Page 1 of Happily Ever After

Chapter One

Friday mornings in the Colony usually began quietly, like most days.

Paige stood at the kitchen counter with both hands wrapped around her coffee mug, letting the warmth seep into her palms. Despite the increasing temps outside, she kept her house cool.

She liked it that way, especially when she was recording content for her TikTok channel. There was nothing aspirational about the sheen of perspiration.

Unless, she supposed, you were recording a workout.

Sunlight spilled through the window above the sink, catching the pale flecks in the quartz countertop and turning the steam from her coffee into something soft and ethereal.

Hmm. She whipped out her phone. The image would make a great background for a text post.

Video done, she resumed drinking. Outside, a sprinkler ticked on and off in a steady rhythm, and somewhere down the street a car door slammed, followed by an engine starting.

Everything felt normal.

And yet, the truth was, her jaw ached from how tightly she’d been clenching it since last night’s book club meeting. All because of the news that Darcy Lane had it out for the Queen Bees.

There was no other way to say it.

She took another sip of coffee and carried her cup to the sliding glass doors, where she stared out at the Gulf, forcing herself to breathe. Today wasn’t a day for impulsive reactions or emotional responses.

It was a day for thinking. For choosing words and actions carefully. Darcy had made it clear she intended to destroy the Queen Bees and their book club. Possibly just because Paige had started them.

Paige wasn’t about to hand Darcy the satisfaction of an overreaction.

Still, her anger simmered.

It sat just beneath the surface, hot and insistent, tied to Darcy’s fake smile and her carefully chosen words. The way she’d implied she had information about Paige’s past without ever stating it outright. The way she’d spoken as if Paige should understand the rules of whatever game she was trying to play.

Darcy was a plague. Something had to be done about her before her influence spread and she infected the entire community.

Paige had seen this kind of thing before. Not at the Colony yet, but in other spaces. All it took was one person who thrived on disruption, on quietly causing division, on making people doubt themselves. Darcy was that kind of person. Someone who didn’t need to be loud to be dangerous.

Ignoring Darcy wouldn’t make her go away. It would only give her more room to operate. And Paige wasn’t willing to let that happen, not to her friends, and not to something they’d created together.

She finished her coffee, set her cup in the sink, and exhaled. Anger could be useful, she reminded herself. But only if she didn’t let it take over. She’d learned that the hard way, years ago.

The fact that Darcy had plans was obvious. With her conveniently timed start of this group, the vague talk of fairness and access, it was all coming together. And then, of course, this new effort to position herself as a kind of moral authority within the Colony.

How dare she?

And how dare she make Paige the point of her focus?

That part bothered Paige less than it should have.

What unsettled her more was Darcy’s assumption that went along with it. That Paige was going to stay quiet. That she would protect her past when it really no longer needed protecting. That she would choose discretion over truth out of fear.

Maybe that would have been true a few years ago, but Paige was a different woman now. She was stronger, more confident, and completely uninterested in being intimidated.

She’d divorced her husband because he’d been having an affair with his personal trainer. Who just so happened to be a man.

His betrayal had nearly destroyed her. It still caused her some emotional distress. But she was not about to let another woman use it against her.

It hadn’t just been her heart on the line back then. It had been Randi’s sense of home, of trust, of what a family was supposed to look like. Paige had spent years helping her daughter make sense of something that shouldn’t have been hers to deal with in the first place.

That was the part Paige felt most fiercely protective of. Not the marriage. Not her pride. But the ripple effect of one man’s dishonesty and how it had so deeply upset her daughter.