Chapter Four
Saylor
My Instagram blew up. Yeah, I know you hear that a lot, and then when you check out the explosive account you find there’s a mild disruption before everything returns to normal. Not mine. The comments section was like a war zone, the followers split into factions.
One group said they’d forgive Rex and that I should have milked his indiscretion for diamonds or a weekend in Paris, then got over myself.
Another group said I should castrate him, with the more enthusiastic among them coming up with ideas for the best tools for the job, and exactly where to make the incision. Two offered to do it for me. Many unfollowed. Several insisted they’d been fucking Rex, too. I labeled them as trolls and refused to feed them, but deep down I couldn’t help wondering if there was truth in their lurid descriptions.
Without the wedding I’d become irrelevant, exactly the way Dom said I would.
I posted photos of me bravely getting on with my life. The park bench set up with a single takeout coffee and a book. My sparkling clean apartment. I created a luxury bath set up with candles, roses, a cupcake, glass of wine … for one.
That was the thing. My account had been based on romance, the dream, the stunning wedding, the happily ever after. My entire worth was in my ability to sell the fantasy all these women wanted. Cheating was not part of the fantasy. Neither was impending spinsterhood.
My photos were bland in both composition and execution.
My sponsors dropped me.
PR companies treated me like the Typhoid Mary of product placement. Nobody wanted to associate their brand with a person unable to keep their partner from cheating before the wedding day.
But I gradually got new sponsorship offers. Ice cream, pie, craft books and sex toys. Apparently that was the demographic I now served as a single, young ex-fiancée.
I put myself out there for new writing jobs but found the only work available was short pieces for website content that were lucky to pay a penny per word. Other than that, there were the offers to write erotica. Uh, no. I was completely off sex. If I thought about it all that came to mind was the bobbing of Amber’s head as she treated herself to a suck on Rex’s popsicle.
Then one night, one of the more loyal people in my ever-decreasing band of followers came up with an idea.
You must be exhausted. You should treat yourself to some self-care. Go on that honeymoon you planned. Who needs Rex? Do it for you, Saylor.
The hashtag #WhoNeedsRex began to trend with people posting photos of luxury locations, women having fun, cute animals (of course), beautiful dinners, expensive wine, a massive dildo, all accompanied by #WhoNeedsRex.
Finally, Rex was becoming irrelevant in my life and treated like the joke he was.
I pulled up the website with the gorgeous private mountain lodge in Aspen I’d booked for our honeymoon. It was part of my brother’s portfolio of exclusive luxury accommodation he rented out to people who valued privacy as much as a beautiful location. I hadn’t got around to canceling the booking.
Dammit. I was going on my honeymoon alone. Sologamy, here I come.
***
“I don’t know what to call this place. A lodge? A mansion?” I was Facetiming with Casey and Dani, who wanted to know all about my honeymoon accommodation.
“We want to see what it’s like.”
I picked up my phone and took a walk through the house. “Bedroom one. Look at the bed?”
“Ha, Rexy, you could have been screwing on that,” Casey said as I waved the phone around the massive bed with the most stunning coverings, a zillion pillows, and a magnificent headboard made from a solid piece of expensive-looking timber.
“Uggh, don’t. The thought of having sex with Rex turns my stomach.”
“That’s the spirit,” Dani added. “Show us the bathroom.”
Casey told her she was weird.
“She’s not weird, look at this.” The double shower had six jets. The bath would have fit all three of us. And the view… “Sorry you can’t see the view at night. You can lie in the bath and look through the full bank of windows—floor to ceiling, no less—out to the mountains and forest.”
“Eek. And every pervert can look right back at you,” Casey remarked.
“You might think that, but here’s the trick. The glass has some sort of film sandwiched between it that makes it opaque at the flick of a switch. This place is amazing. I wish you girls were here with me.”