that I had all elements of the equation. Now? I'm not sure I have any.

"Should I wait for you for breakfast?" I ask my other usual question; another one I already know the answer to.

"No. I'll probably stay there for the rest of the night. Depending on the situation, I might have to stay there tomorrow night as well." He says as he reaches for his keys and wallet from the nightstand by his side of the bed, and that's when I notice that the spot behind me has not been ruffled up even one bit.

That's new. He usually comes to bed before he gets the phone call to leave.

I guess he spent more time on the phone tonight than he usually does.

Maybe he was trying to convince her that he doesn't want to meet tonight.

I scoff at the voice sounding in my head, fully knowing that it wasn't the case. He probably had phone sex with her, and when that wasn't enough, he decided that he wanted a taste of the real thing.

"Ok." I say with a sigh, making him finally look at me with apologetic eyes.

He always looks at me with apologetic eyes right before he goes to see her. I wonder what he's sorry for. Is he sorry for cheating on me? Is he sorry for lying to me? Is he sorry for not being able to leave me for her?

I guess I'll never know.

"I'm going to Portland tomorrow." I say, making his face morph into a mixture of confusion and surprise, then it quickly switches to anger as he realizes who I'll be meeting in Portland.

"I don't like that one bit, Anastasia!" He snaps again. "I've told you a million times that I don't like that boy. He wants in your panties."

"For crying out loud! Jose is my best friend and I haven't seen him in months. His gallery opening is tomorrow, which I have told you about countless times if I may add." I snap back at him, already sick and tired of this conversation. "You said you would come with me, but I guess with this office emergency you won't be able to make it. I'm not going to miss Jose's big break because you're too busy to join me."

"Fine!" He huffs after a long minute of silence, his eyes shooting daggers at me. I stare right back into his eyes, silently daring him to say anything else. "But you will not be staying there overnight. I want you back here tomorrow night no later than 10 p.m."

"It's a 3 hours' drive, and the gallery opening is at 9. How do you see that working out?" I ask, making him close his eyes and take a deep breath, and I know for a fact that he's silently counting in his head so that he doesn't explode.

"Fine. I'll have Olivia book you the penthouse suite at the Heathman for tomorrow night." He says through gritted teeth after a long minute of silence.

"Thank you." I say as he leaves the room, but I know that he's not going to even acknowledge my words.

I stay sitting in bed for a few more minutes, fully knowing that I will not be able to go back to sleep, then I decide that I might as well get some writing done.

I put on my robe before I leave the room, keenly aware of the fact that the house is full of staff who I might run into at any second, and regardless of what anyone might say, I really wouldn't like them to see me in my night attire.

The second I walk into my small office, I make my way to the seated window that overlooks the Seattle skyline. This was his surprise for me when I agreed to move in with him only a few months after we started dating, and I immediately fell in love with it. I used to do all my work sitting in this exact spot, but now, I only use it for writing, because my dear rich husband refused to have a working woman for a wife when he could provide her with everything she wants.

Unfortunately, the one thing I crave the most is the one thing he will not provide me with.

A faithful husband.

The first time he left in the middle of the night only a few weeks after our first anniversary, I actually believed that he was running off to fix an emergency at the office. Stupidly, I believed him the second, third, and fourth time as well.

On the fifth time, I happened to complain to my best friend Kate about it, and she just stared at me open-mouthed for a good five minutes. She's the one who brought my attention to the fact that there's no business in the world that has that many emergencies without the world knowing about it, let alone a business as big as my husband's.

She then reminded me of the many times her father used that same lame excuse to go meet his mistress, leaving his wife in tears every time he walked out the door.

I remember feeling sorry for Kate's mother back then. I also remember promising myself that I would never allow myself to be put in that same position. Then I met him, and for the first year of our marriage, I never imagined that he would be the one to put me in that same exact position.

For the first few days after my talk with Kate, I stayed in denial about her theory of my husband cheating on me, but then the inevitable happened.

I saw them cozied up in a corner table of our usual restaurant during lunch. At first, I thought I was seeing things. Then I tried to convince myself that he was at a lunch meeting, like he had told me he was, and that he and that beautiful brunette were cozied up looking over some kind of papers.

Then he kissed her, and that was when I couldn't come up with any more excuses. My husband was cheating on me, and he was doing it in plain sight.

I went back home that day and drowned myself in a bottle of vodka. I had planned to confront him when he came home later that day. Only, he didn't. He stayed with her that night, and every time I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, I kept imagining them in all sorts of positions.

That was 10 months ago, and it was the last time I could fall asleep when he was out with her, and the first time I started writing.

I guess there is one good thing that have come out from his affair. I had always dreamed about becoming an author, to put my feelings into words; I just never got the courage to. That morning, when I finally sobered up, I took to my laptop and poured my heart into the keyboard.

I still have to summon up the courage to seek out publishers, but I guess a journey has to start somewhere, right?

I open my laptop and go over the latest chapter I wrote for my supernatural novel, but for some reason, my mind is just not into it tonight. It keeps going over my entire relationship with my husband, as if it's trying to figure out where I went wrong.

What I had done to make him seek out another woman.

A voice inside my head screams at me that it was not my fault. That it's only on him. That's he's the unfaithful asshole, but a louder voice silences that one out, and I'm left confused and feeling guilty, because on a deeper, very dark level of my heart, I somehow always knew that I would never be enough for him.

That I could never give him what he needs.

My husband seeks control in everything in life, even myself. Somehow, I think my first mistake was giving in to that. I guess I was a bit too submissive to his desires and wants to a certain level.

Our first meeting wasn't conventional by any standard. It was on the day of my first job interview right after I graduated college, and being the pessimist that I am, I never imagined I would get a second interview let alone get hired, so I didn't bother researching the company that had called me in for an interview.

Therefore, when I bumped into him on my way out of the interview, I didn't know who he was or that he was the CEO.

In my own defense, I had been living in Portland during college, and I was never one to keep up with the moguls of the business world. However, when I told Kate about what had happened, she went crazy on me, claiming that I was too ignorant and naïve for my own good.

I admit, I did find him attractive, but I never imagined things would go beyond that bump that sent me flying onto my ass in the middle of the street in front of his building. I was a 22 year-old virgin who never went on a date. I knew how guys felt about me. I was the bookworm who guys stayed away from, while Kate was the one who got all the attention. So, when I got the job, I never imagined that he had a role in that. Unfortunately, I only found out that small tidbit after we got married, and only by accident.

I say unfortunately now, but I can't really tell for sure if it would have made a difference if I had known before.

But what do the old folks say? What's done is done, and now I have to suck it up every time he comes up with an excuse to go see his mistress.

Kate keeps asking me why I haven't left him yet, and every time she asks, I dodge the question and never give her an answer.

Why? Because the simple answer is that I'm too pathetic to leave him. My parents died when I was 17, and the state granted Kate's parents temporary custody of me until I turned 18. I never had a boyfriend until I met him. He was my first everything. My first kiss, my first sex, my first boyfriend, my first love.

My first heartbreak.

But until that fateful afternoon when I saw him with his mistress, I was the happiest woman in the world, or at least I'd like to believe I was.

When I applied for a job at his company, it was for an HR assistant. Miraculously, when I got the job offer, it was for the assistant of the CEO's PA. When I got my job description, my duties and responsibilities were clear-cut, no room for any kind of confusion. However, when the CEO asks you to do something that is not part of your job description, you do it without asking any questions, simply because it's your first job and you would like to keep it for at least a few months.

Slowly, I began to take on the duties of his PA, making me spend more time with him, and making me get to know him better. Again, I have to admit, I liked what I got to know. He was a great man who made a name for himself from scratch. He had a rough start at life, but he got over that and became one of the most influential people in the state.

A month after I started working there, I got a delivery of beautiful wild flowers to my desk, and the card only had a number on it. Being someone who only received bills for a delivery my entire life, I quickly asked to take a break and made that call.

To say that I was shocked when I heard his voice on the other end of the line would be the understatement of the century. I couldn't speak for a good five minutes, and when the door of the meeting room I was hiding in opened up and he walked in, I felt my knees gave up and had to sit.

For the following 10 minutes, we just stared at each other, and my mind was spinning with how I was going to resign and keep my dignity intact, because I was convinced he was pranking me. The hot, rich CEO over the poor, average girl.

I remember wishing I was Carrie back then, wanting to blow him up with my mind over his rude behavior, but then he asked me out, and I ended up bursting in uncontrollable laughter. When I finally calmed down, the look of utter confusion and humiliation on his face made me realize that he was dead serious, and I remember wishing the ground would open up and swallow me.

I turned him down that first time, saying that it was very unprofessional of him to ask his PA's assistant on a date. He accepted my refusal for all of two days, and then he began his wooing, as he likes to call it.

Kate was the one who finally convinced me to give him a chance, and I only regretted ever listening to her after I found out about his affair. Until then, he made all my dreams come true. He was the perfect lover, boyfriend, best friend.

He was the perfect everything.

He asked me to move in with him 3 months into our relationship, and then he proposed a month after. We were married within 2 months of that. Now that I think about it, I realize that things moved too fast for us. Maybe if we had taken our time, we wouldn't have gotten to where we are now.

I happily quit my job when we got married. He said that there was no need for me to work when he had enough money to make all my dreams come true. I even stopped seeing Kate as much as I used to because he said that my focus should be more on him rather than my friends.

Jose was a completely different story. He never hid his feelings about Jose, and his hatred towards him made it impossible for me to stay in touch with him without it turning into a huge fight. I guess I was blind to all the signs around me, because I did cut Jose off. However, two days after I found out about the affair, I picked up the phone and called him. I made up some kind of lame excuse about not being in touch for that much of a time, an excuse I couldn't remember now if my life depended on it, but I guess Jose is such a good friend that he never pushed for more answers and just gave me his friendship back.

That's why I promised to make it to his gallery opening tomorrow, and that's why no matter what my husband says or how he feels, I'm not going to miss it.

I look at the clock on my table and I realize that I was drowned in my thoughts for a good 5 hours. I decide to change and go to the private gym in our building, to let off some of the pent up energy I have coursing through my veins. I've been trying to convince myself that that pent-up energy is only energy that cannot find an outlet, but what I've been in denial about is that a huge part of that energy is sexual frustration.

I haven't been able to get an orgasm, self-induced or otherwise, since I found out about my husband's infidelity. We haven't been as sexually active as we were in the beginning of our relationship, but I think our sex life has been rendered down to that of sheer obligation. Somehow, I think my husband approaches me for sex just to make himself feel better, or as an attempt not to have me doubt his fidelity. And being the pathetic woman I am, who refuses to leave her cheating husband, I give in to his advances, because if I don't, he'll know that I know.

And I don't want him to know.

I don't know how he would react if he found out about my knowledge, but one thing I don't want is for him to leave me for her. We never signed a prenup before our marriage, so I know that's not an option to him right now, simply because I'm eligible to take half of everything he owns. However, as much as I love my rich life, I couldn't care less about the money.

All I care about is not being alone again.

That is why I suck it up every time an office emergency happens. That is why I keep my mouth shut every time he pretends to go to a lunch meeting. That is why I pretend not to care when he forgets important occasions because of work issues.

And that is why I don't mind being the trophy wife he wants me to be. All in favor of never being alone again.