My Boyfriend and His Girl Best Friend Wanted Me to Lose It, But They Broke First

1: 1

On Valentine's Day my long-distance boyfriend flew home, and my best friend dragged the two of us to a hotel to play a game called see who cracks first.

Adrian James picked up his glass and announced his plans without a flicker of shame. The room's already booked. I'm spending the night in bed with your best friend, right up to midnight.

He slid an arm around Geraldine Fox's shoulders and kissed the corner of her mouth. "And that wasn't for the game, either. I kissed her the second I got off the plane."

Geraldine smiled at me, not a trace of guilt on her face. "Years ago, when your civil service application got reported and you didn't get in, I comforted you for three whole days. That rumor? I started it."

She leaned into his chest. "Bernice Mason, you've got a good family, a good man. You can't hog every good thing in the world, can you?"

Adrian patted my shoulder, his tone easy.

"Don't worry. She's just for fun. When it comes to marriage, I'll still marry you."

Geraldine chimed in. "Rules are rules. Whoever cracks first pays for the room tonight."

I looked at the two of them and let out a short laugh.

"Who said I lost?"

I pulled my phone from my pocket and woke the screen.

The next second, Geraldine and Adrian both gasped out loud.

Adrian's brows knit together as he stared at the screen.

"Bernice, I know you're sulking because I neglected you while I was abroad. But you don't have to grab some random guy just to make me jealous."

I found it a little funny. In the three years Adrian was overseas, my messages to him always went unanswered because of the time difference, or so he claimed.

He hadn't even opened the breakup text I sent him. Not once.

Geraldine stepped up and tugged at his arm, smiling.

"Adrian, you dated her for seven years. You still don't know her? This is just the little game a girl plays. She photoshopped a marriage certificate on purpose so you'd get jealous and take notice. You spoil her too much."

Adrian let out a breath and looked at me, his expression serious.

"Bernice, I can put up with you liking to mess around, but how can you make a joke out of marriage?"

I looked at the two of them, almost amused, and said it slowly, word by word.

"I've got no reason to joke about something like this. Believe it or not."

Adrian's eyes went cold in an instant.

"Which random man is it? Divorce him tomorrow and I'll still register the marriage with you. But don't count on a wedding, and the bride price? You'll only get half."

Geraldine snatched my phone and flipped through the photo of the certificate.

"There isn't even an ID photo on it. Why won't you show us a picture of you and the groom together? Just waving an empty shell of a certificate around. Who are you trying to scare?"

"And you're the precious only daughter of the Mason family. When you get married the wedding would have to be lavish. So why hasn't there been a single word about it? You didn't even invite me."

My chest tightened. My husband and I had a secret marriage, with only both sets of parents there as witnesses.

And I didn't want them to know my husband existed anyway. It would only cause trouble.

Adrian immediately scrolled back through six months of everyone's feeds. Not one of our mutual friends had posted anything about my marriage.

He came over to me and stroked my head the way he used to when we were together.

"All right, Bernie, stop it. I was joking earlier too. The wedding's still on, the bride price will all be there. I just wanted you to get used to it in advance. My work's going to involve that kind of thing from now on. It's unavoidable."

I slapped Adrian's hand away in disgust. He took it as another one of my moods and went on.

"I just want you to learn how to be a proper Mrs. James. And don't be too hard on Geraldine."

Geraldine came over too and took my arm, trying to smooth things over.

"Bernice, Adrian landed a lot of big deals overseas. That's just how the entertaining works over there. He's moving his career back home now. If you won't support him, at least don't make things harder for him!"

Their words turned my stomach.

How could anyone dress up cheating during "entertaining" as something so noble, so unavoidable?

I flung Geraldine's hand off. She let herself fall to the floor, covered her face, and sobbed.

"Bernice, I know you just hate me. But I never once thought about taking your place as Mrs. James."

Seeing that, Adrian stepped in and shoved me hard, ignoring the blood that welled from my forehead when I hit the corner of the table.

He lifted Geraldine into his arms, his back to me.

"Bernice, she risked her own reputation to help you become a bigger person, a proper Mrs. James, and you can't even tolerate your own best friend. You've disappointed me."

The clock on the wall pointed to ten. Adrian strode off with Geraldine in his arms.

"I don't have time for your games. The room's booked. Sit here and think hard about what you've done."

I pressed a hand to the blood on my forehead. Then my phone lit up with a video call. It was my husband.

2: 2

I sat up, pulled a tissue from the box, and wiped the blood off my forehead.

But knowing how sharp my husband was, he'd probably still catch the signs.

I ended the video call and switched to voice. A moment later his aggrieved voice came through.

"Babe, why'd you hang up the video on me? You're the one who insisted I go run that international conference on Valentine's Day."

"I'm not blaming you. It just wasn't a good time to talk."

He let out a breath, and his voice brightened.

"For a second I thought you were still holding it against me. This dull, dragged-out meeting has to run another whole day. I'll be back the day after tomorrow. When I am, I'm throwing a top-tier gala and inviting people from every circle to celebrate the company landing a hundred-billion-dollar order."

I couldn't help laughing. He'd very nearly lost that deal just to spend Valentine's Day with me.

It took me threatening to keep a pretty boy on the side before he tearfully packed his bags and went abroad.

Except if I didn't get some gauze on this forehead soon, the bleeding wasn't going to stop.

"Then congratulations, honey. I'll go to the gala with you."

I hung up quickly and picked up the gauze to dress the wound.

They were both men who had to work the social circuit, but my husband's business wasn't even in the same league as Adrian James's.

And he'd always kept himself clean. On our wedding night he even blushed and admitted it was his first time.

I thought I was done with Adrian for good. Then, at midnight, a message came in.

It was the hotel's room bill. Two hours, two thousand dollars in all.

Half furious, half amused, I forwarded it straight to Adrian.

He called right away, his voice still rough from what he'd been doing.

"Bernice, why didn't you wait for me to leave first?"

"Adrian, two hours and you were already spent? Or is your company so close to bankruptcy that you can't cover two thousand for a hookup?"

He wasn't angry. He actually laughed.

"Do you have any idea how big the order I closed abroad was? Five million! So many women want to be Mrs. James, and I turned down every one of them, because I promised you I'd only ever marry you."

I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself.

"Go marry Geraldine Fox, then. She's magnanimous enough, big-hearted enough. She'd make a perfectly good Mrs. James."

"Bernie, still going to pretend you're not jealous? I told you, I have no interest in her, we're not like that at all. She was only looking out for you. There'll be work dinners down the line where you have to play along, and you need to learn to keep your cool."

I was so angry I almost swore, but I choked it back.

"Adrian, I'm telling you one more time. I'm married. Stop bothering me! Who wants to be Mrs. James is no concern of mine!"

I hung up and blocked his number on the spot.

At the same time I saw the five hundred and twenty thousand my husband had transferred at midnight, and it washed the gloom out of me.

I took a quick shower, thinking it might rinse away all the bad luck of the day, then lay on the bed scrolling through my phone.

I'd forgotten I hadn't blocked Geraldine.

She'd posted a blurry shot of her and Adrian from behind on her feed, captioned:

Spending Valentine's Day with the person you love is the happiest thing in the world. And a woman who can't learn to be gracious will never make a good wife to her husband.

I liked the post right away. She fired back a message:

Bernice, a bet's a bet. Can't you even afford the two thousand for the room? Didn't you say you were married? Go ask your husband for it! Maybe I could even get Adrian to bring you along to the billionaire's gala the day after tomorrow.

I hadn't expected Adrian could get an invitation to the very gala my husband was hosting.

I thought about it for a moment, then decided to send the two thousand so they wouldn't have grounds to keep hounding me later.

Consider this two thousand a wedding gift for you and Adrian. From here on, our roads part. Neither of us bothers the other.

Once I'd replied, I dropped onto the bed and pulled the covers over my head, but sleep wouldn't come.

Seven years together, and it would be a lie to say I felt nothing at all.

In my dreams, I dreamed of the past with Adrian.

3: 3

That was the height of summer, seven years ago, and eighteen-year-old Adrian James was nothing like the arrogant man he'd become.

I was nineteen then, sheltering from the rain under the library eaves, when he lifted an umbrella over me, face red, and asked if we were headed the same way.

Back then he was just a poor boy with top grades, and the gap between us was enormous.

He only worked up the courage to say that one line that day, and after that he quietly gave me gifts and had breakfast ready for me.

But he never once said the word "pursue."

I watched him hold that umbrella over me in the pouring rain, willing to soak himself through as long as he kept the grad-school study materials in my arms dry.

I watched him take the money he'd saved for two weeks handing out flyers and spend it on a cheap silver necklace.

And I watched him take on more than a dozen thugs alone because they'd harassed me, keeping silent even after they broke a few of his ribs.

I once thought that was love in its purest form, and I was willing to endure every hardship at his side.

I didn't know that in three years abroad, in that world of fame and money, he'd already ground his sincerity down into a chip to be weighed for profit and loss.

The morning sun cut through the curtains, and the buzz of my phone pulled me back to reality.

I saw an unknown number and answered anyway. It was Adrian again.

"Bernice, can't you fix this habit of blocking me the second you're mad? You're home, right? I'm coming over."

"Adrian, are you done yet? I told you we're finished. I've already"

Before I could finish, he cut me off.

"If you really didn't care, why'd you transfer two thousand dollars to Geraldine last night? You only did that to spite me, didn't you? Stop messing around. I really do have something important to talk to you about."

And then he hung up.

I couldn't help but hold my head in my hands, sinking down onto the bed, staring at the little stuffed toy in the corner by my pillow.

It was ugly, but it was the first gift Adrian gave me back when he was twenty.

He'd sewn it himself, stitch by stitch, pricking all ten of his fingers in the process.

All because I'd pointed at a stuffed toy the heroine received in some TV drama and said it was cute.

But over those three years abroad, my messages gradually sank without a trace. He either didn't read them or didn't reply.

He'd sworn to me so firmly before he left the country.

"Bernie, no matter how far apart we are, my body and my heart belong to you and only you."

Yet when I was forced into the marriage, the ninety-nine calls I made to him in desperation went unanswered, every one of them.

The dozens of texts I sent went unread, every one of them.

The one thing I could be grateful for was that my husband now cherished me, loved me, and respected me.

The doorbell rang soon after. I assumed it was Adrian and didn't respond.

"Ma'am, this is an invitation the master has arranged specially for you."

It was the Farley family butler's voice. I got up and opened the door.

These days, with my husband away on business abroad, I'd moved back to my old home to make it easier to visit my parents.

I took the gown box the butler handed me, along with a custom gold-embossed invitation.

At the bottom was my husband Saul Farley's signature, with a handwritten card tucked beside it.

My wife, I'll be a little late to the gala. Go on ahead, and I'll get there as fast as I can to be with you.

It seemed that after Saul landed that deal, those old foxes weren't willing to let him come back so soon.

After the butler left, I was about to close the door when it wouldn't budge.

I looked up and found Adrian standing there.

"Bernice, tomorrow is the top-tier gala the hundred-billion-dollar conglomerate is hosting. Just swallow your pride, and you're still my date. A little something spilling out of the cracks from those big shots would be enough to keep us set for generations."

I refused him coldly, and he looked at me like I was the one being unreasonable.

"You're still making a scene at a time like this? I only got two tickets into high society. Fine, if you won't go, I'll take Geraldine. You'll never get another chance to break into high society in your life!"

Then he slammed the door and stormed off.

But contrary to what he wanted, I was destined to stand at the very top of high society for the rest of my life.

4: 4

Crystal chandeliers blazed across the ballroom. I walked in dressed to the nines, in the couture gown my husband had chosen for me himself.

Adrian came toward me with Geraldine on his arm, his eyes full of smug mockery.

He leaned in and dropped his voice, certain of himself.

Bernice, I knew you could never really let me go. What is this, you throw on a fancy dress and pretend not to know me, then come chasing after me anyway?

I stepped back from him at once, my brows drawing together.

Adrian, I'm here for the gala. Don't flatter yourself.

Geraldine clearly didn't believe me. She stepped up and demanded,

Bernice, how exactly did you sneak in here? This is a top-tier gala. Everyone in this room is a social elite!

When I said nothing, she took it as proof she'd guessed right, and grew even more pleased with herself.

Adrian only just barely got two tickets because he landed a five-million-dollar contract overseas this time. What are you, that you think you belong here?

The guests around us stopped their conversations, curious eyes turning toward us all at once.

That girl's dressed so richly, and she carries herself well. How could she have snuck in?

The James boy, handling his private business at an occasion like this. Completely out of line.

Adrian frowned, stepped forward, and grabbed my arm in warning.

Bernice, stop it! This isn't some little girls' playhouse game. Get out before the guards show up, before you spoil the mood for the big names inside!

I pulled my arm free, didn't spare him a glance, and walked straight to the buffet table, where I picked up a pastry and took a bite.

Humiliated and furious, Adrian charged forward and seized my wrist to drag me out of the room.

You just have to embarrass yourself right now, don't you? Get out!

Geraldine saw it and instantly pointed at me, shouting,

Everybody, look! A thief slipped into the gala! Somebody call security and throw her out, before she spoils Mr. Farley's mood!

A few guests couldn't help speaking up. That girl doesn't look like the type to do something like that.

Others watched coldly, thinking Adrian and Geraldine had made a disgraceful scene.

The well-trained guards, however, didn't move an inch.

Seeing them stay put, Geraldine actually stepped up herself, reaching out to help Adrian pin me down for good.

I frowned slightly and calmly raised a hand, signaling the guards not to act.

Just as they were about to drag me out of the gala by force, the ballroom doors were thrown open.

Every guest fell silent in that instant. The man who'd come was the host of the gala, Saul Farley.

He strode in, and when he saw the state I was in, his gaze swept viciously across the room.

Just now... who said my wife was a thief?