Page 1 of Embracing Easy

Chapter One

Lexi

I sit in my car, staring at the entrance of the swanky hotel I just watched my fiancé walk into.

And oddly enough, the one thing that keeps going through my mind is ifIam the one making a huge mistake being here.

I mean, do I really want to know what he’s doing here? Do I want to know why he lied to my face not half an hour ago when he told me he had to go out of town on a last-minute business trip?

My hand settles on my stomach, the uneasy feeling growing stronger because I already know the answer.

Yes.

I have to know the truth, or else it’s going to eat me alive.

John and I have been together for almost two years, and things were good—no, they were great—until they weren’t. Which happened about two-point-five seconds after he asked me tomarry him and slid this obnoxiously large diamond on my left hand.

Glancing down at the offensive token, I sigh.

I’d almost convinced myself the things I was feeling were just pre-wedding jitters, all of it in my head.

News flash.

It’s not.

John is clearly up to something, and in my gut, I think I already know what it is.

There’s only one way to be sure.

Pulling in a slow breath to steady my nerves, I push open my door, heave myself out of my Honda, and shove the door closed behind me.

“Ready or not…”

It’s this mantra that keeps me moving on shaky legs through the sliding doors of the Camelot Resort.

As I glance around, wondering what I’m supposed to do next, the sound of soft music coming from the bar catches my attention.

The catchy beat lures me across the threshold, and that’s when I see him.

John is sitting in the back of the room with a beautiful blonde tucked into his side.

I freeze in my tracks. “Shit.”

I brace for the devastation that I know I’m supposed to feel, but it never comes. Instead, I just feel… nothing.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I should storm over there, scream, yell at him for being a snake in the grass. But I don’t— I can’t.

The longer I stand here watching them, the more it hits me how right the two of them look together.

I snort when the thing thatdoeshit me, is how much they remind me of Ken and Malibu Barbie.

Tiptoeing out of their line of sight, I lean against the wall and cross my arms over my chest and stare at the two of them.

I can see it now.

The whispered comments John’s family made when they thought I couldn’t hear them. I was the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, not the right pedigree for their precious John. They looked down on me for being raised by grandparents who were generational pig farmers. That alone made me unworthy in their eyes. I’d heard it all.