The Unexpected Heir

A loud scream right beside his ear jerked Cameron out of his blissful sleep and back into reality. He blinked his eyes groggily, still disoriented from being woken so quickly. The voice that sounded suspiciously like his wife's screamed again, and suddenly, he was shoved.

"What the hell are you doing here, you bastard!", Everly shrieked.

Cameron turned to stare at her, confused as to why she seemed so angry. He'd had too much to drink the night before, and could barely remember all the events of the night. What he could remember though...

His face paled slightly as he realized just where he was and why he was there.

His wife was still well on her way into full hysterics. He rubbed at his throbbing head as he got to his feet, the remnants of alcohol from the night before not having worn off. He looked around the room - his bedroom - and took in the overall state. He was naked, for one thing, and so was Everly, though she clutched a sheet from the messy bed to her chest. Their clothes were strewn in different spots on the floor, and if Cameron had been looking for any confirmation of what happened, that was it.

He'd had sex with his wife.

"Get out!", she screamed again.

Finally, Cameron found his voice. "Everly..."

"Don't you dare!", she shouted. "Don't you dare call my name, you disgusting, molesting... pig!"

"I didn't...", Cameron tried to protest. "I was drunk...we were drunk."

Everly got in his face, eyes blazing. It was the most reaction Cameron had seen his wife have towards him in the past few years.

"Don't give me that crap", she hissed venomously. "You knew what you were doing. You wanted to!"

"I didn't..."

"Stop fucking lying!" Her voice had gone up by about five octaves again, and Cameron winced.

He couldn't understand why Everly was reacting this way. Yes, sex in their marriage had been non-existent until now, but they were married and lived in the same house. Did one accidental night actually warrant all this? Cameron had just began to realize just how much his wife loathed him.

A knock on their bedroom door had them both turning towards it. A second later, the door opened and Cameron's mother-in-law stepped in.

She scrunched up her face when she took in Cameron's state of nudity.

"Ugh", Olivia said, looking away. "Put that away, please. No one wants to see that."

Cameron was already getting pissed. He was just about to point out to Olivia that no one had invited her into the room, but the woman was already talking over him.

"What's the commotion about?", she asked her daughter, who looked almost on the verge of tears.

"Him!", Everly spat venomously.

"As always", Olivia said dryly. "What did he do this time?"

"I didn't do anything", Cameron said coldly, pulling off another sheet from the bed and wrapping it around himself.

"I didn't ask you", Olivia retorted, not even bothered to give him a look.

"And no one asked you to come here!", Cameron shot back, already fuming, not minding that Olivia would make him pay for speaking to her that way.

"May I remind you that this is my house?", she said derisively.

"As if I'd be able to forget", Cameron muttered. He turned to his wife. "Look, Everly...what happened last night was obviously a mistake. Why don't we just forget anything..."

"Forget! You want me to forget that you did that to me?"

"I didn't do anything to you!", Cameron suddenly yelled, already at the end of his tether. "I may not remember exactly what happened last night, but I do remember that you came on to me! I didn't even touch you until you initiated the contac, so stop making it out that I raped you, because I didn't! I was just as drunk as you were!"

"You animal!", Olivia seethed. "How dare you take advantage of my daughter that way?"

Everly was full on sobbing now. Cameron felt he could pull out his hair in frustration. Why couldn't they understand? A part of him knew they were deliberately misconstruing what he was saying. He also knew the tears Evelyn was shedding was nothing more than a farce, but he could do nothing about it. Almost three years of being married to Everly had taught him that she believed what she wanted to and would convince herself that any lie was true, just to suit her purposes.

He made an obvious effort to calm down.

"Everly. You and I know what truly happened. Why don't you explain to your mom that this has been a big misunderstanding?"

"You're calling me a liar now?", Everly said. "I'm lying? I woke up naked next to you with no idea what happened and I'm lying? Why were you even in here in the first place?"

"In case you've forgotten, Everly, this is also my bedroom."

Olivia snorted, and he chose to ignore her. He wished he could say it wasn't her fault her daughter insisted he sleep on the couch downstairs when there was a perfectly good bed up here, or that she hadn't let him touch her for two years, but he knew it was. Olivia was a master manipulator. There was literally nothing Everly did that wasn't ordered by her mother.

Knowing that it would be futile to continue trying to convince them if his innocence, Cameron finally hung his head.

"I'm sorry, Everly. Last night was a mistake and it won't happen again."

"As if that's going to cut it", Olivia said to Everly. "You know, this wouldn't have happened if we hadn't given him so many liberties. Who let him near the alcohol?"

Cameron gritted his teeth. It was bad enough they spoke to him as if he was a dog, but did he have to be there for it? The night before, Olivia had celebrated her sixtieth birthday by throwing a huge party. That had been the genesis of all these.

"I said I'm sorry", Cameron repeated.

"Just get lost", Everly said.

Silently, Cameron picked up his discarded clothes and headed to the bathroom to put them on. He could hear Olivia consoling her daughter. As if she needed consoling.

In a situation where they had both been caught off guard, he was somehow the villain. The double standard was glaring.

When he walked back into the room after getting dressed, Olivia gave him one of her supremely disgusted looks.

"I hope I don't have to remind you to clean the house up? It's a mess."

Cameron's brows furrowed. "I thought you hired cleaners?"

"And why would I do that when there's a useless, jobless man living in my house for free? Make yourself useful and scamper off now."

Silently, Cameron left the room. At this point, he couldn't even wonder where he had gone wrong. That was a conversation he'd had with himself many times. He knew the exact point where all in his life turned to shit, and it was when he'd made the mistake of marrying the wrong woman, for the entirely wrong reasons.