Chapter 1
Hayleigh
Ayear ago, I had it all figured out.
I had a checklist for my life that I followed, and it was my lifeline. I mean, who functions without a list? Am I right?
It was something I wrote in my teens, and over the years, I added to it until it became an obsession of sorts, a standard to which I held everything in my life. If it wasn’t on the list, it wasn’t a priority.
I started small with things like passing my exams, getting a part-time job at weekends, researching what I wanted to do in college and university. My family hated the list for the simplereason that they already had my life planned out for me, and if it weren’t for my granddad, then I’d have probably played along, like my sister, Thea, did. She still hasn’t found the courage to say no to our parents, the great Morgana and Frank Wallcroft.
My mother wanted me to study accounting and join the family business, Wallcroft Wines; she wanted a say in who I dated, what I wore, my friends and my appearance, because that was what mattered to Morgana more than anything. She said I was too stubborn, too proud and too much like my granddad, her father, but to me, he was the most remarkable man. He was always ready with a smile and a cuddle in his rocking chair, and he always told me to lead with heart and do what I wanted, not what I was told I should do.
So I carried on with my list, and eventually it became something else entirely, especially after I lost my grandad. Suddenly, life seemed too short and too fragile, and I didn’t want to miss any of it. I wanted to go places and see things, but I didn’t want to do it alone. I wanted to meet the love of my life by the time I was twenty-five, then we would date for two years before moving in together, and another year after that, we’d be engaged and married by the time I was thirty. We would spend two years together as a married couple, enjoying life before settling down and starting a family.
That was the plan, and when I met Pete Winters, I knew he would be the one I would spend the rest of my life with, the one who would help me complete my list, and for a while, I thought it was beautiful.
Until it wasn’t.
One day, I was at my engagement party; the next, Pete was arrested for being a monster. Suddenly, the life I had constructed started to crumble, leaving only the tattered remains of what could have been. I have spent every day aftersmiling and nodding, replying with ‘I’m fine’ and ‘I’m great’, but it’s getting too much because I’m not fine or great.
My insides feel hollowed out, and I don’t feel like I belong anymore, but I have no idea how to fix it. Sometimes my inside voice screams into the void, she screams for help and to beg someone to notice, but I never open my mouth and let her out, because if I do that, then it becomes real, and I have to face the fact that I don’t have the control over my life that I once did.
So I keep the smile on my face despite those closest to me looking for any sign of sadness. It’s why I said yes to joining my best friend, Emmy, her new husband, Cas, and his brothers on her honeymoon tour. Yes, I realise that the bride and groom don’t usually invite their family and friends on their honeymoon, but if you knew Emmy and the Peterson family as I do, then you would soon realise they’re a ‘leave no man behind’ kind of family. Emmy wanted everyone she loved with her for the first week in Vegas before she and Cas set off on a two-week trip around the US, starting with San Francisco. She’s happy, and that’s all that matters to me because she deserves all the happiness in the world.
So that’s how I find myself here, in Viva Las Vegas, in a hotel the size of three town halls back home. A genuine smile reaches my lips when I spot her walking out of the hotel and towards where I lie, stretched out on the sun loungers. My beautiful best friend is a redhead and so fair-skinned that only five minutes in the sun has her looking like a lobster; that’s probably why she’s sporting a ridiculous-sized sun hat, but somehow, she pulls it off.
“Holy moly, it’s hot. I mean, I know it’s Vegas, and it’s always going to be hot, but I didn’t think it would be this hot. Are you hot?” Emmy fans herself with her hands, and I have to choke back a giggle.
I sit up and pat the side of my sun lounger. “Here, sit your arse down, it’s hot but I quite like it.” I rummage around in the bag at my side before handing her a neatly wrapped box. “Here, a honeymoon present.”
Emmy takes the gift from my hands and puts her own over her heart. “Aww, Hayleigh, you didn’t have to get me a gift; you being here with me is the best gift I could have.” She unwraps the box and pulls out a USB-charged neck cooling fan. Her mouth drops open before she quickly wraps it around the back of her neck and turns it on, her eyes rolling as the cooling fan starts to work. A smile blooms on her face. “Oh my days, this is the best gift anyone has ever given me.”
“Charming, Mrs Peterson, I thought I’d be the best gift.” Cas, Emmy’s husband, walks up behind her, planting a kiss on top of her hat.
Emmy smiles serenely, their back-and-forth makes me happy, but a sadness also blooms inside me before I quickly tamp it down. I don’t get to be sad, not when Emmy went through hell and back; she deserves this happiness.
“Right, Hayleigh?” Emmy looks at me, smiling, and now I feel like a shitty friend all over again because I was too lost in my own head to listen to what she was saying.
I shake my head and fake another smile. “Sorry, heat’s getting to me, and I zoned out. What did you say?”
She rolls her eyes, smiling. “I was just telling Cas that you’ve always wanted to go to a Botanical garden and that we found one here.”
I nod and smile like the goddamn Churchill dog. “Oh, yeah, it’s supposed to be beautiful.” Come on, Hayleigh, make more of an effort!
As I’m about to say more, I halt when the rest of the Peterson Brothers emerge from the hotel. I swear, the lot of them weremade from chiselled marble, with a heap of green flag energy and several dashes of good luck and charm.
Ethan, one of the twins, saunters out with his sunglasses firmly on top of his head, a newspaper in his hand and a towel around his shoulders. Behind him, Rafe looks like he owns the place, winking at the women lazing around the pool whose mouths drop open at the display of tattoos and muscle. They both take a sun lounger each to my right, Ethan mutters a good morning, then moves the parasol over him before getting lost in his newspaper.
Rafe stands at the edge of the pool before chucking his sunglasses on his lounger and executing the perfect dive.
Cas tuts and rolls his eyes. “Show off.”
Emmy giggles and places a kiss on his cheek. “Don’t worry, baby, you’ll get the hang of it in the end.”
I snort. “I doubt it, Em. We’ve all seen Cas’s diving this week and he still looks like a trussed up, belly flopping chicken.”
Emmy bursts out laughing, and Cas gives me the evil eye, the corner of his mouth twitching.
