The phone won’t stop ringing. I glance across at Adam. “Do you want me to get that?”

He frowns. “Who’s calling?”

I twist in my seat to pull his phone from his jacket pocket and look at the Caller ID. “It’s an unknown caller. Should I get it?”

Adam lets out a long breath, then shrugs. “I guess so. If it’s the office or about a sale, tell them I’m driving and will get back to them.”

I answer. “Hello?”

There’s a long pause on the other end of the line before a sharp woman’s voice responds. “Who is this?”

“My name’s Laura. I’m traveling with Adam. He’s driving now. Can I take a message?”

“Yes, you can. Tell him Alice, his fiancée, wants to talk to him. Thanks, honey.”

She hangs up, and I lower the phone from my ear. I don’t know how much of the conversation Adam was able to make out from the driver’s seat, but there’s a stony expression on his face.

“It was a woman,” I say slowly. “Alice. She says she’s your fiancée.”

Adam doesn’t respond straight away. His grip tightens on the steering wheel. He keeps his eyes focused straight ahead on the long, straight road. He lifts the fingers of his left hand and drums them slowly against the wheel.

“I didn’t know you were engaged.”

The news that Adam has a fiancée pierces my heart. Would I have agreed to stay with him in Vegas if I had known? Would I have married him, even for a joke? Would I be sitting in this car with him right now?

“I’m not sure if we still are,” Adam replies. “We had a big fight before my trip, and we haven’t spoken since then.”

“It sounds like she wants to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk to her.”

An uncomfortable silence grows between us. I want to yell at Adam for letting me marry him when he knew he was still engaged. I feel guilty like I’ve betrayed a woman I’ve never met. I was so stupid for letting myself believe Adam and I might have a chance. I had no idea he was already promised to someone else.

Adam glances across at me from the driver’s side. “Are you mad at me?”

I punch him in the arm. “You made out like everything was a huge joke. It turns out the joke was on me. You were cheating, and I was helping you.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Why should I care? It’s just a fling, after all.”

I sit back in my seat with my arms folded over my chest. I stare out over the highway to hide the tears springing to my eyes. Stupid girl. You fell in love with an engaged man. All the hours we’ve spent together and all the time we’ve shared seem like a lie.

“Things have been strained between Alice and me for a long time.”

I listen in silence. The logical side of me tells me he doesn’t owe me an explanation. He never promised me we were going anywhere. But the part of me that loves him is desperate to know why he would do something so callous to a woman he must have loved enough at one point to propose.

I want to know why he would do this to me.

“It started a long time ago when she quit her job to start a career as an Instagram model.” He scoffs and looks across at me as if for approval. “She wanted me to support us while she messed around pouting in front of a camera. We were always arguing about my work. She didn’t like me being away but had no interest in joining me. I thought proposing to her would reassure her that the distance didn’t make a difference.”

Begrudgingly, I look over to him. “What happened?”

“She cheated on me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Adam shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have been surprised. We’d been on separate pages for a long time. I think we were getting to the point where we were only together because it was habit. The spark, for me anyway, has been gone for years.”

Years.

“How long have you been together?”

“Twelve years.”

The figure hits me like a punch in the gut. Twelve years? That’s a lifetime. A three-week vacation fling could never compete with a history like that.

I wish I could step out the car right now, but we’re in the middle of nowhere. A part of me wants to make Adam pull over anyway so I can hitchhike to the airport and forget all about him. I’m so embarrassed.

“Inviting me to your room that night and asking me to stay with you — what was all that? Were you trying to get back at her?”

“No,” Adam answers quickly. “That wasn’t it.”

“I don’t understand. Why get involved with me while you were still with her? Why drag me into this? I wouldn’t have done any of this if I had known. I’m not the kind of girl who snatches other women’s fiancés. You’ve made me a cheater, too.”

“You think I’m a cheater?” Adam’s eyes glaze over, and he chews on the inside of his lip. “That’s not how I saw things.”

“Because you’d stormed out on her? Did you end things with her?”

“It’s complicated.”

“So you say.” I twist in my seat to confront him. “Are you still engaged to her, or not?”

“I don’t know.”

“I feel dirty. The sooner we get back to Illinois, the sooner we can get a divorce.”

Adam reaches over and places his hand on my knee. He darts a glance over at me while trying to keep an eye on the road. “I’m sorry, Laura. I didn’t mean to trick you.”

I push his hand off my leg. “You should have been honest with me.”

“You’re acting like I promised we’d be together,” Adam says. “I never promised anything.”

“Does that make it okay?”

“I don’t know what you want from me.”

Me, neither.

“I want to fly back.”

“We’re miles from an airport now.” He frowns. “Let me take you to Illinois. We still need to talk about the logistics of our divorce.”

“I thought spending more time with you would be fun. Now I feel like an accomplice to your infidelity. It’s not fun anymore.”

Adam hangs his head. “I didn’t realize it would bother you this much.”

“You didn’t think it would bother me to fuck you when you’re engaged to another woman?”

“We’re separated.”

“Alice doesn’t seem to think so.”

“I’ll talk to Alice.”

I don’t say anymore. I simply turn away. When we get to our first motel, I’ll look online for the nearest airport. I want to get far away from this situation. I can’t wait to get back to my girlfriends where I can sob my heart out over a glass of prosecco and forget all about Adam Taylor.