I Prepared for My Wedding, Only to Be Shut Out of My Own Bridal Suite novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Eleven Weeks

I read it three times.

"I forgive you."

Like I was the one who'd been in somebody else's bed.

I didn't wear the blue dress.

I wore the blazer I'd been fired in, and the pearls.

At five to eight I walked into the Harrington bar.

It was dark wood and green lamps, with a long brass rail and a piano nobody was playing.

Half the tables were full.

A couple at the end of the bar looked at me, then at each other, then at a phone.

I was used to that by now.

Mason was in the corner booth.

He'd ordered for me already.

A gin and tonic with two limes, the way I liked it in my twenties, before I stopped drinking gin.

He stood up when he saw me, the way he used to on our first dates.

He'd had a haircut.

"You look beautiful," he said. "You didn't wear the dress."

"I came from work."

"I heard." He made a sad face. "Mom told me. I'm sorry, babe. That was her, not me. I'll talk to her."

I sat down across from him, not beside him.

He noticed.

He reached across the table for my hand anyway.

I put both of mine in my lap.

"Okay," he said, and smiled like I was being cute. "Okay. I get it. You're hurt. I'm hurt too, Claire. You made me look like a monster in front of everybody we know."

"Did you sleep with Kelsey the night before our wedding?"

He didn't blink.

"No," he said. "I slept at my mom's. Ask her."

The thumb drive was in my blazer pocket.

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