the logical explanation made her sick to her stomach.
Her fiancé wouldn’t be cheating on her, in her own bed, a month before their wedding...would he?
But there were noises coming from the bedroom. Familiar noises. And the hope that she was making a fuss over nothing died as she heard a woman screaming, ‘Oh, Stephen!’
Oh, God...oh, God...oh, God...
This was eight years ago, all over again. When she hadn’t been feeling well at a party and had gone to get her coat from the bedroom, only to discover her boyfriend having sex under the pile of coats with another girl.
Except this time was so much worse. Because it wasn’t the teenage boy she’d given her virginity to, the boy who’d sneered from under the pile of coats that he’d only slept with her for a bet because nobody would have really wanted to sleep with Immi the Elephant.
This was the man she was meant to be marrying.
Cold seeped all the way through her. There had to be some mistake.
‘Oh, Stephen, yes!’
No mistake, then.
She dragged in a deep breath. She could back away, close the front door quietly, pretend she hadn’t seen anything and then go to a coffee shop. Then she could call Stephen to say that she’d managed to conclude her meeting early and would be home in an hour. It would give him enough time to get his girlfriend out of her flat and clean up all traces of the woman’s presence. Immi could simply forget what she’d seen and pretend that nothing had happened.
But did she really want to spend the rest of her life living a lie? Marry a man who clearly didn’t love her, despite his protestations—because why else would he be seeing another woman behind her back?
Immi the Elephant.
She shook herself. She wasn’t an insecure, unhappy teenager any more. And she wasn’t going to do what she’d done back then and try to starve herself into what she’d thought was an acceptable shape. She’d worked hard to become who she was now: Imogen Marlowe, a strong, successful businesswoman.
And she was going to deal with this exactly as a strong, successful businesswoman would.
Lifting her chin, she marched over to the bedroom door. She banged on it twice—judging that it would give Stephen’s girlfriend just about enough time to cover herself with bedding, because Immi definitely didn’t need to be faced with the total naked truth—and opened the door.
‘What the—?’ Stephen began.
‘Who the hell are you?’ the girl squeaked, holding the bedclothes tightly against herself. ‘Stevie? What’s going on?’
Immi stared at the girl. She looked young, easily impressed. No doubt Stephen had turned on the charm. Charm that Immi now knew was as designer as his clothes and just as easily shed. ‘I,’ she said quietly, ‘am the person who owns this flat. Stephen’s fiancée.’ She gave a tight smile. ‘Well, I was his fiancée up until about two minutes ago, when I walked in to find your clothes all over the floor in my hallway and you screaming his name in my bed.’
The girl at least had the grace to blush and fall silent.
‘Immi! Look, this isn’t what you—’ Stephen began.
‘On the contrary,’ Immi cut in. ‘It’s exactly what I think it is. And now I know what Jamie meant by keeping your nose clean until the wedding. Pity you didn’t listen to him. But I’m glad you didn’t—because if I’d come home early from business and caught you in my bed with a girlfriend after we were married, it would’ve been that much worse. At least now I don’t have the mess of a divorce to deal with.’ Just a big, glitzy wedding to unpick. A wedding that had already snowballed until it felt as if it had taken on a life of its own.
Stephen looked too shocked to say another word.
Good.
Because she was only just holding herself together as it was.
She took his engagement ring off her finger and dropped it on the floor. ‘I’m going out for an hour and a half,’ she said. ‘When I get back, I expect you, your girlfriend and all your stuff to be gone.’
‘But, Immi—’
‘And you needn’t bother returning your key or getting it back from however many women you’ve given it to,’ she cut in, not wanting to hear any excuses, ‘because I’m getting the locks changed.’
‘Immi, don’t do this. I love you.’
A month or so ago, she might have believed him. But not after her twin’s wedding. Not after seeing the emotion in the eyes of a man who really did love the woman walking down the aisle towards him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You love the idea of being married to the boss’s daughter. Getting the corner office.’ And how it hurt to admit it. She’d been Immi the Elephant, the means to win a bet, to Shaun. She’d been the means to an end for Stephen. She’d spent her teen years battling the feeling of inadequacy, and even now she had days when the doubts swamped her—but she still knew she deserved better than this. ‘I’m guessing Dad might not be too keen on that idea, now.’
He went white. ‘Immi—’
If he’d said that he was sorry, she might’ve considered listening to him. But instead he’d tried to pull the wool over her eyes. Tried to lie his way out of it. Tried to tell her that finding him completely naked with another woman in her own bed wasn’t what she thought it was.
Did he think she was that pathetic and needy, that she’d go ahead and marry a man who clearly had no respect for her?
‘No,’ she said, and turned on her heel and walked out.
A few minutes later, Immi was sitting in a quiet corner of a nearby coffee shop, without a clue how she’d managed to walk there or how she’d even ordered anything, but in front of her was an espresso and her phone.
The phone whose ringer she’d turned to silent, but every time Stephen’s name flashed up on the screen she hit the ‘ignore’ button.
She ignored his texts, too.
Well, she’d seen them on her screen. Each one was increasingly desperate—no doubt as he realised that the glittering prize of Marlowe Aviation was slipping out of his grasp.
Immi, please.
Forgive me.
I don’t know why I did it.
I love you.
No. He didn’t love her at all. And he knew exactly why he’d slept with that girl: because he wanted to.
She couldn’t forgive him for a betrayal like that.
Particularly as he still hadn’t said the little five-letter word that might’ve made her talk to him. So clearly he wasn’t sorry at all. Or maybe just sorry that he’d been caught.
She took a sip of the coffee. It didn’t taste of anything, but she forced herself to drink it.
