Suddenly, the bathroom door opened and a familiar voice said, ‘What doesn’t make you feel such a fool now, eh, Sabrina Swift?’ She jumped a foot in the air, dropped the handset and nearly fell off the toilet seat.
The man walked back through to the kitchen and sat at the table. Sabrina furtively pushed the condom wrapper into her dressing gown pocket.
‘Rini, Rini, are you OK?’ Dee shouted through the phone.
A breathless Sabrina retrieved her handset. ‘I’ve gotta go, Dee. It’s Dominic. He’s here! Promise to call you later.’
Pulling her newly named ‘noneymoon dressing gown’ tightly around her, she went through to the kitchen and hurriedly removed the champagne bottle and flutes from the table and threw the various food wrappers in the bin.
‘Quite a party, it seems. Good to see you’re not missing me too much– and what the fuck have done to yourself? Your beautiful hair!’
The past pain of a plethora of nasty comments rose up and stung Sabrina worse than any bee. And as the feelings of hurt began to fuel her pent up her anger, Sabrina’s voice became growl like.
‘It’s not all about what’s on the outside, Dominic Best. And do you know what, I’m very happily munching my way to my very own muffin top, too. Fuck you and fuck the shallow world of show business!’
‘Wow.’ Dominic replied, eyes wide.
‘What are you doing here anyway, Dom? I quite clearly stated in my message that I wanted some time away from you, away from work, away from everyone and that I’d be in touch when I was ready to sort out my stuff in the flat.’ Dom stared at her, mute. Her eyes were wild. ‘That’s not too unreasonable, now, is it?’
‘Actually, Sabrina, I think it is. We’ve been together three years and you disregard me with a simple text telling me all this.’
Sabrina felt her blood beginning to boil. Her face contorted in anger. ‘I tell you what’s unreasonable, Dominic Best. What’s unreasonable is that seconds before we were to sign our lives away to matrimonial bliss, your young French breadstick of a girlfriend arrived, joyfully telling me and all our guests that you’d fornicated with her after a rugby game. In the toilets, was it? Or did you take her back to your fancy hotel?’
‘I’ve driven through the night to be here, for you.’ Dominic’s voice was slow and steady. ‘I need to tell you something.’
‘It’s not quite with the Cindy Lauper intention, though, is it? I mean, you weren’t exactly going to follow her lyrics and creep in my room to make love to me, or maybe you were? Whoopee, every hole’s a goal for Dominic Best.’
‘I mean, if I could have got away with it.’ The charismatic editor smirked, causing Sabrina to reluctantly smile and wish that a couple of the dead butterflies hadn’t come back to life in her tummy. Then she felt her face crumple and another surge of anger rose to the fore.
‘I hate you. I fucking hate you! You’ve ruined my life. Now, please go back to the stone you crawled out under from and just FUCK OFF!’
‘We’re not at Kindergarten, Sabrina. We are grown adults. I made a mistake, I was drunk. I’m human. I don’t love her. It was just sex. A stupid… drunken… mistake.’
‘Well, you clearly made quite the impression for her to show up like she did!’
Dom sighed deeply. ‘I’m sorry Sabrina, but what else do you want me to say?’
Sabrina squirmed on her chair. ‘But you don’t get it, do you? Not every man who gets drunk is unfaithful! The intent was there. How do I know that every time you go away, you’re not shagging women across the globe.’
‘You’re being over dramatic.’
‘THAT’S MY JOB!’
‘God, I love you, Sabrina Swift.’
‘Don’t say that.’ Sabrina’s voice cracked. ‘She’s gone back to Paris, I take it? I saw the photos of you both. Thanks for that.’
Dominic bit his lip and put his hand to his forehead.’
‘Well, this is the thing.’
‘For fuck’s sake.’ A wave of nausea went through Sabrina. Why had she drunk so much wine last night? She went to the tap, filled a pint glass and downed half of it.
‘So, she–Francois– was living with her parents and they are not happy to support her anymore, so I said I’d help her find a place in London. And please don’t go crazy, but well she is in the Bloomsbury flat at the moment whilst I help her get a place sorted. But it’s not what it looks like.’
‘Don’t go crazy? It’s not what it looks like? What does it look like to ME Dominic Best? It looks like Little Miss Frenchie is sleeping in OUR Bloomsbury flat, in OUR fucking bed!’ Sabrina’s voice raised another octave.
Dominic’s voice remained level. ‘Not for long, though. Honestly, trust me on this.’
