She could hear the smile in his voice. She turned, and there, about ten feet away, stood Chef Mitchell-Tanner Prescott-Johnson—talking to a beautiful woman in her twenties. She was beaming at him.
Another girlfriend? Already?
Then he saw her, did a double take, then turned back to the woman.
Ignoring her. Like she didn’t even exist.
“Mitchell?” she said loudly. “Mitchell Prescott, is that you?” She closed the distance between them. “Or are you going by Tanner Johnson today? Or do you have a new name now? Anyway, how’s your wife? And the kids? Everyone’s good, I hope?”
“Winnie. Hello.”
Winnie turned to the gorgeous young woman. “Just in case you’re dating him, I was, too. He’s married. Three kids, the oldest just turned five. He never mentioned them the whole six months we were together. You might want to dodge this bullet.” She looked back at Mitchell-Tanner. “I’m so glad I made you use condoms, but I did get an STD panel just in case. I bet your poor wife has to get those all the time. I was clean, by the way.”
“Is that true?” said the young woman. Mitchell-Tanner pulled a face. “Jesus, you’re disgusting.” She turned to Winnie. “Did his wife text you?”
“Worse. She blasted the whole thing at his son’s birthday party.”
“You didn’t do a background check?”
“Believe me, I did. He uses a different name professionally. My bad.”
“Well,” said the woman, “I’m not dating him. But thank you. And, girl, next time, check out HesAPieceOfShit.com. It uses AI to scrape all the dating apps.”
“Great tip. Thanks.”
The woman turned sharply, her braids swinging, and took a few steps away, then pulled out her phone.
“Don’t worry, Mitchell-Tanner. I’m sure you’ll find another woman to lie to,” Winnie said, her cheeks—and heart—hot with anger.
Mitchell looked at her, his face pitying. “Oh, Winnie. You’re a grown woman. You knew what you were getting into.”
“I didn’t know, Mitchell, because you told me you were single. You lied for months.”
“More like you were lying to yourself, babe. You literally brought nothing to the table other than easy access. Obviously, we weren’t serious.”
She sputtered. Not serious? He’d asked where she might want to take a honeymoon! “Your wife thought we were serious. The wife I didn’t know about, just to drive that fact home.”
“She and I have an understanding.”
Winnie snorted. “Yeah, right. That was totally clear when she had her meltdown at your child’s birthday party.”
“Blakelee knows I have to flirt with patrons from time to time.”
Winnie felt her blood pressure soar. There was a buzzing in her ears. “You did more than flirt with me. We were together for six months! You said you loved me.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.
“Oh, God, Winnie, really? Did you really think I meant it? Wait. I forgot you…how did you put it?… You’d only shared yourself with one other guy.” He made air quotes around those words, words she’d wrestled with for half a day, trying to find a way to tell him she was inexperienced. “So maybe you are a bit stupid when it comes to men.”
Then someone was standing next to her. Lorenzo. He was looking at Mitchell, expressionless, his blue eyes like Arctic ice. “Sir,” he said, “if you would like to get to your destination without a black eye, I suggest you sit down and shut up.” Then he looked at Winnie. “Everything all right?”
“Yep. Though I think a black eye would be a great look for you, you cheating asshole. I’d like to do the honors, though.” Her heart felt huge and wrong in her chest, flopping and convulsing like…like a dying sea lion.
Then Lorenzo did something shocking. He took her hand. “Don’t waste your energy on trash, darling. Let’s go. They’re boarding first class. After you.”
With her head feeling oddly disconnected from her body, she went to the gate attendant, fumbled with her phone and flashed her boarding pass to the gate agent. “Welcome aboard, Miss Smith,” he said, and Winnie walked down the jet bridge to the plane. “Right this way, Miss Smith,” said the flight attendant. “Dr. Santini, welcome aboard.” She had a window seat. She stood there, still feeling sick. The attendant put their bags in the overhead compartment, then asked if they’d like champagne or coffee.
“Champagne for both of us,” Lorenzo said. Winnie got into her seat, buckled the belt, and stared out the window.
