“Are You the Maid?” My Husband’s Mistress Sneered as She Walked Into My House… Never Realizing She Was Insulting the Woman Who Paid for Every Brick
My husband’s mistress showed up at my front door on a Saturday afternoon and mistook me for the maid.
Not the wife.
Not the woman he had been married to for twelve years.
Not the one who paid for the house, funded his failing lifestyle, and owned the company where her father worked.
The maid.
She rang the bell, and the second I opened the door, she handed me her designer coat like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Tell Ricardo I’m here,” she said, then brushed past me and walked straight into my house like she owned it.
I stood there holding her coat, staring after her.
She was maybe twenty-five, blonde, polished, dripping money she absolutely had not earned, wearing a dress that probably cost more than most people’s monthly rent. She glanced around the foyer with the bored expression of someone inspecting a hotel suite.
“This place needs updating,” she said casually. “I’ll talk to Ricardo about it.”
Ricardo.
My husband.
The man I had built this life with.
The man I had worked beside, supported, and carried financially while he finished medical school.
The man who was apparently cheating on me with someone young enough to be his daughter.
And this girl thought she was going to redecorate my house.
“Where is Ricardo?” she asked, barely looking at me.
“He’s not here,” I said.
She sighed dramatically. “Then when is he getting back? I don’t have all day.”
I looked at her carefully.
“Who are you?”
She gave me a smug little smile.
“I’m Alexis. Ricardo’s girlfriend.” Then she tilted her head. “And you’re the maid, I’m guessing?”
Then she laughed.
Actually laughed.
“Obviously, right? Though Ricardo usually hires maids who dress a little better. Are you new?”
I was standing in my own home, wearing jeans and an old college sweatshirt, the same thing I wore on lazy Saturdays. And apparently that was all it took for this woman to decide I was staff.
“I’ve been here twelve years,” I told her.
She rolled her eyes. “Maids always exaggerate how long they’ve worked somewhere. Just tell Ricardo I’m here. I’ll wait in the living room.”
Then she walked in, sat on my sofa, and put her feet up on my coffee table.
My coffee table.
The one Ricardo and I bought at an antique auction during our first year of marriage and restored together in the garage.
“Can you bring me some water?” she called out. “With lemon. Not too much ice.”
So I brought her water.
No lemon.
Way too much ice.
She took one sip and looked offended.
“Did Ricardo train you?” she asked. “Because this is not how he likes things done.”
I leaned against the doorway and crossed my arms.
“How does Ricardo like things done?”
“Efficiently. Respectfully. With some understanding of how to treat guests.”
“Are you here often?”
She smiled like she was proud of herself.
“Every Tuesday and Thursday when his wife is at work. Sometimes Saturdays too, if she’s at her book club.”
I don’t have a book club.
And two months earlier, I had quietly changed my work schedule. I was no longer gone on Tuesdays or Thursdays.
Ricardo didn’t know that.
Interesting.
“You seem to know a lot about his wife,” I said.
Alexis let out a little laugh.
“I know enough. She’s old, she’s let herself go, and she’s boring.”
The cruelty in her voice was effortless. Practiced.
“Ricardo stays with her because it’s easier than divorcing her. He says that all the time. She trapped him when he was young, and now he’s stuck with a woman who isn’t attractive anymore and probably thinks Botox is a government conspiracy.”
THE DAY YOUR HUSBAND’S MISTRESS CALLED YOU THE MAID, SHE HAD NO IDEA YOU OWNED THE COMPANY PAYING FOR HIS ENTIRE LIFE
