My Fiancé Said I Was the Homewrecker Between Him and My BFF? Screw Them Both! Chapter 01

My Fiancé Said I Was the Homewrecker Between Him and My BFF? Screw Them Both! Chapter 01

During the games before the ceremony, my best friend Phoebe Sutton suggested we play Of Course.

My boyfriend’s sister went first. “So that custom gown you dropped a hundred thousand dollars on, that was for Phoebe, right?”

Preston Yates laughed under his breath. “Of course.”

I looked down at the eight-hundred-dollar rental dress I had on, and I couldn’t move.

My brother joined in with a smirk. “Preston, you only lasted six years with my sister because she threw herself at you, right?”

Preston nodded. “Of course.”

Everyone in the room was looking at me, and my face burned.

His mother spoke up from the crowd. “That house Serena’s parents emptied their savings for, the deed has Phoebe’s name on it, doesn’t it?”

I went stiff, but Preston answered without missing a beat.

“Of course.”

The room went dead quiet.

Phoebe bit her lip and looked at Preston with tears in her eyes.

“You’re marrying Serena because you feel guilty that I’m carrying your baby, and you want to make it up to her for me, right?”

Preston stroked her hair, and the look in his eyes was pure tenderness.

“Of course.”

Somewhere in the crowd, a relative I couldn’t place spoke up like she was enjoying the show.

“The groom can’t wait for the bride to take the hint and clear out, so he can marry Phoebe, right?”

Preston finally remembered to look at me.

I took off my veil and spoke before he could.

“Of course.”

*****

Ugly whispers moved through the room, and every one of them landed on me.

The same relatives who had been wishing us a happy marriage a minute ago were hinting that I was the other woman who had taken someone else’s place.

My brother rolled his eyes. “You’re so petty, Serena. It was a joke, and now you’ve embarrassed Phoebe.”

The whole room looked at me like I was the problem, and Phoebe was the one they felt sorry for.

Preston saw my face and pulled me against him, keeping his voice low.

“Smile. If you don’t, people are going to start talking about Phoebe, and she can’t take that kind of thing.”

“She’s your best friend. You’d be worried too if people were tearing her apart. I’m doing this for you.”

It was the same line as always. He was doing it for me.

He had walked out halfway through our anniversary to take Phoebe to the hospital because she felt sick, and that was for me.

He had left me in surgery to go pick Phoebe up in the rain because she didn’t have an umbrella, and that was for me, too.

Doing things for me always meant I swallowed whatever it cost me.

Phoebe came over with red eyes and reached for my hand. “This is my fault. I never should have suggested that game.”

She knocked over the tray of fresh coffee beside us, and all of it went down my leg.

The pain hit, and I sucked in a breath.

Preston moved fast to check the burn.

Phoebe grabbed her stomach and moaned, and his hands stopped and went to her instead.

A few minutes later, the hotel’s on-call doctor came running.

Preston didn’t hesitate for a second. “Check Phoebe first.”

He didn’t look at my leg until he was sure Phoebe was fine.

He patted my shoulder. “It’s not that bad. Run some cold water over it.”

I looked at the blisters coming up on my leg, and the whole thing struck me as a joke, so I took off my wedding shoes and walked out.

“Have the wedding without me. You make me sick.”

Before the door shut behind me, I heard them talking.

“Preston, aren’t you going to go after her? Serena looks really upset.”

Preston’s voice came back with an edge of annoyance.

“She storms out over nothing. She has no sense of the bigger picture.”

“She’s in no state for this. Let Phoebe finish the rest of the ceremony in her place.”

“Phoebe’s biggest regret is that she’ll never get a wedding of her own.”

His sister burst out laughing.

“You drove her out on purpose, didn’t you? So you and Phoebe could finally have this.”

My brother caught on.

“No wonder Preston sent the makeup artist to Phoebe first. He had this planned the whole time.”

His mother said, warm as ever, “I brought Phoebe’s dress with me. It’ll be up here in two minutes.”

On my way through the lobby, a few of the staff were talking in the corner.

“That family is strange. They ordered two sets of wedding signage, and the bride isn’t even the same woman on both.”

One of them laughed behind her hand. “Isn’t it obvious? Whoever gets swapped out is the one nobody wanted.”

My phone buzzed in my hand.

The wedding coordinator confirmed it in the group chat. Coordinator: [We’re running everything on Plan B.]

I opened the run of show underneath it.

The list had the vows, the kiss, the ring exchange, the champagne tower, and the bouquet toss.

Every piece Preston had cut for being too much trouble was back on the list, untouched.

The trouble had never been the ceremony. The trouble had been me.

A video dropped into the group chat.

It ran through more than 300 photos of Phoebe and him from all over the world.

A man who hated having his picture taken was smiling in every single one.

It was nothing like the stiff face he wore in our engagement photos.

Preston’s chat window popped up.

Preston: [Phoebe’s a bridesmaid. You can fill in.]

Tears came down onto the screen, one after another.

Six years together, and I was there to fill in.

I took a deep breath and pulled up the transfer email from two weeks earlier.

Then I hit accept without a second thought.