I leave my bag on the bed and head to the balcony right outside the room. The balconies are one of my favorite features of this house, and what I went crazy over when he was thinking of buying it. There’s one in each upstairs bedroom, and they’re big, too. My phone chimes with a text message from him, telling me he’ll be here in a couple of minutes. I’m responding as I step away from the balcony and into an easel. Walking around it, I read the huge letters in Vic’s handwriting that say: Welcome Home, Chicken and below, a drawing of a chicken that a five-year-old would be proud of. I erupt in laughter and snap a picture of it, sending it to Mia and my mom before sliding my phone into my back pocket.
Looking up from the easel, I can see straight out into the ocean in front of me. I take long, deep breaths, and can practically taste the salt in the water. I don’t know how long I stand there with my eyes closed in quiet meditation, but I jump when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
“Holy shit, Vic,” I say, pressing both hands to my heart.
“You like your present?” he laughs, as he pulls me into a hug and squeezes my frame before setting me down.
“Yeah, you asshole,” I laugh, as I slap his chest.
“Asshole? I get you the best gift ever and you call me an asshole? It was the terrible drawing of the chicken, wasn’t it?”
“Stop calling me that,” I groan, stepping back in the house and heading downstairs with him trailing behind me. “Where’s the food?”
“It should be here soon. Let me go change,” he says. “I have to go back to work soon.”
“You’re going back?”
“The case I’m working on is a fucking mess. The guy’s wife is trying to take everything he has in the divorce. I don’t know when these athletes will learn that they need a goddamn pre-nup.”
“Oh,” I cringe slightly. It’s something Wyatt and I discussed when we got engaged and had huge disagreements over every time it was brought up. You would never think an artist would care about that, but Wyatt was very successful and wealthy. He’d gotten to that point before turning thirty. He’d been selling to a very wealthy group of people and only painting because he absolutely loved it, not because he needed the money.
A knock on the door has me pivoting on my heel and, as I walk over to it in a daze, I think about how stupid the disagreement was, in hindsight. We weren’t even married when Wyatt died, and his parents want me to keep everything anyway. He was all about pre-nups and having things out in the open before we got married. I was all about being in love and wanting to get married without a care about who would take what if we ever got a divorce, because in my mind marriage is forever. But alas, that’s in the past—this is my fresh start. The thought brings a smile to my face, which stays there as I swing the door open. My smile quickly transforms into a full gape when I find a tall guy in a pair of green scrubs and a white doctor’s coat. He’s looking down at his feet as I open the door, his sandy brown hair making a curtain over his face, and when he looks up, the slow, uneven grin he gives me stops my breath short.
“Bean,” I say in a whisper. His lips twist higher, revealing twin dimples.
“Chicken,” he says in response as his green eyes soak me in. “Food’s here.”
My eyes drop to the bags in his hands. “Oh! Yeah. I wasn’t expecting you,” I reply, stepping aside for him.
“It’s been a while,” he says, stopping in front of me and leaning his face into mine. I clutch the doorknob for dear life as his lips brush against my cheek, trying to do everything in my power not to breathe in the familiar scent of him that used to make my head swim. “It’s good to see you again,” he says in a low voice as he pulls away. The way he says it and the twinkle in his eyes make my heart drop to my stomach. How is it possible that he still manages to do that to me? Even after Wyatt. I hate him for it.
“It’s good to see you too,” I whisper as we head toward the dining room. It is so not good to see him, though. I’ve learned a lot about Oliver Hart through the years, but the only thing worth remembering, is that he’s bad for my health.
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Diamonds
All That Glitters, #1
By: K.A. Linde
listen, i am not someone who
is easy to love. i am not
someone who is to be taken lightly
and most of all, i am not someone
to burn.
for i am the fire, my soul is on
fire and everything i live to
touch becomes one with the fire.
—r.m. drake
Chapter 1
Broken—mind, body, and soul.
Begging to forget her meaningless existence, to be commanded and molded and remade into someone else. She needed the embrace of the nightlife, the pounding of the music, the sweat, the intoxication just to feel again.
If even for one night.
Allure wasn’t Bryna’s usual scene. She preferred exclusive nightclubs in Beverly Hills and house parties that catered to her and her uber wealthy friends at Harmony Prep. She favored places where everyone knew her name, and she could rule as Queen B. But tonight she didn’t want to rule her throne.
She wanted to forget her own reality and get lost in the imagined one that Allure provided. The room full to the brim with bodies grinding to the music, drinking top shelf liquor, and indulging in the dark secret desires of her heart.
She swirled the gin martini in her hand and pursed her lips as she surveyed the room. It was easier here.
Easier to forget about her Hollywood parents and their pathetic divorce. Easier to forget that her high-profile director father had remarried this summer to some valley trash he’d been having an affair with while he’d been with her mom. Easier to forget that she had three new step-siblings and that the oldest, Pace, was only a year younger than her and the new starting quarterback at school.
Easier to forget about everything.
At least everything that was cluttering up her picture perfect life. Despite the heinous drama that was consuming her, she needed to remember who she was and what she stood for.
She was fucking Bryna Turner.
A goddess at Harmony. Queen B. Head cheerleader.
She had started dating Gates Hartman before his break out role, and now he was the hottest up-and-coming actor that had hit Hollywood since Ryan Gosling.
She refused to give two shits what anyone thought of her. Especially not her parents. Her world might have shifted with the upheaval of their marriage, but she had remained strong for all the eyes that were always watching her.
But tonight was different.
Tonight no one else was watching.
Tonight she could lose herself, lose control.
And maybe that’s what brought him closer.
Mia Asher, Easy Virtue
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