Chapter 6
SIX
Two Years Later
My fiancé is having an affair.
With my maid of honor.
My cousin.
I found out, via email—a seemingly innocuous email, sitting between an invoice from the wedding photographer and a request for the final guest count from the caterer.
Flicking a quick look at the sender, I see that it’s not from a vendor. It was sent from a blind email account and the subject line says last weekend. There’s an attachment included.
Even though I don’t recognize the email, I open it, thinking maybe they were pictures from our bachelorette weekend in the Hamptons (yes, even though my sister’s bachelorette weekend there was a nightmare, I chose to go back for my own.
Call it a full circle moment.). The body of the email was harmless enough.
I thought maybe you’d like to see these.
Opening the attachment, it took me nearly a full thirty seconds to understand what I was looking at and another thirty minutes to process it.
Text messages.
Between my fiancé and my cousin.
Allister: I wish you didn’t have to go. I wish you could get out of it and stay home. I want you so bad, baby.
Paige: I know. It’s going to be so boring, just like last time. Maybe I can sneak into town after everyone is asleep. We can rent a hotel room for the night and you can fuck me as a free man.
Allister: Forget about this weekend. I want to fuck you now. Come to my office so I can bend you over my desk and nail you to it with my cock.
Paige: OMW. Tell your assistant to take a long lunch.
Scrolling through the attachment, I feel my stomach drop and my hands start to shake because there are pages of them. Pages and pages, going back almost the entirety of our relationship. The very first one is from Paige—
Paige: Hey, Allister. This is Paige, Millie’s cousin. I borrowed your number from her phone, hope you don’t mind. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to chat with me, later on this week. Maybe we can meet for lunch?
She sent it only a few days after we got back from the Hamptons for Gwen’s bachelorette weekend.
Correction—after they got back.
I left early.
Pushing the memory away, I keep scrolling, every page making me more and more sick. Each text exchange adding another layer of shame and anxiety, pulling tighter and tighter. Shrink wrapping my chest until my vision goes blurry and I’m almost positive I’m going to pass out.
Paige: Tell me you don’t want to marry her. Tell me that when you’re standing at the altar, promising to love her forever, you’ll be thinking about fucking me.
Allister: Fucking you is the only thing I ever think about. Especially when I’m fucking her. I can’t even get it up for her unless I’m thinking about coming in that beautiful pussy of yours.
Paige: You mean this pussy?
I feel my face go up in flames when I see the accompanying picture attached to the text. Paige sprawled out across her bed, naked. Legs spread wide.
Allister: Jesus, baby—you’re killing me.
Paige: Then come fuck me.
Allister: I can’t. I’m having lunch with her.
Paige: Cancel.
Those texts were sent less than thirty minutes ago.
Breathe, Millie.
Just breathe.
The ceremony is in three days.
Closing the window on my computer, I push my chair away from my desk and bend forward. Putting my head between my knees, I close my eyes and focus on taking deep, measured breaths. Feeling my chest open and expand with each of them before I let them out in a slow and steady stream.
Paige and Allister are having an affair.
My fiancé and my cousin.
My best friend.
Years.
It’s been going on for years.
The rehearsal dinner is tonight.
How am I supposed to face them, knowing—
The phone on my desk lets out a muted beep, the sound of it followed by my assistant’s voice, reaching for me through the intercom. “Ms. Blackwell, Mr. Whittmore is on line one.”
Allister.
Without lifting my head, I reach out to fumble with the intercom button. “Tell him I’m unavailable. Thank you, Alice.” Releasing the intercom button, I move to drop my shaky hand back into my lap, but I stall out when it buzzes again.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Blackwell but he’s insisting—”
Lifting my head, I press the button again. “It’s okay, Alice. I’ll take the call.” Pressing the button on the phone next to the flashing green line, I pick up the receiver. “Hello, darling,” I say, in a sticky sweet tone I don’t recognize as my own. “Is everything okay?”
“Hi. Yes—” Taken aback by my tone, Allister pauses. “Are you okay, Millie? You don’t sound like yourself,” he says, his smooth tone laced tight with worry, and for just a second, it doesn’t seem possible.
This is Allister.
The man I’m going to marry.
My father adores him.
Trusts him.
So much so that he just promoted Allister to senior vice president, in charge of—
“Millie?”
Snapping out of my reverie, I look at the ring Allister put on my finger over a year ago.
It’s nearly seven carats, the stone entirely too big for my finger.
I have to take it off to do just about everything.
After he proposed, I almost asked if we could exchange it for something smaller but he’d looked so happy, so relieved I said yes that in the end, I didn’t have the heart.
Remembering that look, I feel my chest start to loosen.
A joke.
This has to be a sick joke.
Text messages can be faked.
So can photos.
With AI, anything is possible.
Whatever’s happening, there’s an explanation.
A plausible, logical explanation that doesn’t involve the two most important people in my life lying to and betraying me for the last two years.
Whatever it is, it can be explained.
Fixed.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, smoothing the words over my usual calm tone. “I’m just a little jumpy—caterer needs a final head count and I’ve been staring at the seating chart for the last twenty minutes trying to figure out where to put your Aunt Edna.”
Allister laughs, his relief almost palpable.
“We can sit my Aunt Edna wherever you want,” he tells me.
“As long as you’re happy.” He pauses like he’s waiting for me to ask him why he’s calling me in the middle of the day.
When I don’t, he clears his throat. “I’m calling about lunch.
I know we’re supposed to meet but I’m going to have to work through lunch if I want to—”
“Say no more,” I say, interrupting him before he can start making excuses. Fighting off a wave of dizzying nausea, I squeeze my eyes shut. “I understand—I can eat at my desk.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he tells me, tone full of remorse. “Why don’t I come pick you up from the office and we can drive to the restaurant together. We can leave a little early. Maybe grab a drink before—”
“I’m sorry but that won’t work,” I tell him, my tone surprisingly steady. “The seamstress called me. My dress is ready, and she needs me to pop in for a final fitting. I planned on stopping in on my way to the restaurant.”
It's a lie.
I had my final fitting last week.
My wedding dress is at my parents’ house for safekeeping.
He would know that if he’d been paying attention.
“Oh...” He sounds almost relieved. “I really am sorry, Millie. I’m trying to get all my loose ends tied up so I can be free and present for our honeymoon,” he tells me. “I know how important it is to you that we’re able to disconnect from work and spend time together.”
“Us.”
Like he doesn’t understand what I just said, Allister pauses again. “I’m sorry?”
“Us.” I repeat myself quietly. “Being able to disconnect from work and spend time together on our honeymoon is important to us.”
“Of course, darling,” Allister assures me in a soothing tone I recognize. It’s the one he uses when he’s trying to placate me. Keep me calm. Keep me from asking for too much. Seeing too much. “I only want things to be perfect for you on your big day.”
Our.
Our big day.
“Thank you, sweetheart.” Instead of correcting him again, I swallow it down with a healthy dose of bile. “I’ll let you get back to work. Thank you for calling.”
“I love you, Millie.” He says it like he’s holding his breath.
“I love you too,” I answer back like a robot. “See you tonight.”
I hang up before he can say anything else.
Setting the receiver back into its cradle, I reach over and open my laptop to stare at the screen. It takes less than ten minutes for another notification to pop up.
An email from the same anonymous address, using the same third-party server.
This time, the subject line says, are you going to let them get away with this?
Like before there’s an attachment.
Clicking it open, I read the brand-new text exchange between my cheating snake of a fiancé and my back-stabbing maid-of-honor, time stamped from just a few minutes ago.
Allister: She sounded weird when I called. Do you think she suspects what we’re doing?
Paige: What we’re doing? Do you mean that we’ve been fucking each other’s brains out for the last two years? I seriously doubt it. Millie is as oblivious as she is uptight.
Allister: Are you sure? I can’t mess this up. If she finds out and calls off the wedding, I’m ruined. I’ll lose everything.
Paige: My pussy is worth the risk, baby. Now come over here and fill it before we have to go sit through another boring family dinner.
Allister: Why can’t I say no to you?
Paige: Because you’re obsessed with fucking me. Now get over here before I change my mind about wanting to walk into that restaurant tonight with your cum soaking my panties.
Allister: On my way.
Heart pounding in my chest, I hit the reply button and type out three simple words.
Who are you?
Hitting send, I become even more confused when my email is bounced back to me as undeliverable.
Whoever sent me the messages between Allister and Paige almost immediately deactivated their email account.
Closing my laptop, I stare into middle space, heart hammering in my chest while it all buzzes around my head like a swarm of angry bees. Everything they’ve ever said about me. Thought about me.
Millie the boring.
Millie the prude.
Millie the logical.
Millie the doormat.
I’ve never rocked the boat. Always been the good girl. Done the right thing.
The sane thing.
The safe thing.
Right now, I don’t want to do the safe thing and I sure as hell don’t feel sane.
I want to burn it down.
All of it.
Every building.
Every bridge.
So, are you, Millie?
Are you going to let them get away with this?
No.
No, I’m not.