CHAPTER ONE
Fuck.
I stared at my cell phone, mouth slack in horror. Man, they were really going for it. Tongues wrangling, teeth clashing. There was no hesitation, no holding back, as they ground their bodies together. The angle and lighting were crap, but still plenty sufficient to catch all the porny action, god help me.
This couldn’t be happening. What the hell was I going to do?
From out in the hallway came voices, laughter, all of the usual sounds of happiness. About what you’d expect on your big day. The smut on the small screen, not so much. I didn’t want to see it, yet I couldn’t look away. Whoever had sent this to me had blocked their number. They could have only had one aim in mind, however.
Shit.
God, the sure way they touched, so obviously familiar with each other’s bodies, killed me. My stomach churned, bile burning the back of my throat. Enough. I swallowed hard and threw the cell onto the brand-new super-size bed. Video still rolling, it lay discarded among the scattered red rose petals like some sick joke. Should have chucked it at the wall. Stomped it, or something.
Chris had said they were going to hang out, take it easy. Just him and his best man, Paul, knocking back a few drinks and talking about the old times. Sure as hell, there’d been no mention of them tongue wrestling because I would have remembered that no matter how busy with wedding details I’d been.
My eyes itched, a muscle quivering in my cheek. Had this been going on behind my back all along, in which case, what kind of idiot was I? I wrapped my arms around myself, holding on tight, doing my best to keep my shit together.
It wasn’t working. Not even a little.
The bitch of it was, now that I thought about it, there’d been signs. Chris’s libido had never been what you’d call raging. Among all the dinner dates and outings that made up our whirlwind romance, there’d been lots of hand holding and kissing, sure. But little to no actual intercourse. There’d always been excuses. His family was religious, we should follow tradition and wait for the wedding night, it would be so special when we finally did it, yada yada. It’d all made sense at the time. His simply not being into pussy had never crossed my mind. The man had been so perfect in every other way.
Only, he wasn’t. Because according to that video, Coeur d’Alene’s golden boy had most likely been using me as a goddamn beard and had planned to keep doing so for the rest of our natural-born lives.
Deep inside, some part of me broke. My heart, my hopes and dreams, I don’t know what. But everything hurt. Never in any of my twenty-five years had I experienced anything akin. The pain was excruciating.
Voices out in the hallway came closer as the moaning and groaning on my cell grew louder. The Chris on the video clearly into all the cock wielding his best man was doing. Bastards. To imagine, I’d finally thought I’d found a home. How stupid was I?
No damn way could I go out there, face all those people and tell them what a fool I’d been. Of how thoroughly I’d been duped. Or at least, not yet. My mind needed a chance to wrap itself around the enormity of what Chris had done, of how thoroughly he’d screwed me over.
Boom, boom, boom! went a fist on the other side of the bedroom door. I jumped, eyes painfully wide open.
“Lydia, it’s time,” announced Chris’s father.
And yeah … no way. I was out of there.
Blind panic seized me and I ran. Not easy to do wildly out of shape and in full wedding regalia, but I managed. Hell, I fucking flew. It’s amazing what terror can do.
Out the French doors and onto the patio. Across the expanse of manicured green lawn, my stiletto heels sinking into the soft ground with every hurried step. The hum of soft music and conversation filled the air. All of the guests were gathered out front awaiting the service, followed by cocktails and canapés. So through the back garden I plowed, pushing past shrubbery and flattening flower beds. Thorns from a rosebush caught at my stockings, stinging, scratching my legs. Never mind. No time to waste. For hidden behind a tree sat a compost bin, placed perfectly beside the six-foot-something-high fence separating this property from the next.
Yes. Awesome. Escape was mine.
Let Chris explain to them all why his bride had fled. Or better yet, let Paul, the slimy, two-faced, man-stealing bastard.
Thank god I hadn’t gone for the floor-length gown his mother had tried to squeeze me into. Calf length would be tricky enough what with all the tulle underskirts. I hitched them up, clambering onto the hip-high bin without too much trouble. It wobbled like a bitch as I climbed to my feet. A scarily high-pitched noise escaped me. I grabbed hold of the rough wooden fence, hanging on so tight my knuckles turned white.