“Beth, wait!” Lia cries, as she jumps up to follow me.

I ignore her, making a beeline for a bathroom stall, locking the door behind me. My stomach revolts, emptying itself gloriously into the commode. I groan, crouching over the toilet.

Lia’s right outside the bathroom stall door, knocking frantically. “Beth! What’s wrong? Open up!”

I pull off a piece of toilet paper and wipe my mouth. God, I just want to disappear. I want the floor to open up and swallow me whole. I want this God-awful pain ripping through my chest to go away.

“Please, go back to the table, Lia,” I say, my voice raw. “I’m fine.”

There’s a long moment of silence on the other side of my stall, and then I hear the door to the ladies’ room open.

“How is she?” Sam says, his voice low.

“I don’t know,” Lia says. “She won’t open the door.”

Sam stands joins Lia outside the stall. “Beth, sweetie? Are you sick?”

Sick in my heart. “Please, guys, just go back to the table. I need to be alone right now.”

“We’re not leaving you, princess,” Sam says. “Please come out and talk to us.”

He grips the top of the stall door, his fingers curling over the top, as if it’s his way of trying to reach me. I reach up and lay my hands over his. My entire body is shaking, and my pulse is racing. The pressure in my chest is making it hard to breathe.

I take a deep breath and unlock the stall door. Sam pushes it open.

“Jesus, princess, what’s the hell’s wrong?” Lia says, eyeing me.

I can’t bring myself to say the words, so I hold my phone out to her. She takes it and scrolls through the images, with Sam looking over her shoulder.

“Holy shit,” Sam says, sounding shell shocked.

Lia shakes her head. “No way. No fucking way.” She looks up at me, her eyes hard as diamonds as she shakes her head adamantly. “Beth, come on. You know he wouldn’t do this to you.”

I gesture to my phone. “Look at those images! That’s clearly Shane!”

Sam grabs my phone from Lia and scrolls through the images again, his brow furrowing as he studies the pictures. “The first two are definitely Shane, yes. But in the rest of the photos, you can only see the guy from the back. I’ll admit it looks like him, and he’s dressed the same, but you can’t really be sure it’s him.”

I shake my head. “Come on, guys. These photos were taken at the same time, in the same location. They’re standing right outside the same shop. And look at that car parked on the street in front of them – it’s the same car.”

Lia shakes her head, looking as dazed as I feel. “No,” she insists. “He wouldn’t do this.” She looks me in the eye, her gaze hardening. “Beth, if he wanted her, he’d already have her. He would have broken it off with you long before now and taken up with her. He wouldn’t betray you like this. It’s just not him.”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I say, feeling numb. My voice is thick with tears. “But I can’t just excuse this away.” I scroll to the second image. “That’s clearly Shane, and he’s kissing her! How do you explain that?”

Lia stares dumbfounded at the image. “I can’t. But there has to be an explanation.”

I push past Lia and Sam and head for the sink, intending to rinse my mouth out, and I stumble.

Sam’s there at my side, and he catches my elbow and steadies me. “I think you need to sit down,” he says. “Before you fall down. Come back to the table while I settle the bill. Then we’ll head back to the store.”

I shake my head. I can’t go back to work right now. I can’t face all those people. “I need to rinse out my mouth, and then I’m going – ” God, I don’t know where to go. I don’t feel like going back to the store, and I don’t want to go home right now. I feel... lost.

“You can come back with me to my place,” Lia offers. “You can hang with me and Jonah for a while.”

I shake my head. Lia’s place is just too close to home. I need space. I need to get away, someplace where I can think. I bring up the contact list on my phone and make a call.

“Can I come over?” I say, when Jamie answers. I wince at how my voice cracks over the phone.

“Of course you can,” he says. “Beth, are you all right?”

The dam breaks and the tears start flowing. “No, I’m not all right.”

His tone sharpens immediately. “Where are you? Who’s there with you?”

“I’m at a restaurant downtown. It’s all right, I’m with Lia and Sam.”

“Put Sam on the phone.”

I hand my phone to Sam. “Jamie wants to talk to you.”

Sam listens for a moment, then says, “Sure, I’ll bring her. We’ll be there in a bit.”

Sam hands my phone back, but it’s Lia he’s looking at. “I’ll take her to Jamie’s.”

Lia nods, if a little bit reluctantly. “You need to talk to Shane, Beth,” she says. “He needs to know about this.”

I shake my head as hot tears stream down my face. “I can’t face him, Lia,” I say, staring at an image of the man I love – the man I’m supposed to marry in two weeks – kissing another woman. “I just can’t.”

Lia grabs my phone. “I’m forwarding these pics to my phone. Jonah and I will go to Shane’s office and show him the images.”

“Lia, no – ”

She shushes me. “Yes. He needs to see these.”

“He’s not at his office,” I tell her. “Diane said he left the office and didn’t say where he was going or when he’d be back.”

Lia’s mouth tightens. “Well, he sure as fuck didn’t leave to meet Luciana on the street for a public make-out session, I can promise you that.”

After she forwards the images to her own phone, Lia hands me back mine. Then she pulls me into her arms for a hug, and I latch onto her for dear life.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” she whispers to me. “Don’t worry.”

Lia heads back to our table, and Sam remains behind with me. After I rinse out my mouth, I dab my wet cheeks with a fresh paper towel.

“Ready to go?” he says.

I nod.