Page 2 of The Breakup

Nope. I wanted to fuck her.

And I was going to make her want to fuck me.

“How about this drink is on me,” I said. “By the way, congratulations on your upcoming marriage. I wish you a very long life of happiness with your groom.”

Bella stopped and turned, a troubled look darting across her face briefly. She was wearing a romper with silky straps and a low V-cut in the front. Her hand fluttered over her exposed skin. “Are you making fun of me?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No. Just thinking your fiancé is one lucky motherfucker that he gets to make love to you every night.”

She looked shocked. And aroused. Her chest was heaving. I could see her nipples through the thin fabric. She saw my eyes drop.

But she didn’t say a word. She just clutched her drink and disappeared into the crowd, walking very fast.

I smiled as I adjusted my now hard cock behind the bar.

I gave it four days before she was willing to fuck me.

Five, tops.

—

“If someone was cheating on you, would you want to know?” I asked my sister, Sophie, as I lay on the couch at my parents’ summer house wishing for death.

My head was killing me and waves of nausea kept rolling over me. My stomach would clench, I would get hot and sweaty, swear I was going to vomit, and then it would thankfully pass after I swallowed multiple times and vowed never to drink alcohol ever again.

Only to start the sequence all over.

I got loaded at my bachelorette party. Which might not be that shocking for some people, but it’s not normally my thing. I’m usually good with a couple of glasses of chardonnay or maybe one vodka mixed drink. I had a horrible feeling I’d thrown back more like five the night before, and it was because of my worry that my fiancé, Bradley, was cheating on me.

Sophie was sitting in a chair across from me, looking pensive. She had just broken up with her hookup, Cain, the drunk half of the Jordan twins. I knew she was upset, but it was just a hookup. She would get over it.

This was the rest of my damn life.

“Yes, I would want to know,” she said with zero hesitation.

Easy for her to say. She wasn’t a week out from her wedding.

I sighed, closing my eyes briefly, tears burning behind the lids. My wedding. My perfect, beautiful extravaganza wedding, which was the culmination of every desire I had ever had. I wanted one day to shine, to be the beautiful bride that everyone admired and envied. I wanted to launch my life as a wife and mother, and the consummate hostess. I didn’t have Sophie’s intelligence. I didn’t have my father’s ambition. All I had ever wanted was to be was a mother, herding my crew in my Lexus SUV to soccer practice and lacrosse and throwing Pinterest-worthy birthday parties. I wanted a mix of both biological and adopted kids, and foster pets. A crowded, happy house of love.

Sophie thought it was stupid, though she never out-and-out criticized me.

But it was my dream, antifeminist or not, and now it was all in jeopardy because I was 85 percent sure Bradley was dining out instead of at home. “I think Bradley has a side slut,” I said, rubbing my temples, hoping my headache would magically disappear. “And he forgot his phone. It’s in my pocket and I need to look, Soph. I have to look.”

It was tearing my gut apart even more than the alcohol.

Bradley had arrived an hour earlier, taken one look at my hungover hot mess of a self, and said, “Jesus. I’m going golfing with your dad. Try running a brush through your hair while I’m gone.”

Which was mean and rude, but at the same time, I never let Bradley see me looking anything less than perfect, so honestly, it was partly my fault. I had set myself up to disappoint him at some point. You can’t keep that shit up forever. Eventually you have to be real. Today was about as real as it was going to get.

“Once you look, you can’t go back to not knowing,” Sophie said, slumped in the chair, pulling on her Harvard T-shirt like she felt sweaty. “So be very sure before you poke around that you’re prepared for the outcome.”

I sat up, my stomach roiling and my head throbbing. “Of course I’m not prepared! Who is ever prepared for that kind of information? But it doesn’t matter. I can’t get in his phone anyway, he has a password.”

I pulled it out of the pocket of my lounge pants and stared at the screen. It mocked me, flashing that he had text messages, but he had his phone set to hide who it was from or what it said. That right there seemed like an admission of guilt to me.

“I know his pass code,” Sophie said. “If you’re sure you want to look.”

I frowned at my sister. “How do you know his password?”

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