In Drunken Matrimony ✔️

Three - Face Of The Media, Darling

Hᴀʟʟɪᴇ

It takes a whole twenty four hours for there to be availability for my jet to land. A whole day where I could only sit and wallow in self pity. Now, our flight awaits my friends and I, the three of us begrudgingly boarding, our movements sluggish considering it's only 3am.

Arabella and Liberty aren't best pleased at my desperate urge to hurry home. They, much like Oliver, have a rather blasé mentality, and reckon that there is no point being so stroppy when there is nothing more than can be done.

I beg to differ. The quicker I return home, the sooner we can file for annulment, and the more chance there is of this whole ordeal remaining a tragic, secret, mistake.

Bella sits herself beside the champagne bucket, helping herself to a flute which she fills to the brim with the sparkling fizz, lifting her sunglasses to rest on her long ebony braids. "So," she begins, kicking off her sliders and allowing them to fall haphazardly. She takes a sip of the alcohol and I find myself concerned for her liver. "You really don't remember anything?"

Lib lifts her gaze hopefully, shedding herself of the denim jacket she donned herself in, lounging herself across the reclined seats. With a roll of my eyes, I sit myself adjacent. "Nothing." I assure for the umpteenth time.

Bella's full lips curl into a disappointed, cynical frown, her dark mocha eyes narrowing is disbelief. I shrug my shoulders lamely, unsure of what words of consolation I can offer her. The pair have pestered me incessantly since Oliver subtly hinted at our sexual escapade, inquiring for every nitty gritty detail.

Truthfully, since his mention of such, I've been pained with small snippets of naked bodies swaying in the dark, mushing together most in gracefully, with lacking rhythm and terrible kisses. Obviously, the pair us were equally intoxicated and therefore equally lacking in our capabilities. Still, playing ignorant does fantastic to save face, and retain the lasting shreds of my dignity in front of both my friends and him.

"Are you going to tell your parents?" Liberty asks when the jet beings to purr with life, rolling along the tarmac in preparation of flight.

I straighten the lapels of my crepe blazer, fussing over the gold shank buttons that sit on either side, simply to occupy my nervous hands. "Eventually, I suppose I'll have to come clean." I admit defeatedly, hands migrating to the hem of my white bandeau dress, sitting at the very height of my tanned thighs.

"Do you really? Isn't there such a thing as client confidentiality with lawyers? Surely you can just do this on the Q-T." Bella suggests, draining her glass of the last of the liquid.

She's never done very well with flying, despite all the times she has joined my family and I on our holiday, or even business trips where I have desperately needed a friendly face to accompany me. Drinking is an easily attainable method of calming her nerves, but when she drinks as quick as she does, I worry for the safety of the beige leather of the jet, considering she never does well at handling her liquor.

Arabella and I have been friends since our youth when we both attended a private school for girls. Her parents own a chain of hotels spread across the country and so they, much like myself and my family, have lived on a comfortable fortune most of their life. She is most modest with it, however, and she has veered away from the family business, having launched her own clothing line back home behind an anonymous face.

I consider her point, deliberating on whether I can keep something quite as monumental as this a secret, at the very least, until our separation is official. It just seems entirely implausible - it's not quite like buying a new cashmere rug before my mum returns home, hoping she doesn't notice the slight different pattern. This is a whole marriage for fuck sake; legally binding and everything. I mean, the boy is entitled to half of my life's worth, because I doubt the Elvis impersonator that performed before our vows will have reminded me to sign a prenup.