Page 51 of My Ex-Best Men (Ex Marks the Spot #4)

***Claire***

I stood back while Sophia faked her way through posing for the typical getting ready pictures. She was a little green but the photographer promised she could remove any traces of black eyes, hickeys, and green-coloring. Bless her.

Lizzie, Fiona, and Kinsley were all resting on the bed in the suite, their hangovers refusing to let up.

The makeup artists had finished up but they were hovering off to the side of the room, waiting for us to need touchups.

The bridesmaids had all changed into pretty slips with matching robes for the pictures and my hair was up in massive rollers.

I’d already smiled through several hundred photos and I was more than glad to sit back and let Sophia do all the work.

Madeline perched on the edge of a chair next to me, her back stiff and her eyes never moving over to me. She spoke quietly, ensuring that I’d be the only person to hear her. “Ten years you’ve been gone and you just come back and think you can take everything. You left them here. You left him here.”

I didn’t bother with the pretense. I turned to her and gripped my knees to keep my hands steady. “That’s one way to look at things, Madeline.”

“I had him. Will was mine, Claire. I know you’ve seen us together.

Those private moments? They’re quiet echoes of what we had before, what we’ll have again.

” She turned to me then, her eyes burning bright with unshed tears.

“I love him. I understand he needs time to finish this thing with you but as soon as he does, he’ll come back to me.

All you’re doing with him is stopping him from coming home to his happily ever after. ”

My stomach soured. “You and Will?”

She let out a quiet laugh and dabbed at her eyes. “Yes.”

I shook my head, unwilling to believe her. “No.”

She stood up and stared down at me with that same burning intensity. For the first time ever, I felt like I was seeing real vulnerability in her eyes and it terrified me. “There’s more.”

I didn’t want to follow her. I wanted to pretend like she wasn’t telling me something that made Will out to be a liar.

He’d been with her? How? How could he have been with her and not told me?

My feet had a mind of their own. I got up and followed her to the bathroom, where she closed us in and then leaned heavily against the door, tears leaking down her face.

“I know I’ve been cruel to you, Claire, but please understand that you’re trying to take the man I’ve loved for as long as I can remember.

You had Zane and Anthony but they weren’t enough for you…

Still…I feel bad for you.” She met my gaze and slightly shook her head.

“Even though a part of me hates you, Claire, I still feel bad for the way they acted.”

I pressed one hand to the marble countertop and let the cold ground me. “What do you mean?”

“The three of them turned sleeping with you into a game. I’m ashamed that Will participated. I know he needed the money, though, so…I can’t be too angry at him. And if he comes back to me and puts that money towards our future, I guess I can’t judge him so harshly if I’m willing to use it.”

Ice ran through my veins. “What are you talking about?”

“They all made a bet about who’d bag you first. God.

Men are fucking assholes sometimes. I couldn’t believe they were saying it like that.

Bagging you. The three of them bet a hundred thousand dollars to whoever screwed you first.” She turned to the mirror and gasped when she saw her reflection.

“A hundred thousand dollars just for sleeping with you first. Talk about a magic vagina, I guess.”

I couldn’t make sense of what she was saying. “You’re lying.”

“I was there, Claire. It killed me. They were all so drunk that Will didn’t even blink twice about making the bet right in front of me.

Do you think that I like that the man I love wanted to fuck you?

It didn’t matter that he tried to convince me it was just about the money.

I mean, I know he needs the money, but I know he wanted to screw you, too.

I had to just keep my mouth shut and pretend like it wasn’t killing me when I knew he was with you that way. ”

I stumbled back a step. No. No . “Why would they make a bet like that?”

She let out a bitter laugh. “You’re their Moby Dick or something.

I don’t know. They were salivating at the idea of fucking you.

It was disgusting. I might hate you, Claire, but even I felt bad for you after hearing the way they talked about you, like you were just three holes for them to race to.

Winner gets the money and the first run.

Losers get sloppy seconds. Their words, not mine. ”

“You’re lying.” I hissed the words out and moved closer to her, fighting the urge to claw her eyes out of her head. “All of this is bullshit, isn’t it?”

“You want to know the truth? Go find the checks. If I know Will, he slipped the checks into his extra shoes.”

I was going to vomit. He’d always slipped extra things in his shoes so he didn’t lose them or forget them. “And when the checks aren’t there?”

She looked at me like she felt sorry for me. “They’ll be there.”

“They love me.” I hated the way my voice shook as I said it. “Whatever you’re trying to do, it won’t work, Madeline.”

“Do they love you or did they make some other fucked up bet? Like who could convince you to move back here first? Or who could get you to admit your feelings first? I don’t know.

I never would’ve believed it myself if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears.

I can’t make you believe me. If you think I’m full of shit, that’s fine.

This does nothing for me. If anything, it puts my relationship with Will in danger.

If you tell him that I told you all of this, he could hate me for ruining whatever he’s doing. ”

I already knew that I had to go to the house and check his shoes. It was stupid. I should’ve just trusted that I knew the guys and that I knew they wouldn’t make some stupid bet over me.

I walked towards the door and stopped just inches from Madeline.

Leaning into her space, I growled out my words at her.

“Even if you’re telling the truth, Madeline, you’ll never have Will.

You’ll always be the girl he can talk about fucking other women in front of.

Do you think that’s how a man talks in front of the woman he’d ever make his wife?

Maybe you’re being honest but if you are, you should save your pitying looks for the mirror because you’re just as big of a loser as me in this whole mess. Good fucking luck.”

My entire body shook as I let myself out of the bathroom and slipped around the edge of the room. Sophia was still being posed like a doll, despite her grumbled protests, so I had time. I left the suite and barely managed to walk and not run over to the house.

The guys were all in another suite with Jake getting ready so the house was silent when I let myself in. I raced up the stairs to the room we’d all sort of moved into together. Throwing open the closet, I went to my knees in front of the neat row of their shoes.

It was so domesticated. They stored their shoes together in the closet they shared while I took the one on the other side of the room. They wouldn’t organize their lives to be with me, even temporarily, if I was just a bet.

I screamed in my head at my hands to stop reaching for Will’s shoes. I didn’t need to check. I loved him. I loved all three of them. When I slipped my fingers into the tennis shoes and felt the crinkle of paper, my chest threatened to crack open.