Chapter Four

WINTER

My phone starts ringing suddenly.

I check the screen. Blair Fisher, my best friend and part-time therapist, full-time drama queen.

“Girl!” she squeals the second I answer. “Are you already living your best life at that sexy resort? Don’t lie. I want details.”

I sigh so hard I feel my lungs collapse a little. “Don’t even start. You wouldn’t believe the nonsense I’ve been through.”

“Oh God. What happened?”

So I tell her. All of it.

How Mike pulled a disappearing act when it was time to leave. How he chose Olivia. Again. How Olivia drove up to my house in a Range Rover like Cruella de Vil, almost ran me over, and then tried to choke me with her golden smugness.

By the time I’m done ranting, Blair is full-on cussing.

“I hope they both choke on organic resort grapes,” she snaps. “You’re too damn nice, Winter. That’s your problem. You keep playing support role in your own movie.”

I snort. “Please. Better than being delusional about a mystery man you met once in a grocery store and built a whole fantasy wedding around.”

“Excuse me?” she gasps. “That man was fine, and I saw him twice. Once at checkout and once in the parking lot. That’s practically a relationship.”

“You’re insane.”

“One day,” she says, dead serious, “you’ll see. My mystery man is going to walk back into my life, sweep me off my feet, and you’ll eat your words at our destination wedding in Bali.”

“I believe you,” I laugh. “Make sure to send me the invite.”

She laughs too. Then pauses. “So… where are you now? Let me guess. You’re in bed, lights off, spoon-deep in a tub of double chocolate despair?”

“That was the old me,” I grin. “Right now… I’m at Paradise Resort.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m at the resort.”

“Shut. Up.”

“I’m dead serious.”

“HOW? You said Mike ditched you!”

I moved away from the road as I heard footsteps behind me. “Because your girl is unstoppable, that’s how. I drove here in my dying Audi, followed G****e Maps into the wilderness, almost lost a tire and my mind, and then....my car gave up and died. But I made it.”

Blair is gasping like I just told her I robbed a bank.

“And I got in,” I add. “Thanks to a very hot, very rude man in a suit who probably regrets every second of his life since meeting me.”

“Hot? Tell me more.”

“He looked like a Calvin Klein model with anger issues. I linked arms with him and pretended to be his plus one. He hated it.”

“And it worked?”

“I live to tell the tale.”

She screams. “You’re my hero. This is your moment. Do whatever it takes to get that dream job. Charm the chairman, flash your portfolio, throw hands if necessary.”

“I’m doing more than that,” I say, voice firm now. “Mike is going to apologize to me. Publicly. He’s going to rethink everything about us. Olivia’s getting dragged, and if she so much as breathes wrong, I’ll bury her in her own fake sob story.”

“I love this version of you.”

“If Mike still picks her over me after everything? I’ll make him pay. Literally. I’ll invoice that man for my youth, my energy, my money, and every meal he ever ate from my pay check. Then, I'll humiliate him so badly he won't know what hit him.”

Blair whistles. “Wow. Is this the same Winter who once cried because Mike said her soup needed more salt?”

“She’s dead. This is Vengeance Winter.”

“You sure you can do all that? I mean… you’re still in love with him and frankly speaking, I don't think you will ever stop loving him.”

I pause. Then nod slowly. “Exactly. That’s why I have to do this. Because I am tired. Because love should be mutual. And if I’m not his priority, then he shouldn't be mine. He either chooses me, or he loses me, and his reputation he treasures more than his own life.”

Blair exhales. “Damn. They weren’t lying. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

“Correction,” I say. “Hell hath no fury like a fashion designer with a broken-down car, a stolen dream job, and nothing left to lose.”