Laid off from your job, you come home early to find your fiancé sleeping with your so-called best friend. To top it off, your great-aunt has passed away. You haven’t seen her since you were a child, but you receive a letter from a solicitor notifying you of her passing and that you are her sole beneficiary. To what, the letter doesn’t state, only that you have to appear for the reading of the will in person. You’ve never been to England, but now is as good a time as any. Your great-aunt lived a full life, if not a little bit eccentrically. She left you everything, including the estate, but with a catch:

***

Eva breezed into the meeting room where her boss waited for their usual weekly catch-up. “Hi Sierra, how was netball last night?”

There was another person in the room, someone from HR maybe? Strange.

Sierra hunched her shoulders and looked down at a sheet of paper as Evangelina sat, then began to read aloud. “Evangelina, as you know, our recent acquisition has meant a review of our team performance and structure. As a result of this review, the team is being merged with another and your role is being eliminated.”

Eva’s jaw dropped. “You’re getting rid of me? But last month you said I was your top performer.”

Sierra winced and kept reading. The words blurred. They didn’t matter anyway, it was just legalistic ass-covering. That’s why the HR bod was there too, trying to look like he cared.

The payout was pretty generous, but it was still a shock. Why her? Were any of the others going? What was she going to do?

Sierra put the paper down. It must have been pretty small print for the amount of talking she’d done. Finally, she met Eva’s gaze. “I’m really sorry, but they’re cutting the team in half and I know you’ll find something in no time at all.”

The HR bod cleared his throat, Sierra glared at him, then looked back at Eva. “The agreement and other paperwork will be emailed to you, so you can take a bit of time to read it over, think if you want to apply for anything internally or take the severance package. How about you take an early mark, head home now and talk it through with Stephen?”

Eva looked down at her hands, clenched together, nails biting into skin. “Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll do that. Thanks.”

She walked back to her desk, jaw clenched, knuckles white. There were six in the team, who else was going? Did they know yet? This was Sierra had got them all to come in on different days this week. How had she not seen it coming?

She’d opted to sit with the marketing team that day, since her team wasn’t around. They avoided her eyes. Someone was clearly more connected to the corporate grapevine than her. She shut down, packed up, and with a false, brittle smile, left for the day. No one asked why.

Stephen worked from home most days, and she called him as she left the building, weaving through the crowds towards the MTR station, easy enough when she was a head or so taller than most of the other Hong Kongers around her. He answered, sounding distracted. “I’m on a video call, we’ll talk when you’re back from work, okay?”

“But…”

He hung up.

Fine. She’d surprise him. Pick up a couple of those cupcakes from the bakery at the bottom of their building to sweeten him up ahead of her news, and dinner with his mother that night.

She juggled keys, bag, and cupcake box, sliding through the front door, ready to call out. Her ‘hello’ stopped halfway up her throat, choking her. Those weren’t her shoes.

She relaxed when she saw the bag, Mia must had heard something and come by, recruiters always knew the layoff news before anyone. Good thing she’d splurged on half a dozen cakes.

She toed off her shoes and made her way through the flat, dumping cakes and bag as she went. Strange, they weren’t in the sitting room, were they on the balcony off the bedroom?

That’s when the noises registered. Rhythmic grunts and gasps, coming from the bedroom. No, it couldn’t be. Her fiancé and her best friend? That only happened in crappy romcoms that she and Mia giggled over on drunken girls’ nights in.

The door was ajar. She peeked. On the bed, the cover she’d bought when they’d moved in together thrown to the floor, was Stephen and Mia, naked and writhing together. Mia had one hand in Stephen’s hair, the fluorescent pink nail polish bright against the black strands, the other was wrapped around his bicep as his bare arse flexed between her thighs.

Eva stumbled back. She was going to be sick. She couldn’t be sick. What was she going to do. She remembered a post romcom conversation with Mia. “So, what would you do if you found your boyfriend in bed with another woman?”

Mia had paled at Eva’s reply. Had she been shagging Stephen on the sly even then?

Eva’s mind cleared. Cold, calm, and furious beyond reckoning, she tiptoed back to her bag and grabbed her phone, set up an email, then pulled her suitcase from the hall cupboard.

Outside the bedroom again, she started the video camera and marched inside, slinging her suitcase onto the bed. “Don’t mind me, I just have a bit of packing to do.”

Mia screamed, and Stephen rolled off her like he’d been stung, great video footage, both of them full frontal, stark naked and goggling. Eva ended the recording, and hit send, then tucked the phone out of sight before flinging the case open, the top landing one of Mia’s splayed knees, hopefully hard enough to bruise.

She stomped to the chest of drawers and dumped an armload of her underwear into the open case. Then t-shirts and jeans before she moved to the cupboard and pulled down her dresses and skirts. She was most of the way done with her clothes before either of the other two gathered their wits.

Mia screamed and ran for the bathroom. Eva called after her. “You can pack my toiletries while you’re in there. Don’t forget the shampoo.”

Stephen grabbed for his pants, pulling them on as he said. “Now Eva, sweetheart, don’t you think you’re over-reacting?”

Eva stopped what she was doing and stared at him.

He cleared his throat, looking anywhere but her and said. “It’s not serious, just a bit of fun. A one-off thing.”

“And how many times has this ‘one-off thing’ happened?”

“Only this once, I swear. You’re not going to give up on us for a tiny moment of weakness, are you? How about you go and sit down, I’ll make you a nice cup of tea and you can collect yourself before dinner. There’s no need to be this worked up.”

Eva marched out to the hallway, then returned with her shoes, other than the ones she’d be wearing to walk out of here. Into the case they went, then she pulled open the bathroom door. Mia had a towel clutched around her, one of the peach-coloured ones they’d spotted on sale and had each grabbed a set.

She looked at Eva tearfully. “I’m so sorry, I just don’t know how to explain. It won’t happen again.”

Eva pulled her sponge bag from under the basin and began filling it. “Of course it won’t, because I’m dumping both of you. Exactly like we talked about on the movie nights.”

Mia pressed a shaking hand to her lips. “Exactly like?”

Eva smirked. “Exactly like. I have a lovely video clip of the pair of you already on its way to both his mother and yours.”

She stalked out of the bathroom as two phones started ringing.

Mia screamed. “Don’t answer!”

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