A Game Of Temptation

Who introduced their fianceé to their ex then in the next moment, told their fiancée that the man he was seated with, was her boyfriend in uni?

And why the hell was there a constant smile on said fiancee’s face? It was starting to piss me off.

“How’s work?” Claire asked, the tips of her fingers brushing Alex’s. I honed in on that point of contact.

Alex leaned back into his chair, effectively disconnecting from her touch as his hand slipped to the edge of the table. His smile was all teeth. “Great.”

I felt a glimmer of satisfaction.

Claire nodded, either choosing to pretend she hadn’t seen him pull away, or maybe she was the most oblivious person on planet earth. “You’ve always been ambitious.” I waited for the part I knew was coming and she didn’t disappoint. “Even back in the university.”

She’d basically hijacked the conversation ever since she joined us. I didn’t know why she’d made it her life’s mission to remind everyone seated at the table-herself included-that she’d known Alex for quite a while now every single time she opened her mouth. It was insecure as hell and made me want to laugh more than it made me want to upend the contents of the table on her thighs.

Of course, I’d make sure the coloured champagne left stains all over her obviously expensive gown. It was no more than she deserved for what she was doing.

The game she was playing, I knew all it too well.

Leave little bits of their past here and there, act like you know him better than his very new, very present date, carelessly initiate contact once in a while, act like you’re so deep into the conversation-which was pretty much non-existent by the way-you completely forgot about his date.

As for the last part, I didn’t necessarily think she was pretending. She didn’t just forget I was there, she completely forgot about her fiancée too.

One would think that Alex was telling her about a cure for cancer he’d stumbled upon on his trip to Miami. One would be wrong.

The man looked about as interested in what she was saying as a teenager watching the news. My guess was that he didn’t know what she was trying to do. Guys were naturally oblivious. He just wanted her to stop talking to him-as was obvious from his facial expression, which she would notice if she actually looked at him-and that only made the urge to laugh grow stronger.

She was trying to make me jealous. And I’d rather stab myself with the fork on my plate than admit it was working.

I would admit only that it was pissing me off and for good reason. Why wouldn’t it piss me off?

Alex and I had been in the middle of a conversation-it wasn’t one that I would like to continue, but still-when she’d rudely interrupted and stolen a chair at our table. Technically, she’d stolen two. One for her fianceé and one for herself, but I refused to count him as a fully functioning human being and acknowledge that he sat at this table because what kind of person hung back and watched their fiancé cozy up to a guy she used to date? And with an annoying-as-fuck smile on his face.

My excuse for not doing anything about Claire was because Alex and I weren’t an item. I was simply what he’d told her-his date. I was not allowed to get jealous. Pissed off however, was another thing.

Grabbing my half-empty glass, I took a long sip, my eyes straying away from the table in search of anything interesting. I could easily slip my phone out of my clutch but I didn’t want to make it that obvious that she was pissing me off.

“Should I get the waiter to bring another bottle?”NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

Alex was staring at me. My eyes went to the bottle on the table and I saw that it was empty. When had that happened?

But then I looked at Claire’s glass and found it full to the brim.

“Sure,” I told Alex, wondering how he managed to keep his eyes on me even with his touchy ex angling for his attention.

It was another thing I’d noticed. Since she came, she hadn’t stopped talking to him once, but still, I would catch his eyes on me after every second. It was like he knew I was pissed but couldn’t do anything about it. Like he was helpless.

Perhaps he was. It wasn’t like he could refuse without coming off as an asshole when she’d asked to join us. And Alex was the furthest thing from an asshole.

As though it took Alex speaking to me to get her to remember that there was someone else at the table, Claire turned to me. “Laura, is it?”

I didn’t grace her with a response. Mainly because she was just being a bitch and partly because we weren’t in the eighteenth century.

“I love your hair.” She beamed. “It’s so glossy and shiny, I could never get mine to look like that.”

I forced a smile. It was so fake it hurt. “Thanks.”

I hated her.

“So what do you do?” She asked, swirling her drink around in her glass. I saw past the smile she was wearing at the malicious glint in her eyes. She was out for my blood and I had no idea why. I had no idea what her endgame was.

I mean, she was obviously flirting with Alex, but to what end? She was engaged, for fucks sake. And they hadn’t seen each other in years so there couldn’t be anything there. Or had they kept in touch?

“I make lingeries.” Leaning back in my chair, I gave a small smile to the waiter for refilling my glass.

Her interest seemed piqued. Alex’s too. He was interested in the conversation and wasn’t even trying to hide it.

I realised, sadly, that we’d both never talked about work. All we did was have sex and talk about more sex. And when we weren’t talking about sex, he was trying to get me to see him again.

How sad was it that it took his ex asking for him to find out?