When I first started working for Victor, I never imagined he would become the most complicated part of my life.
I was twenty, new to the company, nervous, ambitious, and trying to prove that I belonged there. Victor was sixty-five, the owner of the business, wealthy, confident, and a man who could make a room go quiet just by walking in.
At first, he barely noticed me.
Then everything changed.
He began asking me to stay late for meetings. He started bringing me coffee the way I liked it. Sometimes he would call me into his office just to ask how my day was going.
I knew he was married.
Everyone did.
His wife appeared beside him at company events, beautifully elegant, wearing jewelry I could never afford. That should have been enough to make me stay away.
But Victor told me their marriage had been over for years.
“We only live under the same roof,” he said. “There’s nothing between us anymore.”
I wanted to believe him.
Soon, dinners after work became weekends away. Expensive gifts appeared at my apartment. He paid for things I never asked for and kept telling me that one day we would stop hiding.
He promised he was going to divorce his wife.
He promised we would travel together.
He even talked about buying a house where we could start a new life.
Whenever I asked why a man like him wanted someone as young and inexperienced as me, Victor would smile and say, “Because you’re different.”
For months, those words made me feel special.
But there were things I ignored.
He never let me visit his home.
He became nervous whenever I mentioned his family.
And once, when I asked to see a photograph of him when he was younger, his entire expression changed.
I should have understood then that something was wrong.
Instead, I kept believing every promise.
Then one day, by accident, I learned one thing about Victor that he had never intended for me to discover.
And in that moment, I finally realized the real reason he had chosen me.
When I first started working for Victor, I never imagined he would become the most complicated mistake of my life.
I was twenty, fresh out of school, nervous, ambitious, and desperate to prove myself.
Victor was sixty-five.
He owned the company, drove cars worth more than my parents’ house, and carried himself like someone who had never heard the word “no.”
At first, I was almost invisible to him.
Then, slowly, things changed.
He started asking me to stay late.
He brought me coffee without asking.
He remembered little things I mentioned in passing and complimented me when nobody else was around.
The attention felt flattering.
Especially coming from someone like him.
There was only one problem.
Victor was married.
His wife, Evelyn, appeared at company dinners and charity events wearing expensive dresses and a calm smile. She was close to Victor’s age, elegant and composed, and every time I saw her beside him, guilt twisted in my stomach.
But Victor always had an explanation.
“Our marriage ended years ago,” he told me one evening.
I looked at him skeptically.
“Then why are you still married?”
“Business. Property. Family. It’s complicated.”
He reached across the restaurant table and touched my hand.
“I sleep in another room. Evelyn and I are strangers living in the same house.”
I believed him.
Or maybe I wanted to.
Our relationship became serious quickly.
Victor took me to expensive restaurants far outside the city where nobody from work would recognize us. He booked hotel suites for weekends away and surprised me with jewelry I could never have afforded.
Whenever I told him the gifts made me uncomfortable, he smiled.
“Get used to being taken care of.”
Then came the promises.
He was going to divorce Evelyn.
He was going to buy us a house.
He wanted to travel through Europe with me.
“Just give me a little more time,” he kept saying.
And I did.
Three months became six.
Six became nine.
Every time I asked about the divorce, there was another delay.
His attorney needed more time.
Evelyn was supposedly refusing to sign something.
There were assets that needed to be divided.
But strangely, Victor never showed me any papers.
And I was never allowed near his house.
Then one Friday evening, everything changed.
Victor had told me he was going out of town for a business conference.
I believed him until one of my coworkers casually said, “Victor’s anniversary party is tonight.”
I froze.
“His what?”
She looked surprised.
“His wedding anniversary. Forty years, I think. They throw a big party every few years.”
I laughed awkwardly.
“That can’t be right. He’s away.”
She pulled out her phone.
Within seconds, she found a photograph posted by one of Victor’s business partners.
There he was.
Victor.
Standing beside Evelyn in the ballroom of a luxury hotel.
His arm was around her waist.
She was smiling up at him.
In front of them sat a huge cake decorated with the words:
FORTY YEARS TOGETHER.
My hands began shaking.
Maybe it was for appearances, I told myself.
Maybe Victor had been forced to attend.
Then I saw another photograph.
He was kissing Evelyn.
Not a cold kiss for cameras.
Not the behavior of two strangers sharing a house.
That night, I ignored Victor’s calls.
The next morning, someone knocked on my apartment door.
I expected Victor.
Instead, Evelyn stood there.
My stomach dropped.
She looked completely calm.
“May I come in?”
I didn’t know what else to do, so I stepped aside.
She walked into my living room, placed her handbag on the table, and looked at me for several seconds.
“I know about you,” she said.
My face burned.
“I’m sorry.”
To my surprise, she didn’t yell.
She didn’t insult me.
Instead, she gave me the saddest smile I had ever seen.
“You really believe he’s leaving me, don’t you?”
I couldn’t answer.
Evelyn opened her handbag and pulled out a thin folder.
Then she placed several photographs on my table.
The first showed Victor with a young brunette.
The second showed him with a blonde woman.
The third showed another woman standing beside him at a restaurant.
They were all young.
Very young.
My age, maybe a few years older.
I stared at the photographs.
“Who are they?”
“Employees.”
My throat tightened.
Evelyn pointed at the first woman.
“Rachel. Twenty-one. Victor told her our marriage was over.”
Then the next.
“Samantha. Twenty-two. He promised to divorce me and take her to Italy.”
Another photograph.
“Nicole. Nineteen. He told her he was buying them a house.”
I felt sick.
“How many?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“More than I know about.”
I pushed the photographs away.
“No. He told me I was different.”
Evelyn closed her eyes briefly.
“He told them that too.”
My chest felt hollow.
“Then why are you still with him?”
Her expression hardened.
“Our marriage is complicated. There are businesses, trusts, properties, children, decades of financial connections. I stopped believing Victor’s apologies years ago.”
She leaned closer.
“But he has never seriously planned to divorce me.”
I thought about every promise.
Every conversation.
Every time Victor told me to be patient.
“So why me?”
Evelyn looked at me carefully.
“Because you were twenty, new to the company, and impressed by him.”
The words hurt more than I expected.
“He likes being admired,” she continued. “He chooses young employees who are inexperienced enough to believe his world is exciting and powerful. He gives them attention, expensive gifts, promises them a future…and when they begin demanding the future he promised, he replaces them.”
My eyes filled with tears.
That was when another memory returned.
Months earlier, I had asked Victor to show me an old photograph of himself.
His face had changed instantly.
At the time, I thought he was simply private.
Now I understood.
The old company photographs probably included women who had come before me.
That afternoon, I asked Victor to meet me at a café.
He arrived looking irritated.
“Why were you ignoring me?”
I placed the photographs Evelyn had given me on the table.
Victor’s expression changed.
For the first time since I had known him, he had nothing to say.
“You promised me you were leaving her.”
He sighed.
“Evelyn shouldn’t have involved you.”
“That’s your answer?”
“You’re too young to understand how complicated marriage becomes after forty years.”
I stared at him.
“And Rachel? Samantha? Nicole? Were they too young to understand too?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Where did you get those names?”
That was all the confirmation I needed.
I stood.
Victor reached for my wrist.
“Don’t make an emotional decision.”
I pulled away.
“No, Victor. For the first time, I’m making a clear one.”
He lowered his voice.
“You’ll regret walking away from everything I can give you.”
I looked at the man I had once thought was powerful and sophisticated.
Suddenly, he just looked old.
“You never planned to give me a life,” I said. “You only planned to give me enough to keep me waiting.”
Then I walked out.
Two weeks later, I resigned.
Victor never divorced Evelyn.
And months afterward, one of my former coworkers sent me a photograph from the company Christmas party.
Victor was standing near the bar.
Beside him was a new assistant who had started shortly after I left.
She was smiling up at him.
She was twenty-one.
And around her neck was a necklace almost identical to the first expensive gift Victor had ever given me.