Chapter 2: In Our Bed

CAMILLA.

I stood frozen in the doorway of what was supposed to be our bedroom. Julian scrambled for the sheets like a man drowning, yanking them up over his hips to hide the cock that was still glistening and hard from being inside someone else. 

Vivienne looked like she’d seen a ghost, eyes wide, lips parted, dark hair tangled across the pillow that still smelled faintly of my shampoo from last week.

“Shit…Camilla,” Julian said, voice cracking. “I promise, this is not what you think it is.”

My mouth opened but nothing came out at first. The air felt thick, like I was breathing through wet cotton. 

I could still hear the sound of him pulling out of her a second earlier. I could still see the way her thighs had been trembling.

“So this is why you decided to leave early, huh?” The words finally came, thin and shaking. Tears burned the corners of my eyes so hard I had to blink them back. “The compulsory meeting. The flight you had to catch. You left me in that hotel room still horny so you could come home and fuck your best friend in our bed.”

“No—no, Camilla, I swear—” He sat up higher, one hand still clutching the sheet. “This was a mistake.”

I laughed out loud, the tears still burning my eyes. “You were fucking her, Julian. How the hell is that a mistake?”

“I promise you it is.” His voice went soft the way it always did when he wanted me to calm down. “Vivienne, tell her.”

She scrambled onto her knees on the mattress, sheet clutched to her chest, makeup smeared. “It was a mistake,” she whispered, already pleading. “Camilla, please—”

I turned to leave. I couldn’t look at either of them another second. Julian’s hand shot out and closed around my wrist, yanking me back toward the bed. 

The sudden pull made me stumble. Rage flared hot and clean through the numbness. I shoved him hard in the chest with both hands. He lost his balance, the sheet slipping, and he hit the floor with a heavy thud that knocked the breath out of him.

I ran down the stairs, past the trail of her clothes and bra still hanging on the railing like a flag of surrender. 

Outside, the late afternoon air hit my face like cold water. I called a cab with shaking fingers, gave the driver Maya’s address, and sat in the back seat staring at nothing while the city blurred past the windows.

The entire ride I kept replaying it. We had just three weeks until the wedding. The tears came harder then, silent and steady, dripping onto the front of the same shirt I’d worn on the plane.

Maya opened the door in sweatpants and an old band tee, hair in a messy bun. Her smile died the second she saw my face.

“Girl…what are you doing here? I thought you weren’t back until tomorrow.” She scanned me from head to toe. “And why are you crying? What’s wrong with you?”

I tried to speak and only managed a wet sniffle. “It’s Julian. I caught him fucking Vivienne.”

Maya’s mouth dropped open. “You caught him doing what? What the hell? Aren’t they, like, best friends or something?”

“I thought so too.”

She pulled me inside without another word, kicked the door shut with her foot, and wrapped both arms around me. 

I buried my face in her shoulder and let the sobs come properly for the first time. She smelled like coconut lotion and the vanilla candles she always burned. Her hand rubbed slow circles between my shoulder blades.

“Honestly, girl, I understand how you feel right now,” she murmured. “But that asshole isn’t worth your tears.”

“It hurts so much,” I managed against her shirt.

“I know.” She kept rubbing. “But look on the bright side. You’re single now. You can do whatever the fuck you want and for once you’ll get actual good sex instead of three minutes of selfish dick.”

I lifted my head and stared at her. “What the fuck, Maya. That’s not comforting at all.”

She gave me that sly little half-smile she used when she was about to drag me into something reckless. “You know what is comforting? Stand up.”

I let her pull me to my feet. She steered me straight to her bedroom closet, yanked two dresses off hangers, and held them up against my body one after the other—first a deep red slip that would hug every curve, then a black gown with a low back and a slit that climbed halfway up the thigh.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“We’re going out.”

“No. No, I look like a mess.” I said.

“Oh, come off it. That’s not a problem, we’ll clean you up and in a couple of hours you’ll be fucking Julian right out of your system.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I muttered softly.

“Trust me, it is. I do it all the time.”

I gave her a look. “Your relationships don’t even last a month and you cheat the whole time.”

She put a hand over her heart like I’d stabbed her. “Okay, girl, that’s a low blow. Whatever. Just go shower and put this on.”

She shoved the black dress into my arms. I took it because fighting her was harder than just doing what she said. 

I stood under the shower until my skin turned pink, scrubbing every place Julian had touched me earlier, every place that still felt like his. 

When I stepped out, Maya was already waiting with a towel and the dress. She zipped me into it, sat me on the closed toilet lid, and worked on my face with the focus of a surgeon. 

She left my hair down, the damp waves falling past my shoulders.

By the time we left her apartment I barely recognized the woman in the mirror. 

The dress clung to me like a second skin. The slit flashed the length of my thigh with every step. Maya linked her arm through mine and declared us ready for war.

The club was only fifteen minutes away. Bass thudded through the walls before we even reached the door. Inside it was all low purple light and bodies moving like they had nothing to lose. Maya steered us straight to the bar.

“Two whiskeys,” she said to the bartender. 

He slid the glasses over and I picked mine up and downed it in one long swallow. The burn raced down my throat and settled warm in my stomach.

“Go, girl!” Maya shouted over the music. “Give us three more.”

I killed the second one just as fast and my vision started to soften. My eyes drifted across the crowd—men in tight shirts, women laughing too loud, the usual Friday-night hunger. 

Maya leaned in close, lips near my ear. “So which of these guys are you fucking tonight?”

“None,” I said.

She laughed. “Well, not until you see the regular who sits in that corner.” She tilted her chin toward a booth half-hidden in shadow near the back wall. “I’ve always known you’re into hot older men.”

I squinted. The booth was occupied by one person. Broad shoulders in a dark button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbows, the kind of quiet confidence that didn’t need to perform. 

He sat alone with a glass of wine, watching the room like it amused him.

“He can’t be all that,” I said, but my pulse had already picked up.

“You should check for yourself.”

Something reckless and sharp uncoiled in my chest—the same place that used to open those tabs on my laptop after Julian left me unfinished. 

I stood, smoothed the dress down my hips, and walked. The whiskey warmed my blood. Every step closer made the rest of the club fade until there was only the booth and the man inside it.

I stopped at the edge of the table.

“Hey,” I said.

He lifted his face slowly and the moment his eyes met mine, my breath stopped.