Page 4 of The Sting of Love
I hope she’s still here.
Chapter Two
Willow
Shivers of arousal still race over my skin.
I’m so crazy stupid. Mr. Gorgeous was only looking. That’s all.
I’d gazed up to the balcony ahead of me and there he was, standing tall, dark, and deliciously handsome.
One look hooked me, one smile made my body come alive with heat …then he left. I figured a man so gorgeous couldn’t have been here by himself and if he was, maybe he’d seen someone better than me to catch his eye.
Maybe my depressing essence fended him off.
I shouldn’t entertain anything with anybody and I definitely didn’t come out tonight to hook up with a stranger, sexy though he may have been.
Getting laid is not the answer to my problems, and it doesn’t seem like this drink is either. I can usually drink fine. I just can’t drink, or eat for that matter, when I’ve reached a certain level of rage.
Today was the real day from hell. One that highlighted that I really have lost everything. I lost the last thing I had left in this world—my business, my gallery.
It’s my own fault. I trust too much, far too easily and I’ve suffered severely from my mistakes.
I take a sip of water instead of the vodka on the rocks I just ordered. The little sip I had is still burning the back of my throat. I don’t know how Dad drinks this stuff on the regular. Although I guess that’s why he classes himself as aman’s man, and it might also explain why he’s not as uptight as Mom.
Fuck… what the fuck am I going to do now?
I’m in Sicily. I came here to escape life for a little while. That came after a massive argument with my darling ex-fiancée, William Pearson, over money and the last of the investments we shared while we were together. He was so vile to me and the things he called me were so awful it left me in tears even as we argued.
I thought a few weeks in Sicily with Aunt Lurlene would stop me from going over the edge and losing my mind. I’m a week into my stay, and now I’ve been informed that there’s nothing to go back to LA for.
William was serious when he said he would take everything. He took it all.
He couldn’t leave me with the one thing he doesn’t even need. When he bought the art gallery and told me it was a present for being so passionate about my career, I should have made sure I got the title deeds.
I just didn’t think. At the time it never occurred to me to ask for such a thing from a man I’d been in a relationship with for three years. Two years later, and look at me.
No home because he took that too, and no business, so no source of income. Everything was in his name. It’s more salt to add to the wounds I got after the way he left me at the altar just before we said our vows.
That was how this year kicked off. William left me at the altar, heartbroken and a mess. Completely unable to understand why he chose to tell me he didn’t love me anymore in front of our five hundred guests.
What followed that was him taking everything we owned. This morning wrapped it up, and he couldn’t even give me the news himself. He got his secretary to do it. Porsha.
Porsha, who he’s been shacked up with since we broke up. It was Dad who told me that part. I don’t think I was supposed to know.
Porsha delivered the bad news of the loss of my gallery bright and early this morning and asked if I could arrange to have my stuff gone as soon as humanly possible because it was hard for a heavily pregnant woman to be running around in the heat.
Pregnant. As if the situation wasn’t bad enough, when I asked how far along she was, she gladly informed me she was nearly nine months pregnant and ready to give birth any day.
Since William and I only broke up eight months ago, that gave me my answer as to where he spent all those late nights and confirmed every suspicion I ever had about whether or not he would cheat on me.
Bastard.
I’ve been sitting by the bar surrounded by people having the time of their lives. I’ve been here for just over half an hour and I can’t quite decide which parts of the shit I should be more angry with. That bastard did so much to me, and now I’m broke. I have a little under seven thousand dollars left in my account and a one bedroom apartment I sublet after the wedding fiasco. At twenty-eight years old, I really thought I had my life figured out. But I don’t have shit. I’m no better off than I was after I left college, and even then, at least I had a job.
Fuck this day, and fuck William. I hope his fucking dick falls off.
I pick up the vodka, get ready to down it, but I only manage a sip as it starts to burn my lips.
