John heard the Porter leave Jennifer's compartment and a few moments later, she appeared at the door of his compartment. Her face looked a mess, her mascara was runny and her eyes were all puffy, it was obvious she had been crying. John immediately stood up and came toward her. "Jennifer, what's wrong, what's happened?"
Jennifer burst into tears again and fell into his arms. Between bursts of tears and crying she fought for the words. "Michael is having an affair."
John's worst fears were suddenly realized he felt his hands get clammy. He gently pulled her into his compartment and sat her down in the seat and then sat down next to her, still holding her close to him. In a soothing voice he said. "Now how do you know that, that may not be true? Look at all the trouble and expense he went through to give you this wonderful weekend."
Still sobbing, she wiped her eyes and sniffed back the tears a few times. "No it's true. I had a phone call at the hotel from a lady named Vittoria, her father is the President of Ariatron, the company you guys are here dealing with, she said she needed to meet with me privately, that it was very important."
John's heart sank, he felt so sorry for Jennifer, he knew what was coming.
"We met at a small coffee shop a block from the hotel. I sat down at her table and I immediately noticed she was wearing the green dangly earrings that I thought Michael had bought for me, he had obviously bought them for her. She started off by apologizing because she had no idea that Michael was engaged. She reminded me it's hard to tell about a man because only women wear engagement rings like the one I was wearing. He had told her that he was divorced, that part of his story was true anyway but he forgot to tell her the part about his fiancé, me." She started to hysterically cry again, John sat there holding her and gently rubbing her shoulder and arm. "The worst thing was that she said she spent all night with Michael on Wednesday. The night he told me he was in that meeting far away with the President of the company, he was with her all night. I can't believe this is happening to me."
John sat there holding her, then in a soothing voice. "Jennifer I'm so sorry for you, you don't deserve this. I can't understand why you even showed up for this trip to Venice, you're a stronger person than me."
Again she wiped back the tears that were flowing less now. "My first thought was not to, but then I remembered you were on the train already and I couldn't just leave you to go alone without knowing what happened to me."