My Fiancé Said I Was the Homewrecker Between Him and My BFF? Screw Them Both! Chapter 05

My Fiancé Said I Was the Homewrecker Between Him and My BFF? Screw Them Both! Chapter 05

I didn’t open them. I shut the phone off.

When the plane landed, Preston’s messages flooded in.

The earliest one had come at eight.

Preston: [I’m having breakfast with Phoebe first. Wait for us when you get there.]

Preston: [So I’m a little late. Where are you hiding? Can you stop this?]

Preston: [Your brother and Phoebe have been standing out in the sun for an hour. Are you really going to make everyone wait on you?]

Preston: [Serena Cole, if you don’t show up, I’m done being nice.]

Preston: [Phoebe’s blood sugar is low, and she’s dizzy from standing. If anything happens to her or that

baby, you and I are finished.]

Preston: [It’s eleven. If you’re not here, I’m getting the license with Phoebe.]

I looked at that last one for a full ten seconds, and then I blocked him.

On the plane, I drifted in and out, and I dreamed a lot.

I dreamed my mother was crying and telling me not to be sad, telling me she didn’t want to leave me.

I dreamed about the day Preston proposed, smiling, promising to love me for the rest of his life.

And I dreamed about Phoebe back in school, grinning, swearing she’d be my only bridesmaid and see me

happy.

We touched down in Manchester at four in the morning local time.

The airport was empty, and I pushed my bags through it alone while my phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was my brother.

“Where did you take Mom! She’s not well, she’s supposed to be resting in that room, what are you even doing!”

I looked down at the urn in my hands, and my voice came out strangely calm.

“Mom’s gone. Yesterday, a little after five in the afternoon. Cardiac arrest.”

The line went quiet for two seconds.

Then Preston’s voice came through, and he was scolding me.

“Serena; don’t joke about that. Your mom’s condition was under control. Be angry with me if you want, but don’t say things like this.”

I didn’t have it in me to answer, so I hung up.

I took a cab to the apartment the company had set up for me.

I had washed up and gotten into bed when I saw Preston’s sister’s post on Instagram.

In the video, Phoebe was in a loose maternity dress, and Preston was walking her down a tree-lined path in a park with a hand on her arm.

The evening light was on both of them, and they looked like a happy married couple.

His sister had left a comment under it. Preston’s sister: [My brother spoils Phoebe so much. Someone is going to be green when they see this.]

I closed the app and deleted every one of their numbers.

In the morning, I reported to the office.

The HR director at headquarters was warm with me and pulled me into a hug.

Once the paperwork was done, she gave me a week off to settle in.

I spent a day putting the apartment together, and I set my mother’s photo on the nightstand.

It was from her birthday last year. She looked healthy in it, and her eyes were crinkled up at the camera.

Next to the photo were the death certificate and the cremation certificate I’d brought back from the

hospital.

I put them away carefully and went out to a cemetery nearby to choose a plot.

My phone rang as I was leaving.

The number was unfamiliar, but I knew it was Preston.

“Serena, where are you? I’ve been looking for you for two days. Your mom is…”

“My mother is dead. You don’t get to bring her up.”

Then I hung up.

Preston stared at his phone for a long time, and he couldn’t make himself believe it.

He found an uneasy nurse and asked where the woman in that room had gone.

The nurse gave him a strange look. “That patient coded a few days ago and we couldn’t bring her back. She

was cremated and her death certificate was issued a while ago.”

“It’s a shame. If something hadn’t upset her like that, she wouldn’t have gone so suddenly.”

The color left Preston’s face, and he asked, shaking, what time they’d tried to revive her.

It was minutes after the call when he’d demanded she apologize to Phoebe.

He sank down in the hospital hallway and couldn’t get back up.