Chapter 3: A Job For Christmas

Playlist Song#3: Sing for My Life by Sia

DAPHNE’S POV

I'm already awake, but my eyes are still tightly closed as I try to register where the hell I am. Well, I can’t really say I try, because the memories rush to my brain after a second.

Coming to visit my fiancé from a long work trip flight only to find him streaming a live sex tape with our wedding planner who happens to be my step sister, and being told by my step mother to not overreact. From smashing everything in my path in a fit of rage to dancing with a stranger…and ending up in a hotel room with him.

Horace.

Jeez.

I can still feel the imprint of his arms wrapped around my body. I’ve never been held the way he did me…never been made love to like that. I know it’s way too early and delusional to say this, but I already memorized the way he smells, and the way he sounds when he reaches the peak of pleasure.

When he brought me back here last night, he did exactly as I asked him to. He made me forget everything, and even if I was so drunk, it’s impossible that I’d forget the things he did to me. I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. He held me like he already knew my body, and he knew what to do with all of me. No part of me was left unattended, and I came too many times to count through the night. I still feel sore. In the best way possible.

Slowly, I peel my eyes open, and a nervous smile is already on my face. But just as quickly as it appears, it dies, because I’m the only one on the bed.

I sit up, dragging the rumpled sheets with me, and the headache that hits me doesn’t compare to the feeling that materializes in my chest.

I listen for a few seconds for the sound of the shower running, but I hear nothing.

When my eyes land on the piece of paper on the bedside table, I bite down on my tongue and pick it up, already sensing what happened.

The suite is covered for the rest of the day. It’s all yours.

That’s what Horace’s note says.

I squeeze the paper in my hand as my heart dislodges in my chest.

With Horace’s absence, I feel an overwhelming sense of emptiness, twice the intensity I felt when he was around. I feel soulless, like a piece of trash. Images from yesterday, of Orison making wild love to Scarlet, flashes in my head, and it overrides whatever is left of my brain.

I want to let out a scream, but the last thing I want is to be escorted off the premises, so instead, I toss the covers aside and hop in the hot shower.

By the time I come out, my phone is vibrating non stop on the bedside table. I sigh loudly before going over to check who it is.

It’s Samantha, my step mom.

I have no interest in speaking to her, so I put my phone on airplane mode to avert the call. I see that she already left me tons of messages while I was in the shower, so I open our text thread.

I hope you’re not seriously thinking about cancelling the wedding, Daphne???

It’s in two months!

Why do you have to make a big deal out of this?

All men cheat, Daphne, you won’t find different out there.

Trust me, Orison is the best you could ever pull!

End this childish behavior and go take your ring back.

I scoff, not bothering to reply to the messages. Why should Samantha bother holding her son accountable for a long term affair with his fiancée’s little sister when she could easily gaslight me into thinking that I’m overreacting and being childish?

Since yesterday, Orison hasn’t reached out to me once, and if they think that Samantha’s threats would be what’s going to make me come back, then they must really not rate me.

Plopping down on the bed, my mind gets lost in a whirlwind.

The hurt from Orison’s betrayal is still so fresh, but I feel an even stronger reminder of my time with Horace.

I shake my mind off him.

It was a one night stand and nothing more, and the empty room is reminder enough of that. So instead of fantasizing about him all day or being ruined by depression, I decide to open my phone and keep myself busy.

The first few posts I see on TikTok are all about how Christmas is the best time of the year, or about one tradition or another. The colors of the season are blinding, and I became even more depressed.

“Fine. Time to go home,” I tell myself, deciding to return to Australia.

As I think about that, my heart skips a beat because I’ll have to visit Rhosyn soon and explain to her why my fiancé is not with me. It’s going to break her heart so much.

I open my flight app and try to book one for the next few hours, but most of the flights are either fully booked, closed because of the weather, or ridiculously priced.

“Crap. It’s impossible to leave, and even more depressing to stay,” I say to myself, but I have no choice.

I only make it a few hours into the day before I feel like I’m going to lose my mind, so I open my phone again, deciding to do something more meaningful with however time I have left in New York.

I make it to my work profile to see which cooking gig requests I have close by. As a private chef, I can decide when and who I want to work for, and it’s one of the reasons why I chose to further this path, aside from my love for being around food but not necessarily eating it.

If I’ll be stuck in New York while my step sister fucks my ex fiancé, I’d rather be making some money as I cry.

There’s a request for a cooking job for this evening, one for a private family on the outskirts of town, booked by a Reed, and another for a college party full of kids, booked by an Agnes.

Not wanting to be around the noise and chaos of the holiday from college kids, I decide to go with the private family. Since the location seems a bit ominous, I charge an extra two hundred dollars, and to my surprise, the client accepts within minutes and makes a seventy percent deposit into my account.

“I don’t think a kidnapper would pay me to come meet them, so that has to be a good sign,” I tell myself as I proceed to get ready. I don’t have many things, so a short while later, my rental car is waiting for me downstairs.

The drive takes close to an hour with how slippery the roads are, plus traffic, but when I get to the quieter part, where there are barely any houses in sight, and considerably way less noise and chatter, the road is easier to navigate.

I finally reach my destination, but I’m freezing, so I rush to the described chalet with a mistletoe hung around the door knocker. I roll my eyes before I knock. I can’t believe I’m spending the evening with another family that falls for the Christmas shenanigans.

I hear footsteps coming, so I straighten out my spine and put on a smile to appear friendly.

The door opens, and my smile falters, because there’s no way on earth that my client for the evening happens to be the same man whose print is still between my thighs as I spent the entire day thinking about.

It’s Horace.

Before I can open my desert dry mouth to speak, he asks.

“Stalking me so quickly, are you?”