Prologue
“We’re here!Can you believe it?”Gina rolled her carry-on into the honeymoon suite at the hotel in Las Cabos, Mexico, and spun it away from her, her eyes dancing with excitement.
Alana Neal gave an exhausted sigh.“Yeah, we’re here.”
“Oh, come on.”Gina grabbed Alana’s hands and spun her around like she’d just spun her suitcase.“Don’t be such a Debbie Downer.From the way I see it, you dumped that loser, and he’s the one who looks like the asshat he’s proven to be.”
“I’m the one who got dumped, but yes, he’s the asshat.”She started to kick off the spike heels she’d worn on the airplane from Maui.“But I look like the poor, pathetic loser who wasn’t good enough to keep my groom.”
“No way.He wasn’t good enough for you.If Vance hadn’t gone off with the wedding planner, he’d have cheated on you somewhere down the line after you’d combined your bank accounts or bought a house together.It’s much better that you saw his true colors before you said I do.”Gina frowned down at Alana’s attempt to shed her shoes.“What are you doing?”
“Getting out of these.They’re killing me.”
“You can’t get out of that outfit now.We’ve got some major celebrating to do.”She held onto one of Alana’s hands and dragged her toward the door.
“We just got here after a thirteen-hour, red-eye flight.Whose idea was that anyway?”Alana shook her head.“My eyes are bloodshot, I’m physically and emotionally exhausted and in no way ready to party.”
Gina dragged Alana toward the door.“You can’t let that rat bastard win.You have to hit the ground running and show him you don’t give a flying flip that he ran off with the wedding planner as you walked down the aisle.”
Alana snorted.“Thanks for the brutal reminder.”She had a recurring flashback of standing in the middle of the church aisle with guests looking from the empty space where her groom should have been and back to her.The bride… stiffed at her own wedding.The guests’ shocked expressions quickly turning to pity replayed in her mind like a movie film stuck on a cycle of rewind and replay.
While Gina had fallen asleep before take-off from Maui, Alana hadn’t slept on the plane from Maui to Honolulu, nor from Honolulu to Los Angeles.And she sure hadn’t slept from Los Angeles to Las Cabos.
She wasn’t sure how she’d face any of those guests ever again.Alana Neal, the poor bride, whose fiancé ran like a thief escaping with the loot.Granted, most of those guests had been Vance’s.Alana’s invitees had been a tenth of Vance’s, consisting mostly of her girlfriends who were also her bridesmaids.
When the best man had read Vance’s note out loud to the guests, Alana had marched back down the aisle, and done the only thing any right-minded, jilted bride would do.She’d grabbed a friend and gone on her pre-paid honeymoon without the groom.
Now that she was in Las Cabos, she wasn’t sure she should have come at all.She wasn’t in the mood to party, and hanging around another beach town hadn’t been her idea of a great place to honeymoon in the first place.Not when she lived on the beautifully lush, tropical island of Maui.Still, Vance had paid for the honeymoon, and Alana had had a non-refundable flight.She was going.
The stubborn anger had faded since, leaving behind a tired woman in the red party dress she’d worn since leaving Maui over thirteen hours ago.
“Isn’t it a little early in the afternoon to party?”Alana dug in her heels before Gina got her to the door.“Can’t we just sleep for now and think about what we want to do tomorrow?”
Gina dropped Alana’s hand and planted a fist on her hip.“And what will you do if we stay in the room?Sit around feeling sorry for yourself?Wallow in self-pity?Grieve for a man you really never loved and who obviously didn’t love you?”
Heat filled Alana’s cheeks.“Well, yes.I should be allowed to wallow a little, right?I mean, Iwasjilted.At the altar, no less.Don’t I rate a pity party for at least one night?”
“You had it on the plane ride over.It’s time to celebrate dodging the bullet, my friend.”Gina flung open the door and called out into the hallway, “Gird your loins, Las Cabos.We’re going to paint this town as red as my friend’s go-to-hell red dress!”
Alana sighed as Gina pulled her through the door and down the hallway to the elevator.“Where to first?”
“I don’t know about you,” Gina said, “but I’m hungry, and it’s best to have food in your stomach before drinking the night away.So, pick your poison.This is an all-inclusive resort, is it not?”
“It is.”After so many hours in transit, Alana wasn’t hungry.For Gina’s sake, she’d nibble on something and go through the motions of “showing Vance” she was better off without him.
Gina hit the buffet with gusto.
Alana chose a few items with little interest and asked for tea.
“Tea?”Gina shook her head.“Girl, have a beer, drink some wine.Hell, go for whiskey.It’s all inclusive.”
“I want to pace myself,” Alana insisted.“I want to find my way back to my room later andremembermy victory dance tomorrow.”
After a few bites of food and over an hour with her feet on the ground, Alana felt a little better.
Gina leaned back in her chair, sipping on a beer.“Personally, I would’ve dumped Vance’s ass when he didn’t bother to fly straight back from New York City when you and Kimo were kidnapped.”
“We were rescued before he ever heard about it.”
