The Other Man [Book One]

Chapter 7 - You're So Vain

Days and weeks passed without a word from him. I had expected some form of contact, but there was none at all. No phone calls. Not a single text. I couldn't deny the sting I felt, but I kept my pride and didn't contact him either.

Very quickly, the regret started to outweigh any positive feelings I had about sleeping with Harry. I no longer felt like I'd been a woman in charge, empowered for going after something she wanted. I felt like an aged slut who'd become doe-eyed over a nineteen year old pop star. I regretted letting him dazzle me with his charm and his flirtatious ways. He was obviously exactly who I thought he was when I first met him. He wasn't anything special at all.

"Rose, I need to tell you something," I paused as Rose raised an eyebrow but continued to eat her ice cream as we strolled through Hyde Park, enjoying the first real hint of summer. "Please, just...don't judge me or hate me."

This stopped her dead in her tracks, ice cream forgotten. "What?"

She was worried, had been worried for weeks, but hadn't said anything. I'd been quiet, withdrawn from everything more than usual, even when it was just the two of us, but she knew that it would either pass or I'd eventually tell her; the more she pressed, the less likely it was that I would say anything.

"Oh god, it's so bad!" Covering my face with my hands, fingers still sticky from my own ice cream that I hadn't even eaten but had let melt into my hands until I threw it in the bin, the words finally left my mouth in a whisper so no passers-by would hear. "I slept with Harry Styles."

Rose blinked at me, face blank, and I wondered if she was broken, if what I said had been so out of left field that she couldn't compute it. She'd been teasing me for months about him flirting with me, but this wasn't just a quick touch of the knee or a lingering look. I'd cheated on my husband, and she seemed to be taking her sweet time processing that information.

Without a word, she grabbed my hand and dragged me along the path, heading for the nearest park exit.

"Where are we going?"

"I need a bloody drink!"

-

Rose's eventual reaction was a lot calmer than I thought it would be; she was incredulous and shocked, but her words were quite positive, like she was almost glad I'd done something so reckless for a change.

Sat in a rammed pub garden, I told her about the real conversation Harry and I had when we ran into each other on our night out, how we'd hidden from her when she came out of the toilets, and some of what had happened in the hotel room. Rose, once again, was silent after I'd finished talking, exhaling loudly before finally speaking.

"Well," she threw back her wine and necked the whole thing in one go, "I didn't think he had it in him. In fact, I didn't think you had it in you, for that matter."