Deal With My Best Friend

Eliana's POV

My hands trembled as I gazed upon the picture on the phone. My husband, Calvin Franco, was exceptionally affectionate and fed a powdered-sugar-and-blueberry pastry to the new model he hired at his company six months ago, Kylia Sinclair. 

It had been more than clear to me that she was his new sidepiece. 

I had known, seen the clues, caught the red flags... 

But— I kept ignoring them. 

Ignoring them and turning a blind eye because I thought... he loves me. 

He wouldn't dare be unfaithful. 

He wouldn't dare cheat on me; I am the love of his life. 

No! There is no way! 

Boy— was I wrong?

The notification on Kylie's Instagram came as I sat at the reception of his office, waiting for him to come out so we could leave for his mother's house and celebrate the birth of his sister's new baby. 

Yes, Kylie was stupid and daring enough to send me a friend request, and I approved it. 

I approved it, thinking she was a nice, friendly girl like the rest of the supermodels he had hired in the past, but she wasted no time showing her true colors.

The other girls kept trying to warn me about her. Still, I dismissed it.

I blindly approved her friend request on social media, and I'm glad I did.

It gave me plenty of evidence of his infidelity, taking snapshots after another to verify dates, events, and intimate actions between the two. But I also had the warm collection of videos, texts, and pictures she sent me privately via messages as she threw them at my face. 

"He's mine, and there's nothing you can do about it," she had sent a picture the first time. Both lying on silk sheets on a weekend, he had said he needed to go out on business. 

I had spent the entire night preparing his suitcase, making sure he wore the best suits to make a good impression on the investors he said he was meeting. 

In reality, he did go meet new investors, but he had taken Kylie along, and they spent their first passionate night together. 

I saw the marks on his neck as he tried to cover them with a scarf, excusing it as a bad cold he caught over the weekend in Japan.

Over time, she became more blunt and more daring with her messages. "You might as well divorce him, he doesn't love you," she had sent the message with a series of pictures of them together. 

He was taking her to expensive restaurants and meeting our mutual friends and family. They knew... all of them... and they kept it secret from me.

"Did you see that? He bought me a ring and promised to marry me. Trust me, tramp... You won't get a single dime when I finally get him to leave you. You're nothing but a gold-digging wh*r*, you deserve nothing, and you will get nothing; everything you have will be mine, including the man."

But the final straw was the picture from last night. She was expecting, and he was over the moon to learn he would be a dad.

"He bought me a new villa so that our new baby and I can have a better life together. Stop being selfish and leave him. Can't you see he wants a family with me?" 

I gave a cold and painful laughter as tears tainted my cheeks, but inside, I was fuming with anger while he showered.

"You win. He's all yours." I sent a reply, but didn't give her time to continue her rant, turning off my phone to avoid calling her and going off on her.

I get it... It's not that he wasn't ready for kids. He just didn't want one with me.

After I replied to her, I immediately called my lawyer and friend, Shannon. She was the head of my company's legal team. I sent her all my evidence, and she began drafting the divorce papers before I fell asleep. 

The new post I was reading said, "He loves me the most. A single call this morning is enough to make my worried man drive twenty miles to my favorite bakery to bring me sweets." 

I see why he got up extra early this morning. It wasn't an early-bird meeting—it was her manipulating him and getting him to do as she pleased.

The admiring whispers and hushed laughter from the women in Calvin's office made my blood boil. 

Calvin saw me as nothing but a boring stay-at-home wife. A burden, a tasteless decoration he had to take care of. The least I could have done, after the three years we had been married, was give him a baby, as the pressure from his family increased now that his newly married little sister had just given birth to a baby girl.

But little did they know it was he who made me take birth control pills. 

No one in the office knew that Calvin and I were married. I was once a lively, spunky girl, but ever since I married him, I have undergone drastic changes. He liked a simple girl, modest and timid, or so I thought. 

I was beautiful, without a doubt, but I had preferred to dress casually and remain unseen to the world, all because that's what he said he wanted. 

My parents had always taught me to stay humble and never flaunt, "A true heiress doesn't need to flaunt or show off. You know your worth." Dad would say. 

But the girls at his office saw me as a gold-digging country girl who had climbed up the ladder simply for being Calvin's girlfriend. "I heard she never finished school." 

"Yeah, I heard she doesn't even have a dime. Poor Mr. Calvin has to support her; she doesn't do anything but stay at home all day." 

"Lazzy!"

"She's nothing but a prepotent gold-digger." 

"Poor guy. He works so hard." I would hear them murmuring each time I visited his company.

"He deserves better. Good thing he's leaving her for Kylie."

"Yeah, she is SO much better than this slob!" 

Little did they know, I was the secret heiress of the second-wealthiest family in our nation. My best friend, Brooks Piercen, is the richest man in the nation. 

Brooks owned a massive chain of restaurants, culinary schools, and the best dairy farms and petting zoos you could ever visit.

Yes, Brooks was a downright southern cowboy, down to the core, but he was also a great chef and a fierce business tycoon. 

A month after our college graduation, knowing my parents had never agreed to my relationship with Calvin, I blindly gave up my heiress title to marry him, just months after he proposed. 

I sincerely thought I would grow old with him together. "Are you sure this is the guy you want to spend the rest of your life with, Eli?" I remembered Brooks asking the day I was leaving my home.

"I'm sure. I know it, Brooks. He makes me happy. I love him, he's the one I want to spend the rest of my life with!" I replied, dismissing the hurtful look in Brooks' eyes.

"I wish you nothing but happiness, bestie. If you ever need anything, let me know. I will come running to help," he said, giving me one of his signature bear hugs.

Brooks never liked him either, and often told me Calvin would end up hurting me. It always made me mad, and I argued with him over this, but... Brooks wasn't wrong. Calvin did hurt me, and this infidelity hurt me deeply.

Three years ago, I left my life behind, hopeful and eager to succeed in life, marriage, and my career. 

I was indeed thriving in my career, despite keeping it a secret from Calvin, since his ego would not approve. 

After marriage, he wanted me to stay home and take care of the house as his mother had instructed him. 

"A woman's job is to handle her home. Not in the office," she had said to me when I first pitched the idea to work with him. 

I thought back to Brooks' words as I sat in Calvin's reception with my hands scrolling through the pictures on Kylie's post.

Brooks would be disappointed in me for letting Calvin minimize my worth. I was a perfectionist, always competing with Brooks and my two other girl best friends for the top position at school.

Whatever I did... I always had to come top, with the number one position. And I didn't miss Brooks always letting me have it either. He was far smarter than I was, but that's just who my best friend was. 

Caring and protective. The big brother I always wanted as an only child.

"If he ever dares hurt you... Call me. I'll make him pay," he had said as a last resort, making my eyes roll. 

"He's not going to hurt me, Brooks." 

Wanna bet?" 

"Brooks!"

"I mean it. You're my best friend, the last thing I want is you getting hurt over a d*mn fool!" 

"Brooks, stop it," I said as we sat by our childhood tree house three years ago.

"I bet you won't go past five years," he had said, making me uncomfortably angry. But I took the bet, determined to prove him wrong.

In the end, it was I who was proven wrong. 

Calvin was cheating on me, and he was about to regret it.

Eliana's POV

I stood up, fixing my summer dress, and sighed. 

I slowly made my way toward the reception, trying not to throw my phone out the window.

With the millions I make daily, I took risks in the past, secretly investing in Calvin's company, turning it from nothing into riches in record time. 

He never knew I was a private investor in his company, but I bet he'll be surprised when he finds out.

I never told him about the company out of fear that he would feel inferior. I cared about him, placed him on a pedestal, and allowed my world to revolve predominantly around him and all his demands.

Calvin thinks that my girl trips with friends were 'spoiled wives' vacations'.

In reality, I was constantly traveling, finding investors, quality creators, the best in the world, and in our nation, making a living for myself... hoping to find the guts one day to tell him of all my achievements.