“Here it comes.”
“Your fiancée?”
“Former fiancée.”
“That’s not a small detail.”
“I realize that.”
“You were engaged to the woman who had an affair with my husband?”
His expression changed.
“I didn’t know it was Mason.”
I folded my arms.
“Start talking.”
Julian leaned against the car.
“Vanessa and I were together for almost five years.”
I said nothing.
“We got engaged during our fourth year together. Everything seemed fine at first. Then she started traveling more for work.”
My stomach tightened.
I’d heard this story before.
Different narrator.
Same script.
“Weekend conferences?” I asked.
Julian looked at me.
“Yes.”
“Phone suddenly had a password?”
“Yes.”
“Started accusing you of being controlling whenever you asked questions?”
His face hardened.
“Exactly.”
I swallowed.
“Keep going.”
“One night she left her laptop open while she was in the shower. A message appeared.”
He looked away.
“I wasn’t looking for evidence. It appeared right in front of me.”
“What did it say?”
“That she missed him.”
I knew that feeling.
That awful fraction of a second when your old life still exists but your brain has already understood it’s about to disappear.
“I confronted her,” Julian continued. “Eventually she admitted she’d been seeing someone.”
“Did she tell you who?”
“No.”
“Married?”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“She said he was miserable in his marriage,” Julian said. “Said he was going to leave his wife.”
I stared at him.
Julian gave me a humorless smile.
“I guess he did.”
“Mason.”
“Apparently.”
“And you never looked her up afterward?”
“No.”
“Not once?”
“I spent months trying to stop thinking about her. Looking up her life felt like volunteering to be hurt.”
That I understood.
“When we walked into the reception,” he continued, “I saw Vanessa. Then Mason looked at me.”
“He recognized you.”
“Immediately.”
“How?”
Julian exhaled.
“I confronted Vanessa’s affair partner once.”
My eyes widened.
“What?”
“I didn’t know his name. I saw them together outside a hotel. I followed them to the parking garage.”
“You confronted Mason?”
“For maybe thirty seconds. He told me Vanessa had made her choice and I should accept it.”
My jaw dropped.
That sounded exactly like Mason.
“He knew she was engaged to you.”
“Yes.”
“And he still…”
“Yes.”
I looked back toward the glowing vineyard.
Somewhere inside, Mason was probably still trying to save his reception.
I suddenly laughed.
Julian stared at me.
“What?”
“This is ridiculous.”
“It really is.”
“My husband cheated on me with your fiancée.”
“Correct.”
“Then my ex-husband invited me to their wedding specifically to humiliate me.”
“Apparently.”
“So I hired you—her ex-fiancé—to pretend to be my boyfriend.”
Julian nodded slowly.
“That does appear to be what happened.”
I laughed harder.
He started laughing too.
By the time we climbed into the car, I had tears running down my face.
“This has to be the most efficient revenge arrangement in human history,” I said.
Julian started the engine.
“I’d like it noted that my agency did not charge extra for karmic coincidence.”
I expected him to drop me off and disappear.
That would have been reasonable.
Instead, when we reached my apartment, I said,
“I have champagne.”
He looked at me.
“Is this still part of the assignment?”
“I think we’ve exceeded the original scope.”
“Then technically I’m off duty.”
“Is that a yes?”
He smiled.
“Absolutely.”
We sat on my living room floor because neither of us wanted to behave like adults enough to use the couch.
I kicked off my heels.
Julian removed his tie.
We opened the champagne.
For the first hour, we dissected the wedding.
Vanessa dropping the glass.
Mason’s face when he saw Julian.
My “you mailed me directions to the place” line, which Julian insisted deserved an award.
Then the laughter faded.
We started talking about what came before.
The real things.
