“Could they be down there?”
The girl nodded. “Yeah, actually, they could. There’s an extra supply closet down there beside the wine cellar. But, um…”
“Are we not allowed down there without permission?”
Her partner in crime blushed and stammered over her words. “We are. It’s just… I think the bride and groom couldn’t wait for the honeymoon. I saw them sneaking down there about fifteen minutes ago.”
That couldn’t be right. She was the bride. Surely some other members of the wedding party had sneaked off for a last-minute quickie before dinner. But the best man was Trevor’s dad and he was still married to Trevor’s mom. And his cousin Jeffery was the only other groomsman and he was gay. His husband, Craig, was here with him. It didn’t make sense.
“Probably just a couple of guests checking out the wine cellar. I’ll go check the closet.”
Fate descended the stairs as quickly as she could in her stilettos. Logic said that the girl was just confused or had seen some tipsy guests and mistaken them for members of the wedding party. But a strange, sickening urgency propelled her down the stairs and toward the wine cellar.
She was just turning the corner when she heard them. The hushed moans and a light cry in a cadence that sounded an awful lot like Melissa’s voice.
It was damp in the basement. Fate rubbed her arms, which were left bare by her halter dress. She stepped closer. The door to the wine cellar was ajar. She knew it was none of her business, but she couldn’t help but wonder who Melissa was shagging at her rehearsal dinner. Her composed friend, the one who’d helped her plan this wedding down to every last minute detail, was skipping out to have a good time. But with whom? Fate couldn’t think of a single eligible bachelor in attendance that would be Mel’s type. Most of Trevor’s relatives were uptight and twice her age.
“Yeah, baby. You like that?”
The voice was familiar. So familiar that it weakened her knees before she could take another step.
“Yes, Trevor.
God, yes
. Just like that.”
The floor seemed to slip away beneath her. Because her subconscious self was obviously a masochist, Fate took one more step.
Her heart dropped, sinking like a cement block into her stomach the moment she saw them. Melissa was backed against a wall of wine, her shimmery, nude, silk, mini cocktail dress hitched up around her waist. Trevor’s pants were just past his knees and his bare ass was wedged between Melissa’s legs.
Trevor thrust into her once more and groaned loudly. “Fuck, baby. I’m gonna—”
“Oh God,
Fate
.” The pleasure on Melissa’s face melted into a mask of horror.
Trevor froze mid-thrust. “What?”
A strangled noise escaped her throat. It was too late to run. Melissa had already seen her, and Trevor was turning around.
No. No, this isn’t happening. I’m dreaming.
Fate felt as if her body were separating from her soul the same way it had when she’d come home and thought her mother was dead on the couch. It tugged her upward until she was racing up the stairs even though every body part she was conscious of was tingling with pinpricks of numbness.
Melissa wouldn’t have done this. Not the same Melissa who’d let Fate cry on her shoulder after particularly hideous fights with Trevor over the years. Melissa had always been there for her through her mother’s worst bouts of depression and especially through her suicide attempt. She’d been right by her side during every step of planning this wedding. Fate couldn’t reconcile the kindhearted, supportive best friend she’d known since her freshman year of high school with the woman she’d just seen.
“I found the candles,” someone said in a triumphant female voice, but the owner of said voice had a blurry face.
Fate kept moving. Once she was outside on the patio, she took a lifesaving breath.
“There you are. We were looking for you,” Trevor’s mom said, blocking her exit onto the beach. “Fate? Are you all right?”
Fate’s eyes stung with barely contained tears and she longed like a child for her own mother. God, how she wished she could just be a kid again and dive into the safety of her mother’s arms. Her mom might have failed at all of her relationships and business ventures and struggled to hold down a job, but she was great at hugs.
“I’m not feeling well,” was all Fate could choke out.
Shock
, she thought.
I’m going into to shock.
Trevor’s mother stepped closer. “Are you ill? Uncle JR is a cardiologist. Want me to call him over?”
“No,” Fate breathed. She just wanted to get the hell away from here, from all of these people and their prying eyes. “I need to take a walk.
Now.
” She angled around the statuesque blonde without any further explanation.
She wanted to call and apologize to her mom. Say that she was sorry for getting engaged to someone like Trevor, someone who’d mocked her Bundt cake. And for being bitter that her mother was too sick with addiction to attend this sham of a wedding. She was sorry for judging her life’s decisions. For everything. But she had no idea where her phone was, and any more talking and she’d be a hysterical mess. Her heart slamming wildly in her chest, pounding far too hard for her to keep still, so she just kept moving.
“Goddammit, Fate. Wait a fucking minute.” Trevor’s voice rang out from behind her.
She whirled around instinctively and saw Melissa coming up behind him. Where Trevor was exuding pure outrage, Melissa at least had the decency to look contrite. Her eyes remained on the ground.
Painfully aware that they had an audience, Fate glanced around. A few people were staring openly at the unfolding commotion while the ocean had suddenly become very interesting to others.
“Wait for what, Trevor? You to finish screwing my maid of honor so we can give the wedding toast?”
The words exploded out of her mouth without permission.
Strangely, she didn’t regret them. Might as well get it all out there. It didn’t take a genius to know that one plus one equaled two people she cared about fucking each other and fucking her over in the process.
Olivia Harris clasped a hand over her chest. “What did she just say? Trevor,” she said, turning to her son. “Surely she’s delusional. Tell me she’s delusional.”
Fate didn’t wait to see what happened next. She just turned around and made her way down the wooden steps that led to the sand. Yanking off her shoes, she was about to take off into a dead sprint when Trevor caught up with her.
Stupid stilettos.
“Let go of me,” she bit out the second he made contact with her elbow.
“That was the last time. It was a mistake. Don’t do this.”
Her eyes widened. Was he serious?
It seemed like a logical question, so she voiced it out loud.
“Are you serious right now? It’s making me sick to look at you. You think I’m just going to march back up there and have dinner with you and your family?”
Trevor sighed as if suddenly bored with the whole ordeal. Looking at her as if she were being overdramatic, he raked a hand through his thick, sandy hair. “No. Not right now. But don’t just react out of anger, Fate. I made a mistake and I’m sorry. Let’s tell everyone to enjoy their dinner and you and I can go somewhere private and discuss this like adults.”
Fate replayed what she’d witnessed in her head. Only this time, she pictured grabbing a bottle of wine—red, since he liked it so damn much—and smashing it over his head.
“You forgot to zip your pants.”
She took advantage of his momentary distraction to start that jog down the beach she’d been planning.
But Trevor had played lacrosse in college, so he caught up with her easily. His arms ensnared her around the waist and she slapped him out of sheer instinct and adrenaline.
“Fuck, Fate. That hurt.” He released her, raising a hand to his cheek.
Words fueled by near hysteria escaped her throat. “
That
hurt?” She knew her voice was rising to a nearly inaudible decibel, but she couldn’t rein any of her self-control back in at the moment. “What hurts is doing everything right—going to college, getting a degree, saving myself for marriage, everything. And then walking in on someone I loved and trusted screwing someone else I loved and trusted the night before my wedding.”
“Fate, I told you it was—”
“Go to hell. Or go back to Melissa. Go anywhere. Just get away from me.”
He reached for her, but she jerked out of his grasp.
“Touch me again and I swear to God I will knee you so hard you’ll have to ejaculate out of your mouth for the rest of your life. See how Melissa likes you then.”
The vitriol behind her words changed her voice to one she barely recognized. The emotions were pushing and pulling her like the ocean tide beside them. Hatred. Hurt. Anger. Sadness. All of them at full throttle. No middle ground where she could find space to think rationally.
Trevor took a wise step backward. “Fine,” he said evenly. “Go for a walk and clear your head. When you get back, we can talk about everything.” He was still trying to call the shots, pulling her strings as if she were his puppet.
“Fuck off, Trevor.” Fate was surprised to hear her own laughter. Apparently, insanity was setting in. “And for the record, I hate red wine. And your stupid, pretentious music. And being ordered for. And frankly, I’m two seconds from going back in there and thanking my supposed
friend
for stopping me from making the biggest mistake of my life.”
“You’re upset,” he said quietly. “It’s understandable. But we
will
talk when you get back.”
Like hell they would.
“Your mother was wrong. It’s not me who’s delusional. It’s you.” With that, Fate tore down the beach as if someone had set fire to the sand.
I’
m acting just like her.
It was the thought that kept breaking through the hurt and the anger and the confusion. A man had made himself the central figure in her life and she’d let him control everything. Then he’d dashed it all to hell leaving her with nothing.
This was her mother’s modus operandi, not hers. Yet here she was. Walking against the ocean wind, watching the sun sink in the sky.
An understanding of the emptiness, the vast bleakness, and hopelessness her mother must’ve have felt the times her relationships had crumbled to dust settled onto her shoulders. She’d never understood her mother, how she could let the same thing happen over and over. How she could be stupid enough to trust again after someone had made her feel this way.
But in a way, she got it. Because anything would feel better than this.
Fate wished she’d worked out more. She’d only made it a little over a mile down the beach when she had to slow down or risk passing out.
Melissa and Trevor. Trevor and Melissa. Fucking.
And it hadn’t looked like an awkward first time to her. It had looked like they were well versed in pleasuring each other.
“That was the last time,”
Trevor had said.
A pained cry escaped her. The last time—as in the alleged end of an ongoing affair.
A cool ocean breeze washed over her, and as much as Fate hated to admit it—even silently—the thought was there.
She could walk out into the black water and disappear. Leave behind the nightmare she’d just lived through, the questions, and the aftermath. God, the looks on all of their faces was enough to make her seriously contemplate it.
It would be so easy to just give up. Fate wondered what she’d done to deserve this. Without Trevor, she had next to nothing. Her car was gone. The apartment she was going to live in was his. The family that made dinner and celebrated together on the holidays, all of it—that was all gone.
But Fate still had her mom, and imagining the look on her mom’s face when and if Fate’s lifeless body washed up was enough to make her take a step back.
But if you don’t forgive him, he won’t pay for her medical care, and next time, she might actually be dead on that couch.
She didn’t know whose voice it was announcing the painful reminder in her head, but it was right.
Trevor had taken everything away. He’d stripped her bare of the person she’d once been and recreated her as a young woman who followed the rules of high-class society. Once upon a time, she’d been a girl who followed her heart.
Acrimonious indignation replaced her grief, and Fate threw the black Manolos she held straight into the ocean. A scream carried away by the wind escaped her, and she dropped onto the sand and pulled her knees to her chest. A sob threatened, but she held it back. If she started crying now, there would be no stopping.
During her escape, Fate had passed several luxury beach houses. Lights were on, music spilling out of them. People going on with their lives. People whose lives continued on down the tracks they were meant to. Fate felt as if her train had seriously derailed.
What am I going to do?
As she tried to take stock of her life, another cry of despair broke across her shoulders when she came up with nothing substantial. The ocean called to her once more.