Introduction

The end came with a late-night phone call from my friend, Jess.

“Did you and Cole break up?”

I hadn’t heard from her in months. To be honest, I hadn’t heard from any of my friends since I’d moved in with Cole a year earlier.

“Um, no. Why do you ask?” I felt a knot of dread rising in my chest.

She hesitated for a moment, trying to decide whether to mind her own business or blurt out the truth. She chose to blurt.

“Because he’s four seats away from me at the bar.”

I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “Jess. Seriously. A bar? That’s nothing new for Cole.” The guy knew his way around a wine bottle. He was no stranger to a barstool.

“Ann.” Her tone was serious. “He’s on a date.”

“A date?”

“Some blond woman. And she’s wearing ugly white boots.”

Now, I was alarmed.

Five seconds later, the photo appeared on my phone.

It was Cole, alright. The love of my life. My forever guy. Tonight, however, it seemed he’d conveniently forgotten our soulmate status.

In the photo, he was perched next to an attractive woman with questionable taste in footwear. She was clenching a glass of chardonnay with one hand and squeezing his skinny thigh with the other. Her face glowed with a look of drunken adoration. If I didn’t know better, I would swear she was in love with my fiancé.

She wasn’t alone with her infatuation, though. Because despite this heartbreaking evidence of betrayal, I still loved that jackass, too.

At least, I thought I did.