Chapter 6 HATEFUL RETURN

It would seemed to anyone especially his friends that he was taking the situation which he had landed himself too seriously by ending his holiday despite having enough time to experience pleasure sightseeing the nooks and crannies of the city but he had a complete different reason why he was rescheduled to return to his wife in Monaco. He had made up his mind to leave not entirely because of the fact that he had slept with another woman other than his wife but due to the fact that the lady he slept with had a striking resemblance of his wife. To him, the situation was ironic. He found himself feeling a lot betrayed and astonished to have been cheating with someone that looked exactly like his wife. It could have been his very bad day having lied to Gabriela about his delayed return to Monaco which had caused such a fling to happened and he was sure things had gotten a bit out of hand even though he knew clearly that he would keep quiet about this and not tell anyone about it.

Scott did his best to endure the minutes he spent packing his clothes into his luggage and for the first time, he knew that his mind was muddled with a lot of questions about the identity of the woman he passed the night with. He realized he had a lot to ask his wife when he leaves the city and figured it best to keep his discovery to himself to avoid his secret ever leaking out. After an hour of packing the entire clothes he had brought with him to the French city, he emptied the closet, making sure not to leave anything behind of a single trace of his belongings that would reveal his presence and left the hotel as soon as he was done getting himself ready to leave.

Before he left, he made sure the outfit he wore really matched that of the Australian city he actually did spent more than half of his holiday away from home and equally made sure his hairdo was by no means displaying French in the loose strands of black hair that covered his entire head. He left his hotel as soon as he had done the necessary precautions to make his final trip back to Monaco a memorable one and walked through aisle of the narrow corridor to the elevator which was already waiting for him to descend down to the lobby.

When he got to the lobby, he coincidentally found the lookalike lady waiting outside the hotel building. He saw her through the transparent glass, waiting for someone outside with her back turned facing the main exit as she stood on the pavement. At first, he thought she was waiting for a taxi and continued his walk until he got to the counter where the receptionist who saw him heading towards her with his hand luggage left her seat and came to confront him. He was startled and confused as to why the lady had left her usual duty post to obstruct his path towards the exit.

"Pardon me, sir, but I need to pass on a message from that lady waiting outside." The receptionist said with smiles on her face. Scott wanted to say something but he took a quick glance at the woman whose name he had deliberately chosen not to inquire about since he had thought that the woman was his wife pretending to be someone else last night and he had failed to get her name.

"Oh really?" He asked curiously and returned his gaze at the receptionist whom he stared at face to face.

"Yes, she dropped a message hoping you would get it before she left." The receptionist said still smiling as she had done the very first time they saw each other when Scott first came to the hotel to book an apartment.

"For how long has she been waiting and what is the message?" He asked again trying his best to understand what was going on around him.

"Uh...She's been at the lobby for an hour and some minutes. As for the message she dropped a while ago before she stepped outside, she told me to inform you that she wants to have a word with you in private." The receptionist said and Scott's heart skipped a bit. He felt anxiously nervous to hear what the receptionist had said a minute ago. For a moment, he thought the lady had overhead his phone call with Gabriela and felt his feet turned cold the very moment the receptionist mentioned the message the lady had for him.

"Did, huh...Did the lady say who she is when she passed on this message?" Scott said trying to change the subject.

The receptionsist shook head in refusal.

"No, but she said her name was Emma in case you asked if she didn't get to meet you." The receptionist replied and walked briskly back to her place behind the counter. Scott thought for a while as he peered at the woman standing outside glancing at her wristwatch to check if she had more time left to wait for him to come down from his hotel. It occurred to Scott that he was up against a formidable obstacle which clearly appeared as repercussions for his actions and he was about believing that his wife could be up to something dubious for having put him in such a predicament. Scott felt betrayed by the fact that he believed that Gabriela and her father must have known that his wife had a twin living somewhere else and they had kept him in the dark about the existence of her presence here in the French city. He was starting to suspect a foul play in this dilemma he found himself and believed everything he had encountered since the night he met the lady for the first time. Part of him regretted the choice he had to make of getting acquainted with the lady he had thought to be his wife and he knew deep down within himself that confronting the lady a second time after giving her the silent treatment some few hours ago, was something he could not afford to do not at the time he had already made up his mind to leave the city for good. Then he decided on leaving without paying attention to the lady standing outside in the shade from the sunshine, waiting for him to show up anytime sooner for them to talk in private. He had wondered why she wanted to talk him since he had thought she had already left but he was by far too afraid of being seen in public with someone whose looks were popularly known in the whole of Monaco which made it by far impossible for him to accept her demand for them to straightened things out.

Resolved to leave without the lady noticing that he was about heading to the airport in just barely two days after he arrived at the hotel, Scott did his best to approach the receptionist hoping to get some help.

"Excuse me but I need to leave to catch an urgent flight." He said stealing glances at the woman standing outside the building.

An accident occurred before he could state his worries to the receptionist. It all happened in a flash that not only was he bewildered but the receptionist was attracted since the accident caused a stir. Few minutes after he wanted to talk to the receptionist, a driver parked the a white limousine in front of the hotel building, The owner of the limousine had already entered inside and was waiting for two ladies who were coming down to the lobby from one of the second elevator in the building but they stopped halfway to figure out if they should continue being accompanied by the men present the lobby which was quite unusual. Thanks to one of the employees they met at the lobby, the ladies was able to pinpoint the actual floor the interview was being held and was still holding discussion about the interview with the men that already had theirs when two couples came outside the other lift accompanied by two other staff workers.

As she walked in her black high heels behind her husband after they left the elevator to the lobby, Chloe noticed that they were some men dressed in suit chattering with each other near the entrance. She suspected at once that they were applicants that did come for an interview with the two ladies who seemed like a special figure though they were just about leaving and were most likely lurking around the premises after possibly going through a rough time with the interview presided by men themselves. Scott was by no means glued to the counter watching them when the couples joined in at the lobby.

It got her thinking about her indecisiveness and her unwillingness to arrive at a conclusive decision as they got closer to the entrance as she walked behind Chloe who didn't notice one of the employees heading to her direction with a smoothie. Chloe accidentally bumped into the chubby man in grey suit and the smoothie spilled on both of them which attracted everyone's attention in the lobby.

"I'm so sorry, miss. I really didn't quite see you there",

"Apology so not accepted. Look at what you did to my outfit",

Chloe retorted harshly and glanced at the name tag of the assailant. Before the ruckus could escalate any further, her husband promptly intervened to ease the tension between the two victims.

"It's okay, Chloe. You can go get yourself washed in one of the restroom while I wait for you in the car",

Her husband suggested and started walking to the entrance door leaving Chloe behind. Angry and furious, Chloe quickly left to the restroom to get her skirt thoroughly washed. The men including Scott who had seen the accident happened quickly restarted their conversation after they saw that everything had been sorted out quickly than expected and Scott, believing he had wasted much time talking with the previous applicants about how the interview went, retraced his steps back to the exit using the collision as distraction to avoid being spotted by the lady, and headed to where he was headed to in the first place before deciding to find a taxi. Some of the men went back to the elevator as soon as they remembered they left something important including one of the two ladies.

Coincidentally, Chloe's husband decided to head back to converse with one of the hotel staff owing to Chloe's unforeseen accident and quickly rushed to the same elevator on a quest to settle scores with the sales manager of the company. Consequently, he entered the same elevator with the lady and the men who were three clad in tuxedos inside the lift. He stood behind the men and felt relieved that the elevator was already heading to the floor fourteen where he hoped to meet the manager to talk about his decision to oversee the affairs of the hotel since he was close to the hotel manager of the luxurious hotel building before getting back to Chloe at the lobby while the men who already saw him enter, stood facing the closed doors as the lift took them up the building.