“Hey, Claire,” I say, and then stop dead in my tracks as my eyes land on the guy entering after her.
“This is Lee, my fiancé,” she tells us, with a proud smile. “Lee, meet Cass and Janie.”
But Lee isn’t interested in Janie. He stops as dead in his tracks as I do when his eyes land on me.
It’s him. Ordinary guy. The very first guy who fucked me on the mattress. I was drunk, but not that drunk. I recognise him, and it’s plain as day he recognises me.
I feel sick. Totally and utterly sick.
Claire is still smiling when she sees the look passing between us.
“Do you two know each other?” she asks, and Lee takes the lead.
“I think we may have seen each other around somewhere, not quite sure.”
He’s seen my pussy splayed wide on a rubber mattress and lapped at my tits. He’s used me like a slut while my boyfriend watched, and he remembers every second of it, I can read it a mile off.
I’m so embarrassed I could curl up into a ball on the floor and sob, but I keep it together, because I have to. I breathe nice and slowly, hoping I don’t pass out.
“Yeah, maybe we’ve seen each other somewhere around. Nice to meet you,” I lie, and Claire seems to buy into that easily enough.
I see so many photos of future husbands in this job that they become a bit of a blur on phone screens until I’m lucky enough to meet them in the flesh. I’m not lucky now though. I made no connection between Claire’s photos of her fiancé and the man who stepped into the mattress room a few weeks ago. No connection at all.
“Lee loves the bridesmaid dresses as much as I do,” she says and looks up at him for acknowledgement.
Fuck, his smile is awkward, but she seems oblivious.
“Yeah, they look great.”
“Fab,” I say.
“Amazing!” Janie adds. “We’ll get those ordered.”
Please go now. That’s what my head is screaming. Please go. Go now.
But they don’t go.
Claire is too busy chatting and filling Lee in enthusiastically on all the plans we’ve made with her so far, nudging him with a laugh as we talk about the secret reveal that’s going to be her wedding dress as she walks up the aisle to him.
What do I do?
Do I destroy every scrap of my reputation and blow the cover on her cheating fiancé, telling her here and now that he fucked me as my boyfriend watched him? Or do I stay quiet and keep on smiling?
Fuck. FUCK.
Of course I take the easy route. I stay quiet and keep on smiling.
My legs are shaking so bad I don’t know how I stay on my feet, and I feel sick and faint as I try my best to nod and join in with the conversation.
“You alright?” Janie asks me, and I realise I must be failing.
“Yeah, sure,” I counter. “Just feeling a bit… ill today.”
“Shit,” Claire says, looking worried for me. She steps forward and takes my arm. “You look pretty pale, Cass. You coming down with something?”
Your fiancé fucked me behind your back. That’s what I want to say to her. I didn’t know he was your fiancé, but I let him fuck me. I had your fiancé’s dick inside me a few weeks ago.
Suddenly it makes sense. I remember her telling me she’d been on her trial hen night with Lena that weekend. We’d been congratulating each other on brilliant beach trips… neither of us knowing that her partner was fucking me while she was away planning their wedding.
Lee’s a shifty piece of shit, but he handles it much more easily than I do. It makes it obvious he’s a much more comfortable liar than I am, and I wonder how many other women he’s fucked behind her back.
“We’d better go,” he says while Claire is still staring at me. “You should rest up, Cass,” he says, and I hate him speaking my name. “You do look like you’re coming down with something.”
“Make sure you take care of her,” Claire says to Janie, and Janie nods.
“Don’t worry. I will. We’ll get those dresses ordered for you. Say hi to Lena for us.”
I manage to wait until the door closes behind them before I dash through the office to the bathroom. I retch and I retch until I bring up the coffee and toast Gerwyn made me for breakfast and then I collapse by the toilet, rocking like a broken idiot as Janie dashes in to join me.
“What’s up?” she asks. “Jeez, Cass, you look really ill.”
I want to tell her so bad. I want to pull her down to me and give her the confession of a lifetime, telling her about the whole sorry fuck up and what a cheating prick Claire’s fiancé is, but I can’t do it. Instead I retch again, dry heaving as there’s nothing left to bring up.