Page 3 of Hooking
“What?”
“I set my digital camera up on the vanity to record what happens while I’m not there tonight,” I say again above a low whisper.
She nods as she takes in what I say. “Are you sure you want to do this? You could just confront him and walk away right now, no harm, no fowl.”
“I won’t allow him to manipulate me, Hayley. If I confront him without any evidence of what he did, he’ll try to turn this around on me. Make me seem like I’m the crazy one. Then next thing I know, I’m still walking down that aisle ready to make the worst mistake of my life.”
“Or the greatest.”
Yeah, if he’s not cheating.
Regardless I’m doing this. I won’t give him the satisfaction.
“Tomorrow morning, before you meet me at my parents’ villa for hair and makeup, I need you to stop by my villa and get my camera,” I say, with a little more certainty. “Just tell him I asked you to get it, so we can take more candid photos while we get ready.”
I can tell she’s hesitant, but in the end, she knows if she were in this position, I would do the same for her. With it settled, we head back into the party. The rest of the evening is filled with fake smiles and mingling amongst our closest family and friends. And when we part at the end of the night, I find my stomach in a fit of knots.
The following morning, I’m woken up by a very paranoid and frantic Hayley, who practically thrusts my digital camera at me. “I know you told me to wait, but I couldn’t help myself. You need to see this.”
I sit up, pulling the camera into my lap. Turning it on, I brace myself for what I’m about to see. The video begins, and images of Vince fill the screen. He moves around the room, changing into a pair of athletic shorts, then lounging on the bed and playing with his phone. All normal things he’s done. Then for a long gap of time, he disappears. Just when I think the video is going to be a bust, the sound of a woman giggling has my body going ramrod straight.
“I hate that you’re getting married tomorrow,” the woman who finally comes into view says with a pout on her lips.
Vince finally comes into view, pulling the woman close to his body. “Shhh…” he says as his mouth moves even closer to hers. “You know if I could, it would be you up there with me tomorrow,” he says, before placing a passionate kiss on her lips.
I watch as he grips her ass before lifting her into the air. Her legs wrap around his waist before he tosses her on the bed. She rolls around, playfully climbing up the bed like she’s putting on some show for his enjoyment.
“One more time,” she mumbles as she uses one of her fingers to lure him toward her.
“One more time.”
I cut the video off as he strips her out of her clothes. My stomach is sick as the knot that had formed there twists and turns. Everything I had feared had come true. He broke the promise he made to me the moment we gave this relationship a real shot. I feel a little dizzy as I think about all the moments he told me he was faithful. That I was the only women he would ever be with. Give his heart to, yet there he is, ready to pound the shit out of some bimbo in the bed of our honeymoon suite.
How long has this been going on? How long have I been so blind to his betrayal?
The churning of my stomach gets worse, bile rising up my throat as I continue to replay the images in my head. Springing from the mattress, I rush to the bathroom, landing on the cold tiles just before contents from the night before empty from my stomach. The man I was going to marry is a grade A asshole. An asshole who has broken my heart one too many times.
A low knock echoes on the bathroom door as I flush the toilet, wiping the tears that stain my cheeks away. “Cass, are you okay?” Hayley says as she slowly opens the door.
“How could he?” I mutter as I try to pull myself together.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, as she pulls me into a hug. “What do you want to do? We can call off the wedding right here, right now. You don’t have to go through with this.”
Hayley continues to ramble as a million thoughts rush through my mind. One being that I won’t let him get away from this unscathed. He embarrassed me. Made me feel less because of continuing his affairs with other women after he told me he would never cheat on me.
“No!” I say, stopping Hayley as she looks at me like I’ve grown ten heads.
“Cassie…”
“No,” I say again. “I won’t give him the satisfaction of embarrassing me.”
She studies me for a moment before responding, “Okay, but how do you plan on exposing him?”
Walking away from him now would be too easy.
“Cass, you don’t have to go through with this.”
“No!” I shout. “I’m going through with this wedding. We’re getting our hair and makeup done and walking down that fucking aisle like nothing happened.”
