At the precise instant I clicked send, another email titled URGENT from someone called Lillian Taylor appeared at the top left-hand corner of my screen. Later I would marvel at what strange coincidence it was, but at that moment I had no idea who she was. I just thought she was a client or a prospect. The word urgent made me open it.

Without warning my safe little world with its little plan of illicit oral sex under Josh’s desk crumbled into dust. My whole body went cold. I read the all-caps message in a state of blank shock.

HAVE YOU BEEN HAVING FUN FUCKING MY MAN?

GUESS WHAT, SLUT? I’M PREGNANT WITH JOSH’S BABY. WHY DON’T YOU GO FIND A MAN OF YOUR OWN, YOU NASTY PIG!!!!! GET SOME MORALS AND CLASS, SLUT. AND DON’T EVER TOUCH MY MAN AGAIN.

LILLIAN

The words swam before my shocked eyes. It had to be a joke. I wanted it so much to be someone’s sick sense of humor. It just had to be, only it wasn’t. I felt the venom of the words seeping through my skin, infecting my flesh and poisoning my blood.

Breathlessly, I stared at the scanned photo of an ultrasound. The mother’s name was on the photo, too. Lillian Taylor. The photo was taken three days ago.

He had a girlfriend.

Oh shit. He had a fucking girlfriend.

A pregnant girlfriend.

I’d felt my world was falling apart around me twice before. When my parents announced their divorce and when Grandma died.

But this email… It was like a whole new level of world-shattering. I was in a threesome and I didn’t even know it. I had somehow become the hated other woman. That creature that steals other women’s men. Me? Just when I was thinking about taking things to the next level with Josh, I find out he’s a fucking two-timing piece of shit.

I trusted him and he turned out to be no better than my slutty neighbor. Maybe even worse. At least that guy never let them expect anything more than a screaming orgasm. To think Josh had been lying to me all along hurt.

How could he have done what we did—lying in bed with me, kissing me, looking into my eyes and telling me how important I was becoming to him while he was having unprotected sex with a woman who sent out all-caps emails?

Thank God, we always used a condom.

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. With anger. The liar. He was such a fucking liar. All those long lingering looks. There was no way I could sit at my desk for the rest of the day and pretend I didn’t know about her when all I wanted to do was go up to him and throat-punch him. How dare he? How long had Lillian been in the picture? The fact that she knew about me and I didn’t know about her, meant she’d been in the picture the whole time.

I lifted my head and looked around me. Everyone else had their heads down and seemed to be engrossed in their work. I needed to be professional about this. Be cool, Mimi. You’re not the first fool to get played. Be professional. No need to fuck up your career over a cheating prick.

I took three deep breaths. I could be professional about this. I could play this game. Three calming breaths was obviously not enough because my blood was still boiling.

Alice popped her head around my cubicle.

I whipped my head around. “What?” I growled.

Her eyes widened. “Never mind,” she muttered and slunk away.

I took another three breaths. Calm down, Mimi. You worked long and hard at this job. You’re going to be out of this cubicle and into your own glass office in a few months. Mustn’t jeopardize that. Oh no, no, no. No fucking man was worth that.

Three more extra-deep breaths.

But, nope. I couldn’t be professional about it. I needed to talk to that lowlife or I would explode. I stood. My legs were shaking. Actually, everything shook. Even my insides. My stomach roiled.

I took another steadying breath.

He was definitely not worth losing my breakfast over. I paid good money for that egg white sandwich, and even if I was going to lose it, I want to lose it on his shirt-front. My head turned automatically in the direction of his office. He waved and winked at me.

Bastard. Cheating, lying bastard!

But I had more chutzpah in me than I realized: I waved back.

I picked up my cell phone from my bag, straightened my skirt, and with my head held up high, I walked past all the glass offices towards the restrooms. As I passed his office, I pretended I had just received a call and made out as if I was completely engrossed in my fake telephone conversation.

By the time I reached the washroom, my whole body was rigid with fury. Wow! I’d never been so spectacularly cheated on before. I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself. How amazing to see that I looked so normal on the outside while inside I was churning so much I could start making butter. I called my best-friend, Megan. She was always the first one I called whenever something great, bad, or in between happened. The girl could have been in the middle of the biggest deal of her life, but she would’ve dropped everything for me. And I’d do the same for her.

“I’m sorry to bother you at work,” I said, “but everything just went to hell here.”

“Why? What happened?” she asked in an urgent whisper. If she was whispering it meant other people were in the next room.

“Josh has a girlfriend and she’s pregnant.”

“What? The little snake,” she shouted, then remembered herself and dropped back down to a fierce whisper. “That two-timing, creepy jerk. I knew he was no good. How did you find out?” I heard her footsteps. She must be leaving her office and going out of earshot.

“She sent me an all-caps email, that’s how,” I replied, my voice shaking with shock.

“Oh. My. God. Forward it to me,” she demanded in her normal voice.

“Megan?”

“What? I’d love to see what an email from a wronged girlfriend all in caps looks like.”

“This is serious. I’m so angry I feel like killing him.”

“Um…okay. What are you going to do?”

“Confront him.”

“What? Like now?” she asks incredulously.

“No, next year. Of course, now.”

“I think you better wait until after office hours, babe,” she suggests seriously.

“I don’t think I can last that long. I’ll explode.”

“Of course, you can wait. You need your job, Mimi. Fuck him. He doesn’t deserve you and he’s definitely not worth losing your job over.”

“No, I’m going to confront that lying rat right now,” I yelled

“No,” she yelled right back. “If you do, things are going to get so uncomfortable you’re just going to end up without a job.”

“Whatever,” I said.

“Don’t do it,’ she warned, but I rang off, and marched to Josh’s office.