Page 69 of Sinful Escape

The young girl at the counter was picking at her fingernails. “Excuse me, can you help me please?”

As she arrived at my side, her potent perfume just about bowled me over. Stepping back, I showed her my dress and shoes. “I’d like to buy a bag, but I’m not sure what color I should choose.”

“Oh, easy.” She directed me to a gold clutch on the side wall and thrust it forward like she’d found the holy grail.

“Gold?” Her suggested clutch featured sleek filigree stripes, a simple latch, and a gold chain for the strap. It was elegant. Fancy. Like nothing I’d ever owned.

Was I going too far over the top?

I was. But couldn’t find anything wrong with that either.

I must’ve been completely off guard today because not only did the over-scented girl talk me into the clutch, but by the time I’d left the store, I also had my first collection of costume jewelry, an elegant pair of gold dangling earrings, and a filigree gold bangle that I could bend to the shape of my wrist.

The first piece of jewelry I ever owned came from Mother. For my tenth birthday, she’d insisted I have my ears pierced. “Hitting the double digits,” she’d said. “Time to dress like a woman.” The tiny heart studs she’d bought for me were beautiful, but every time she reminded me of just how much the earrings had cost her, I disliked them just that little bit more.

At the taxi rank, I jumped into the back seat of the first available car and gave the driver my hotel address. My new cuff bangle shimmered at the top of one of the bags. I pulled off the price tag and hooked it over my wrist. I loved how it molded to my skin, fitting perfectly.

Admiring the smooth gold against my pale skin, my mind skipped to the second piece of jewelry I’d ever owned . . . my engagement ring. William’s proposal was probably the most unromantic in the history of proposals. We were shopping for work shoes for him, and I’d paused to look in the window of a jewelry shop.

I blinked at my bangle, studying the tiny leaf pattern.

For some reason, I couldn’t remember what had happened next. I searched my mind, trying to piece it together. One minute, we were looking in the window—next minute, I had the cheapest diamond ring the shop offered on my wedding finger.

I stopped fiddling with the bangle. My heart thundered in my chest. With dread inching up my back, I clawed through a decade of memory.

Oh my god. I had zero recollection of William actually asking me to marry him.

We didn’t have a party. And there was no grand announcement to his parents.

My chest squeezed. All this time, I’d twisted our engagement into something that’d happened only in my mind. William hadn’t proposed. He’d never specifically said those four precious words: ‘Will you marry me?’

The brutal reality struck like a thousand stinging wasps. Could this be true?

He’d put the ring on my wedding finger, for God’s sake. But it was me who’d called it an engagement ring right from the moment I’d kissed his cheek in the jewelry store and thanked him.

He knew how I felt. He had to have.

I tried to swallow. The pit of my stomach burned.

I’d been living one huge lie. We both did. Lies on top of lies.

The taxi’s foul odors of stale cigarette and dirty vinyl closed in, smothering me.

The day William had obliterated our beautiful seven-year relationship by reducing it to one massive lie, I’d yanked the ring off and thrown it at him. He’d plucked it from the vinyl floor and slipped it into his pocket. I never saw it again.

Nausea curled around my stomach like an evil ghost. That was what William was—an evil ghost. Haunting me with memories that twisted and turned and came back completely different.

I didn’t want to think of him anymore. I hated him.

My fingers trembled. I couldn’t breathe.

It was the first time I’d thought of him like that.

With hatred.

Chapter Fifteen

“Ventisette euro.” The taxi driver’s gruff voice jolted me back to the present.

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