Page 1 of Fangs for the Memories
Grace
“You can’t go. Not on your own,” Lucy implores me as I savagely shove another outfit into my already bursting suitcase.
“Why not? It’s bought and paid for. Why shouldn’t I go?” I try not to look at the passport and plane ticket sat on the dresser.
If I look at it, if I stop for a moment, I know I will cry. So far, I’ve got through this with dry eyes, and it’s how I intend to stay. My make up cost a fortune, so I don’t want it running.
“Perhaps…” Lucy sits down on the bed, her floofy petticoat popping up, and she slams both hands down to flatten it. I know she didn’t like it much anyway and this final fitting has confirmed it.
She looks around the room. The debris of the wedding which never was litters it. My dress, hanging lopsidedly over the wardrobe door, shoes flung across the room, the empty champagne bottles, used tissues scattered on the floor, make up, hair tongs, and toiletries are everywhere.
So I know what Lucy is thinking.
“Don’t say it.” I sweep up mascara and lipstick into a wash bag. “There’s no perhaps. There’s no maybe and there’s no Mr. & Mrs.” A half sob escapes my throat.
“Shit, Grace.” She’s off the bed, enveloping me in a hug as I do everything in my power to stop the tears from falling.
I’m still in my robe. I didn’t even get into my vintage wedding dress for the final fitting when I got the text.
Yes, my fiancé dumped me, by text, a week before the wedding. A wedding he insisted I take time out of my business to plan for the last six months.
And told me he wanted me out of the house we shared because he wanted to move in his bit on the side…his secretary.
“He’s a complete twat. I’m so sorry,” she says in my ear as my chest heaves.
I pull away from her. “Which is why I’m going to go on this stupid honeymoon and make sure to deprive Mark of any pleasure,” I say with a defiant sniff, heading into the bathroom where I dump the rest of my things into a bag.
I don’t mean to, but I catch sight of myself in the mirror, my long tawny brown hair primped into an elaborate half up half down do to complement my dress, my face almost entirely white in the harsh lighting, my blue eyes standing out, almost on stalks.
When I look at the last year now, all the warning signs were there, I just chose to ignore them. And I ignored them because this wedding had become a monster which ate up all my time and all my patience.
A wedding I didn’t want and, so it seems, neither did Mark. He didn’t even want me. He wanted the dark haired siren from the typing pool instead.
I just didn’t expect him to shit on me from such a great height. Even if he didn’t love me, which, if I’m honest, I don’t care about because any love I might have had for him was snuffed out long ago, to publicly humiliate me like this…
It’s beyond cruel.
“Shit.” I fly out of the bathroom and grab my phone, frantically thumbing through it.” Shit!”
“What is it?” Lucy has wriggled out of the silly petticoat and dropped it on the floor with the rest of the rubbish.
“The business!” I finally find the email I’ve been looking for and scroll through it as Lucy hovers next to me.
When I come to the part about my business, I look at her, frantically calling up my banking app. It blinks for a second then…
NO ACCESS
I drop the phone on the bed.
“He took it all,” I say, my throat dry and my voice hoarse. “In the prenup.”
“The what-what?” Lucy stares at me. “Why on earth did you sign a prenup, especially one which gave him any access to your finances pre marriage?” she says in her best lawyer voice. “And why didn’t you ask me about it?” she adds, hurt.
“He wanted to protect his business, because you know these tech guys.” I make bunny ears in the air. “‘Everyone depends on me, Grace’,” I say in a good approximation of Mark’s nasally voice. “‘If I don’t get paid, they don’t get paid.’ I thought it meant I’d get a piece of his business…but”—I slump onto the floor—“it means he gets all of mine.”
“Mark is an arse. A massive arse,” Lucy says with a huff.
“You could have said something to me like that before all of this.” I gesture to the wreck of a room.
