Page 8 of Not Your Average Vixen
She took another step into the room and discovered her boyfriend lying flat on the bed while being straddled by the lingerie thief.
And then the penny dropped.
“Oh my God,” she said on a tight exhale as the second sucker punch of the day landed straight into her gut.
“Bridget!” Garrett called. His disheveled brown hair, guilty eyes, and the giant hickey on his neck confirmed what she already knew.
She scrambled out of the room, listening to her cheating boyfriend and his lingerie-stealing floozy break out into panicked whispers.
Tears, hot and angry, welled in her eyes. She ran out of the townhouse, leaving the door wide open.
“Bridget! Stop, please!”
She released a ragged breath, then turned to find her boyfriend, no, her ex-boyfriend, standing on the sidewalk with a sheet wrapped around his waist.
Quite acheater-esquechoice. But when you’ve been caught mid-thrust, one’s options must be limited.
“Bridget, I’m sorry. I…” the man trailed off.
“I somehow fell into bed with another woman, who happens to be wearing the lingerie I bought for my girlfriend? Is that what you were trying to say?” she offered, crossing her arms.
He glanced away. “It’s not your lingerie.”
“I saw it in your closet weeks ago, Garrett. I know it’s supposed to be my Christmas gift.”
“I didn’t buy it for you, Bridget,” he answered, still not meeting her eye.
And the punches kept coming.
“I see,” she answered as a dull numbness took over.
She stared at the person she’d been dating for the better part of two years. This should have stung. This betrayal should have cut right through her heart. But all she could think about was how Garrett’s absence at the wedding would screw up her seating arrangement.
“I need to text Lori,” she said, reaching for her phone.
He let out an incredulous bark of a laugh. “You catch your boyfriend in bed with another woman, and all you can say is that you need to call your sister? I guess it’s fitting. That is what it’s like dating you.”
She narrowed her gaze. “What does that mean?”
He shook his head. “It’s always your sister. Harvard law. Hired on at a prestigious firm. Dating the man of her dreams. I feel like I know more about her than I do about you. That’s probably why…”
“Why what? You might as well say it. That little afternoon delight session I walked in on sealed the deal that it’s over between us,” she replied, forcing her tone to remain even.
Garrett ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Maybe that’s why you never go after what you want. Maybe that’s why you’re still a bakery assistant. You’re so busy thinking about Lori and butting into her life that you don’t have a life of your own.”
The admission might have hurt if she hadn’t heard it before.
A muscle ticked in her jaw. “I have a perfectly fine life. Well, I did until I walked in on my boyfriend cheating on me.”
“You know we’ve been over long before today. Every time I’ve seen you over the last few months, all you talk about is your sister’s wedding. I want a girlfriend, not some woman fixated on someone else’s life.”
How dare he?
She took a step forward. “This wedding is important. Lori and I are recreating the wedding our parents had thirty years ago. It’s not something you can hand off to an event planner. I need to be this involved. If you’d cared about me, you would have understood that.”
The guilt in Garrett’s eyes dissolved into pity. “It’s not your wedding, Bridget.”
A thread of longing twisted around her heart—a feeling she’d grown used to disregarding.
