ChapterOne
“You lying piece of shit!”
After grabbing the first thing I can get my hands on, I send it flying across the room. When the lit scented candle shatters into the wooden headboard a pair of handcuffs are dangling off, I suck in its citron blossom scent while screaming like a banshee.
I’m stunned.
Speechless.
Yet, oh so relieved.
If Isaac, my friend and boss, hadn’t suggested I start my eight weeks of vacation a day early, I’d be none the wiser that my fiancé is a two-bit cheat. I was apprehensive about taking so much time off as it was, but in the year Cedric and I have known each other, we’ve only spent the equivalent of seventy hours in the same room. I wanted to know the man I was set to marry in a couple of months. I didn’t want to be caught up in the chaotic storm adventurous men like Cedric instigate without any thoughts on the aftermath of their turbulent ways.
Thank God the twister ended before all my Amex points were cashed in.
I don’t know why I expected better from Cedric. Our entire relationship has been one dangerous twister after another. We met at a surgical convention in Dallas. I thought he was a little cocky, but I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t flattered by his attention. A month after the convention, he accepted a position at Ravenshoe Private. Three months later, we were engaged.
It’s been a crazy year, but I never anticipated this, and from the widening of Cedric’s eyes when it dawns on him who threw the candle, he wasn’t either.
“Twinkie Pie.” He bats away the blonde whose waterfall locks are barely concealing the adulterous event occurring before my very eyes before he scuttles across the damp-with- sweat bedding. “You were meant to meet me at the airport tomorrow afternoon for our flight.”
“I left early. I thought it would be nice to wake up in the same location as you on our first anniversary instead of in a different state.” I wave my hand across the mountaintop views stretched as far as the eye can see. “The view was worth seven hours on the freeway, but the greeting could sure dowith some work!” With my annoyance as piqued as my voice, my last three words come out as shouts. “We’re supposed to be getting married in three months! We leave on a once-in-a-lifetime trip tomorrow afternoon. Yet, here you are, fucking a whore on the sheets your mother gifted us at our engagement party!”
“Hey,” the blonde pipes up. I assume she’s going to defend herself against the derogative name I called her but am proven wrong when she stammers out, “I thought we were going to see the lights of Paree together, Snookie Bear?”
Her pout enhances the plumpness of her lips from sucking my fiancé dry, and they make me utterly ropeable. “Oh, go ahead, sweetheart. Go see thelights of Pareewith him.” I overemphasize her nasally voice while trying my darndest to impersonate her bimbo attitude. “Just make sure you clean the smegma from his cock before further oral activities.” She swishes her tongue around her mouth when I murmur, “A buildup of dick secretions causes all sorts of nasty issues if you swallow too much of it.”
When I turn on my heel, Cedric leaps out of bed. “Jae…” His chase-down isn’t to beg for forgiveness. He wants to pinch the last of my nerves. “If you no longer want to go on our little getaway, perhaps I could take Rosha with me. She’s never seen Paris—”
“Neither have I!” My half Australian, half Korean heritage echoes in my ears when my shouted words bounce off the thick wooden walls of the cabin. “That’s why we were going toParee.” I’ve never believed in physical violence, but before I can remind myself of that, my knee pops into Cedric’s groin in sync with my purse, whacking him up the side of the head. “And I’d rather rot in hell than ever letyouusemyAmex points.”
After a final sneer, I continue my exit.
In good judgment, Cedric lets me leave.
While galloping down the stairs of the cabin, I grumble my annoyance about both his inability to grovel and for stupidly discounting the numerous rumors the past six months about him sleeping with interns at Ravenshoe Private.
Although this estate has been in his family’s vault of properties for almost a decade, this is the first time I’ve traveled here. With the holiday of a lifetime already maiming my stingy heart, I suggested that Cedric collect his ski equipment from the cabin instead of purchasing it new. I thought it would save us a couple of dollars. In reality, it saved me thousands.
Even annulments are expensive these days.
I’m glad I am so frugal. If I hadn’t been, every milestone I’ve achieved in the past ten years would have been null and void. I would have been back to square one.
My luck wanes when I slide into the driver’s seat of my convertible. Within a second of stabbing the start button, the playlist I created for our trip commences blaring out of the speakers. It’s brimming with heartfelt songs that tear my heart out as effectively as my tires shred up the salt Cedric’s family laid in preparation for his arrival.
Do they know he’s screwing a blonde-haired, blue-eyed hipster with an exotic name like Rosha in the master suite of their family cabin?
I bet they do.
Nothing gets past Cedric’s mother. She knew her beloved son was planning to propose even before he asked her advice on what type of ring someone like me would like.
In case you’re wondering, his swipe had nothing to do with my heritage. It was solely based on my intelligence.
According to Cedric’s mother, I’m not his type. He likes busty girls with air for brains—Rosha on tap—something I’ll never be even with me winning a handful of beauty contests during my teens. My green, almond-shaped eyes paired with my father’s tanned skin gives me a distinct look not many mixed-race women have, and when added to the fact I’m a stickler for believing you are what you eat, I have unblemished skin that hides the fact I’m rarely seen without a book in my hand.
I don’t read romance novels like the nurses at Ravenshoe Private. I love a good fiction book, but non-fiction medical theses are more my jam. Summarizing a seemingly impossible surgical procedure was one of the rare things Cedric and I had in common. He loved a good hypothesis on the anomalies of the human anatomy as much as me.
He just took his research one step further by conducting his revisions on breathing specimens instead of cadavers.
