2 At Least She Knows Now

Sabrina wasn’t sure exactly when a scream ripped out of her mouth, but soon, it was all she could hear. The sound of her own high-pitched scream followed by a ringing in her ears, followed by a curse.

She watched her best friend and fiancé pry themselves off each other and stare at her with wide-eyed shock plastered on their faces. Charlotte was gripping a blanket over her chest while Kyler was swearing and yanking a blanket over his lap.

They were both sweaty. A brief glance at Kyler’s back when he turned around revealed scratch marks, there were hickeys on Charlotte’s neck, and the room smelled distinctly of sex.

There was no denying what happened in here no matter how much one part of Sabrina’s brain wanted to convince her that this was all just a mistake. Sabrina just stood there, stunned, horrified, and reeling from the icy feeling of betrayal that slammed into her.

“What… Kyler…” she was at a loss for words. Sabrina pressed her lips together in an attempt to keep cool, or she would burst into tears. “Kyler, what is this? The two of you?”

Kyler was her fiancé, her childhood friend. They’d been together for years now and their wedding was only weeks away. How could he?

How could Charlotte do this to her as well? Her childhood best friend, the woman she trusted to handle her affairs in the business world when she had needed someone to. She was in bed with her fiancé…

At first, the two of them didn’t say anything. They glanced at each other then looked down at the rumpled bed sheets, avoiding Sabrina’s eyes. Then, Charlotte sighed and rolled her eyes, flipping her thick red hair over one shoulder.

“I’m just glad we don’t have to hide this any longer,” she muttered, then got up from the bed and walked up to Sabrina, buck-naked and glaring at her supposed best friend. “Look, Kyler and I are in love. I didn’t think you’d have to find out this way, but you know what they say, no time like the present.”

Sabrina’s jaw dropped as she stared at the unfamiliar version of her friend, cocky, arrogant, and staring at her with undisguised contempt.

What the fuck was happening? Sabrina thought.

Kyler sighed as well and stood, but he kept the blanket over his nether regions. “I told you to be more gentle with her.”

Charlotte shrugged and turned to Kyler with a sly expression. “Where’s the fun in that? Look at her, she’s absolutely horrified!”

The two shared a laugh and it was too much for her to take—this bizarre sight, the reality of what her day was. The realization that her mother was with an unfaithful man and now she was in that same situation herself.

“Stop!” Sabrina screeched. The tears spilled out of her eyes without any attempt at stopping it. “How long has this been going on? Was our whole relationship a lie? How could the two of you betray me like this?!”

“Calm down, will you?” Kyler snapped. He would not tolerate anyone attempting to berate him, least of all a woman he could barely tolerate. “Our relationship wasn’t a lie, I did like you at some point. But you’re such a prude, Rina! What kind of man do you think would be willing to wait for sex?”

His words felt like a slap on her face. “But you—you said…”

“Said that I could wait? Yeah, I thought I could,” he ran his hands through his hair. “But I have needs, Sabrina, and since you don’t want to fulfill them, I found someone who could. Charlotte is much hotter than you anyway, I couldn’t help myself.”

He said all that with a casual shrug as though she wasn’t sobbing in front of him, as if he wasn’t sliding hundreds of knives into her.

“You could have told me!” She screamed out. “You could have told me that you couldn’t wait, we could have come to a compromise, I could have—”

“It’s too late for that now,” Charlotte laughed, then nudged Kyler with her elbow. “You didn’t tell her the good news, babe.”

Sabrina watched with horror as Charlotte affectionately patted her stomach and grinned. She clamped her hand over her mouth as the feeling of nausea rose up once again.

“Look, I was going to tell you a month ago but you were grieving and I thought it’d be shitty of me to just break it off with you immediately after, so I waited,” he shrugged then scoffed. “You should have been grateful that I’m even this fucking thoughtful. Charlotte is going to have my baby, and other than your mum’s company, which is the real reason I’m marrying you anyway, I have no reason to be with you.”

“You were…” Sabrina smacked her lips and wiped the tears off her face. Her voice was high-pitched and she was wheezing, almost breathless. “You were using me for my mother’s company?”

“I need to feed my family somehow,” he shrugged again and Sabrina wanted to hurt his stupid shoulders. “I was going to divorce you eventually, then I’d take your mother’s company as mine as part of our settlement and then we’d be done with each other forever.”

Sabrina staggered back and turned to Charlotte. “And you knew about this and you supported it, you, my best friend?”

“Of course I did,” Charlotte bit back, she took in the pathetic woman in front of her. It’d been a pain to pretend for all these years that she gave a fuck about her. “When you told me that you planned on waiting for marriage, I thought you were being a fucking moron. Kyler was always too good for you anyway.”

“Charlotte,” she let out a small, broken sob. “You were my best friend…”

Everything she knew had fallen apart in one day. Sabrina couldn’t even hold herself up, so she pressed her back against the wall and kept her head down, tears fell from her eyes to the carpet.

Without giving either of them a chance to tear her apart with their words any longer, she turned and ran out of the apartment, tears pouring down her face.