Tempted by My Ex’s Brother

FIVE

Lily's POV

I had been in an unusually good mood that morning. It was the week before the engagement banquet—my engagement banquet—I thought. I finally deserved to feel excited. Everything over the last few months had been stressful, exhausting, and full of emotional landmines, but at least Connor had promised he was done entertaining the ghost of his past. His first love, Victoria, was supposedly out of his life for good.

So I told myself I could breathe again.

I spent the morning drifting through a boutique, running my hand over fabrics, comparing shades of white and champagne, trying to imagine which one would look elegant but still like me. Gabby had offered to come but got held up at work, so I wandered by myself, trying not to overthink the fact that I was doing engagement dress shopping alone. I kept telling myself it didn’t matter. Connor would see the dress that day of the banquet anyway. It would still be special.

I had just stepped into a dressing room when my phone started ringing. I didn’t think much of it; Connor sometimes called randomly when he had a break. I smiled a little and answered without looking at the screen.

“Hello?”

What greeted me weren’t words. It was a woman’s moan. High-pitched. Breathless. Loud. I froze at the sound. For a second, I convinced myself I must’ve misheard. Maybe it was a video somewhere in the store. Perhaps someone was playing a prank.

But then I heard a familiar male voice, his voice, a low grunt and a muttered, “Victoria—slow down—”

My fingers went numb. The phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor of the dressing room, the call still connected, the sounds still pouring out. I stared at the screen in shock until the call finally ended on its own. For a moment, I didn’t breathe. I couldn’t.

My chest tightened painfully, the room closing in around me. I bent down with trembling fingers and grabbed the phone. My heart hammered so hard I felt dizzy.

“No,” I whispered to myself. “No, no, no—he wouldn’t—he promised—”

I called him back. One ring. Two. Three. No answer. I called again. No answer. Again. Straight to voicemail. My hands shook so violently I could barely press the screen, but I kept calling with the blind desperation of someone trying to outrun reality. I felt sick. My stomach twisted painfully, and a sharp ringing filled my ears. I pushed out of the dressing room, barely aware of the sales assistant calling after me. I muttered something, I didn’t even know what, and nearly tripped over my own feet as I headed for the exit. When I stepped outside, the sunlight felt too bright, too warm, too wrong compared to the cold panic smothering me. I ran to my car. I couldn’t feel my legs, just the desperate need to move.

As soon as I slammed the door shut behind me, I tried calling again—still nothing. My throat tightened.

“Pick up,” I whispered. “Connor, please pick up. Please just tell me I’m wrong.”

But he didn’t answer. I drove to his house without thinking. My vision blurred a few times, the tears kept on building, but I kept blinking them away because I couldn’t crash before I got there. I parked crookedly in the driveway and jumped out. My car keys nearly slipped from my fingers as I fumbled with the lock. There was no answer. I knocked harder—still nothing.

“Connor!” I called. “Connor, open the door!”

I was met with silence. I pressed my ear to the door, praying to hear footsteps, a voice, anything. But the house was quiet. Completely empty.

I stepped back, defeated. My chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself. I forced myself to return to my car even though it felt like my bones were made of concrete. By the time I reached my apartment, the numbness had settled in. I washed my face mechanically, changed clothes without caring what I wore, and crawled into bed.

The moment I was under the covers, everything I’d been holding back finally broke out of me. I cried until my head throbbed. I cried until my pillow was soaked. I cried until I couldn’t distinguish anger from heartbreak, betrayal from disbelief, or humiliation from grief.

I must’ve fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing I remembered was waking up to the afternoon light and the heaviness in my chest. My phone buzzed beside me. I grabbed it with a weak hope that maybe—maybe—Connor would have an excuse. Perhaps he’d call, saying it wasn’t what it sounded like.

But all I had was a text from Connor. Seeing his name made my heart skip a beat.

Connor: We need to break up. I don’t think we should get married anymore. I’m sorry.

I stared at the message, rereading it until the words blurred. Just like that. Not even a phone call. Not even a conversation. My breath hitched, and I bit down on my lip as tears burned again. Another notification popped up, a call from an unknown number.

I answered instinctively. “Hello?” I said in a shaky voice. A woman laughed on the other end. It wasn't polite laughter; it was taunting and vicious.

“Well,” she drawled, “I guess you finally know Connor isn’t yours anymore.”

I stiffened. “Who is this?” I asked.

“Oh, come on,” she said as if talking to a child. “Don’t tell me you don’t recognize my voice. All those times Connor used to talk about me, and you never got curious?”

My stomach dropped. She kept going, voice dripping with smug satisfaction. “Honestly, Lily, you really should’ve known you never stood a chance. You’re just… boring. Sweet, but boring. Connor needs someone exciting. Someone who can keep his attention. Not someone who shops for engagement dresses alone.” She said, her voice dripping in satisfaction. I felt like I had been slapped.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but the humiliation, the exhaustion, the heartbreak all tangled together into silence. Victoria laughed again, softer this time, but sharper.

“Don’t feel bad. Not everyone is meant to be unforgettable.” She said, then hung up.

I sat there on my bed, phone clutched tightly in my palm, unable to breathe. My whole body felt hollow, like someone had carved out everything inside me and left only the ache behind.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I wasn’t supposed to be humiliated days before what should’ve been the happiest day of my life. I wasn’t supposed to lose everything in a matter of hours. I wasn’t supposed to be treated like I didn’t matter.

I wiped my face, even though more tears kept falling. Every moment replayed in my head, the moans on the phone, the silence at the house, the text message, Victoria’s voice. It became a loop of pain that wouldn’t stop.

I didn’t know how long I sat like that, staring at nothing. And somewhere under that emptiness that I was feeling was anger. I stood slowly, even though my legs felt weak. I rewashed my face, forcing myself to look in the mirror. I looked so broken with a hurt face.

I needed something, anything, to pull me out of this spiral. And I suddenly found myself thinking about that club. The one Gabby kept talking about. The one I ran out of the first time. Where I bumped into that man who looked so much like Connor.

The one place where, for a brief moment, I’d been so overwhelmed I forgot everything else in my life. Maybe forgetting, even for a few hours, was what I needed most right now. I grabbed my purse with shaky hands. I was going back.

I was going to the club. And this time, I wasn’t running out.