“Years of doing everything I can to make his family accept me, make him happy, and what do I get in return? I get to photograph him kissing DianaFuckingValentine.”
“I’ve never heard you cuss this much,” Katya notes.
“Well, Miss Goody Two-Shoes is done beinggood.”
Heartbreak changes you—I would’ve never known, would never have believed it until it happened to me.
I take a cleansing breath. “Now, let’s walk through that blasted prenuptial agreement.”
I’m not mercenary by nature. But I’ve been pushed to a point where I’m going to chooseme, since my husband, the love of my life, doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me.
And, let’s face it, the Winters have it coming. After all, they were the ones who’d put theinfidelityclause in that prenup; certain a harlot like me would be the one who’d stray.
Now they can choke on it.
As the heroine in William Congreve's 1697 play,The Mourning Bride, declared, “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”
CHAPTER 2
Aiden
“Baby, you haven’t eaten anything.”
I looked at Mia’s plate, barely touched. She’d cooked dinner like she always does—fish and rice, and vegetables.
She opened a bottle of dry Riesling to go with it. She’d drunk two glasses. One more than usual.
She looks small, lost, and guilt swarms through me.
That kiss!
God! How could I have done that to my marriage? To myself?
The only saving grace is that it was one kiss,andMia didn’t know. I can’t stand the idea of her finding out. She’ll break.
My wife loves me. Completely.
My family doesn’t see it.
“Not hungry,” she says, her eyes staring into the distance.
“You packed?” I ask because she’s not looking at me, and I’m trying to extend the conversation so she will.
Now, she does. But there’s a faraway look on her face. I’ve never seen it before. She seems detached. “I packed.”
We leave for Stowe, Vermont, tomorrow for the Winter Christmas week, as we always do.
Bliss—the estate that has been in the Winter family for several generations—is a forty-minute drive from Burlington. There are several cabins around the estate and one large house, my parents’, where we stay and spend most of our time during this week, eating, drinking, and being a family.
“Skis?” I ask.
“Of course.”
I nod and press my lips. “Are you alright?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” She looks confused enough that I wonder if I’m transferring my guilt onto her.
I feel like shit.
