While they were fooling around, Tristan tugged the strap of her swimsuit and let it fly.
The tie came undone in an instant.
Cassandra shrieked, but before anyone could see, Tristan swept her into his arms and barked,
“Turn around! Don’t look!”
The waves crashed as he carefully retied the string, his fingertips lingering across her bare back.
She flushed, breathless. Their eyes met—heat sparking in the air.
And I… I watched from the shadows.
Fully armed, masked, like a rat hiding in the dark, spying on my own wife glowing in the sunlight—pregnant with my child—while another man held her without restraint.
She didn’t resist. She looked like she enjoyed it.
Beside me, Ella shifted angrily, ready to charge out, but I seized her wrist and shook my head.
After a long hesitation, I dialed Cassandra’s number.
From a distance, I saw her screen light up.
She glanced at it, let it ring once, twice—never answering.
Tristan caught sight of the word Husband and scoffed, turning away. “You promised to stay with me. Don’t let him distract you—and don’t distract me. Otherwise, we’re no longer best friends.”
Cassandra smiled, lifted her phone, and let it drop into a glass of water. Raising a brow, she teased,
“Your Majesty, satisfied now?”
Tristan finally nodded. Cassandra leaned in, fingers darting to his side until his laughter filled the sea breeze.
By the time I lowered my phone—the one I had been using to record—my tears had already soaked my mask.
Six years of love. And this is what it came to.
Cassandra… I hope you’re ready for hell.
Later, after they tired of their games, the group sat down. Tristan’s voice drifted toward me with the wind:
“On the night of Cassie’s wedding, I got drunk and joked about marrying whoever came first. She panicked—showed up in her wedding dress and Gareth’s tux.”
Laughter rippled around him.
I froze. That tux—my custom suit. She’d told me it was stained and lost at the cleaners.
Tristan smirked. “We played house, bowing to heaven and earth like when we were kids. I teased that after that, I couldn’t remarry—but I wanted a child. Guess what this fool did?”
Cassandra only smiled, sipping her tea, silent.
Encouraged by the crowd, Tristan beamed. “She took me seriously! She actually dragged me to do embryo culture!”
He nudged her. “Cassie, tell them. Where’s the baby?”
Cassandra tipped back her cup, her eyes dark.
“What’s in my belly right now is Tristan’s IVF child.”
Boom. My mind went blank.
Ella spat curses beside me, but all I could see was Cassandra’s cold, unbothered face.
Every memory twisted like a knife. She had lied about her “infertility,” lied about needing IVF.
I believed her. I trusted her.
I still remember the day the embryo was implanted—how she caressed her stomach, whispering tenderly,
“My dear, Mommy will make sure you and Daddy are the happiest people in the world.”
She wasn’t talking to me. She never was.
Tristan’s voice cut through my haze, laced with mockery:
“Cassie is brilliant. I don’t have to lift a finger, and I still get to be a father. Gareth did all the dirty work.”
