Chapter 74 - Mirror on the Wall

After hiring goons and bribing the security forces to tamper with the CCTV and turn a blind eye to her retaliation against Stacy, she had been pretty much surprised that Stacy had gone numb.
Vera had also gone awfully silent after being forced to pay for the repairs on Steph's car, and it all didn't make sense.
'Have they moved out of town?' She wondered. 'No, it can't be.'
She decided to google about Stacy and found the links to both her personal and work social media accounts but there all the posts had been archived.
Stacy no longer talked about any celebrity, even if other media were raking a living from doing so, and for a while, Raquel thought she had really won the fight, but she wasn't at peace still.
She had gone to Stacy's vandalized office, but Stacy wasn't in, and feeling sick to the stomach and guilty, she had hired a private invigilator to look into Stacy.
That's when she found out that the only available details on Stacy were off when she was launching her celebrity podcast and records of her full face surgery.
She didn't get many details on that since the doctors refused to divulge any info. However, hefty Raquel was willing to pay for the same, and that left her wondering if the doctors were really that professional or if they were working for a more authoritative person.
She had given up on locating Stacy until one morning when she was walking up the stairs after setting Noah's breakfast. She heard a soft chuckle from him inside their bedroom. She instantly knew he was on the phone but couldn't help but wonder who was making him that happy.
She stood by the stairs to listen again and decided to slowly and cautiously walk to be by the door. She couldn't hear much about what Noah was saying, but her heart skipped a bit.
'Oh my goodness!' She thought as she held her fast-beating heart.
She heard Noah say goodbye and willed herself to open the door, a plastic smile mustered on her face, acting all innocent.
She saw how hurriedly Noah put his phone in his pocket and how stiff and flushed out he looked. She didn't miss noticing how he didn't want to look into her eyes, and she knew, at that moment, that he was hiding something.
"Is everything okay at work?" She asked to break the ice.
"Uh…Yeah, we should be leaving for the next scheduled shoot in three days. I really can't wait for you to see the movie," Noah answered after clearing his throat and adjusting the tie to hang lower since he suddenly felt hot.
"I will. Anyway, your breakfast is ready," she said, and Noah cleared his throat before saying, "yes, I was just about to come down."
"One more thing…." Raquel said as Noah started walking away. "I asked the servants to be off duty from noon. I'll be alone, will you come back home early? We need to have an indoor dinner date, okay?"
"Okay," Noah said and nodded as he mastered a plastic smile, then walked out to take his breakfast.
A few minutes later, he was out of the house, leaving Raquel alone with her thoughts.
'Who was he talking to? Is it possible that it's another woman?' She asked herself before it hit her. She hurriedly stretched to get her phone.
She had clowned Noah's phone when doubts about his fidelity started creeping in.
'There is nothing?' She asked herself after checking his call logs which showed that the last call was made the day before Ivan.
'How is this possible? Wasn't he on the call as I was coming up?' She wondered before it hit her that Noah must have another phone.
'Son of a bitch!' She cursed as she lay and threw her phone on the bed. She looked around the room, lost in thoughts, unable to stop thinking of Noah and Stacy.
She thought of Ivan and Steph and gladly admitted that though she didn't like Steph for being what she hadn't been in her youth, she had helped their family, just like they had helped hers.
Steph's idea to follow Vera into her hoke had been stupid, but it had silenced all the rumors about Vera's pregnancy.
It was just a matter of time before Steph and Ivan parted ways.
Realizing that she was to pass by her friend's, she slowly sat upright on the bed. It was just morning but she could already feel worn out as if it was evening and she had been doing a heavy workload.
'You can reschedule,' she thought, but she knew how tantrums would be thrown around, so she told herself she couldn't go back on her word.
'Shit!' She said as she ran her well-manicured fingers through her well-combed hair and got up from the bed to go check herself out in the mirror.
She had the habit of talking to herself while looking at herself in the mirror. That's when she saw a piece of paper on the floor, next to the wardrobe.