Page 1 of Bittersweet Revenge

Chapter 1- Caleb

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting in the car, but it was long enough for my ass to go numb. I sighed, keeping my eyes locked on to the bay windows of Seashell Diner.

“Seashell Diner,” I said, and snorted at the stupidity of the name. It was so unoriginal for a diner located by the seafront… Small town, small people, small minds, and–

I lost my train of thought as my eyes followed the waitress exiting the kitchen. Her wavy ponytail moved from side to side as she carried an impressive amount of plates to a table full of jocks I wanted to kill, just for the smile she gave them.

I closed my eyes. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I tried to keep my feelings in check, tried to bury them so deep inside I’d forget them. I wanted to go back to the man I’d been before - unfeeling, but functioning at least. Before her I had never felt like a bipolar man without his lithium. Before her I’d never felt out of control.

I hated myself for all these feelings and it made me hate her even more. I opened my eyes andlooked at her as she cleaned a table close to the entrance. I could see the necklace I’d given her shine around her neck and this caused a lot of complicated and contradictory feelings to settle in my treacherous heart.

Esmeralda Forbes…I had known from the moment our eyes had connected that first day when I’d driven to Archibald’s home that she was trouble – with her pinup, unassuming beauty.

I had thought it was an act before; no girl that looked like that could be sokind, so humble and yet she was…or was she?

A new wave of anger filled me. She had played me. I looked down at my hand and the engagement ring resting in my palm. For all I knew it might have all been an act.

I clenched my hand around the ring and squeezed, squeezed with all the rage, betrayal and shame I felt – rage at the whole situation and reason behind her slip-up, betrayal by her and Archibald who’d plotted against me, and shame for not seeing it coming.

Archibald was smart. I couldn't prove his involvement, but she’d disappeared so well, leaving breadcrumbs leading in the wrong direction. As far as I could see Esmeralda was smart, but she was not calculating. She was not a mastermind, not like Archibald and I were.She was much more controlled by her feelings, as her slip-up a week ago had proved, and this disappointed me in some strange way.

If she hadn’t called him, that stupid insignificant jock, she would still be at bay, any trace of her existence hidden so well – suspiciously, professionally so.

For a month William and my father had spent thousands of dollars trying to find her to no avail, nothing at all except this stupid wild goose chase around New York where her ring was found.

I had almost lost all hope of finding her, punishing her, lost the hope of getting my revenge for making me feel like a fool, for letting her see the small chink in my armor and using it against me. Maybe I should thank her for that, for pointing out that chink, because it had allowed me to seal it, cover it and make myself stronger and angrier than I had ever been. It had allowed me to plot and organize a revenge of biblical proportions. I was going to make her feel what she’d made me feel tenfold.

Feelings were a liability, a weakness, something that were used against you, even by the people you cared for. My mother had told me that time and time again and I'd thought I’d learned…until her.

And Esmeralda had fallen in the same stupid trap when she’d called the insignificant Ben Deluca, that pauper idiot. So here I was about to bring her home, back to a cage so secure she’d never escape again - at least until I had considered my revenge complete.

My phone vibrated on the passenger seat. I rolled my eyes at the name flashing up –W. Forbes. I had to pick up if I wanted to prevent him from jumping in his other jet. I’d barely managed to have him agree to let me come here by myself.

“Have you found her?” He demanded as soon as I picked up the phone.

Good morning to you too, I thought sarcastically. “Yes sir, I have just found her.”Lies.“She is working and there are a lot of people around her. I need to find an opportunity to get her alone. I need time.”

He sighed with frustration. “Why? You can just carry her away. Drug her if you have to.”

I rolled my eyes again. This man was just so basic. “In this day and age, sir, with social media, I would strongly advise against a public tantrum and attempted kidnapping unless you want the videos to hit the web. Then everybody will know that Esmeralda Forbes didn’t take a sabbatical in Paris like we said, but ran away from you.”

“Fromus,” he corrected, and I knew he enjoyed my demise much more than he cared to admit.

I pursed my lips, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves. “Maybe so. I agree that it wouldn't look good on me to have a runaway bride, but having a daughter disrespect the all-powerful William Forbes…” I trailed off, letting him interpret it the way he wanted to.

“Just–” he growled. “Just bring her back. I don’t care how. I want her home - tonight. If you can’t I’ll dispatch a team and–”

“That won’t be necessary, sir.”

“One can hope. Call me when you are on your way to the airstrip or if you’re failing.”

“I can handle it!” I barked, letting go of my fake patience. Who did he think he was? By claiming Esmeralda, I was saving him from an impending scandal. He owed me! I wasn’t one of his lackeys he could bully. He would have to learn to respect me too.

He hung up without another word.

I scowled at the phone in my hand. I could handle Esmeralda. It hadn’t taken me long to find her once I’d made it to Carmel – less than six hours in fact. I’d planned to grab her at the end of her last shift, but had hesitated when I’d seen her exit, the silver necklace I’d given her proudly around her neck. I’d realized that I’d missed my opportunity when she was engulfed by the crowd on the pier.

I’d followed her, hidden under my baseball cap. She’d stopped by a hot chocolate cart and ordered one; it might have been January, but it was California. Then she’d walked further down and sat on a bench, looking up at the temporary Ferris wheel, set up for what I presume was the holidays. I’d seen her face quite well from my spot, half-hidden behind a newsstand. She’d looked up wistfully, almost pained. Was she conflicted? Was she thinking about the day I never should have given her? A day that made me look and feel weak and foolish?

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