Chapter 1
REVIVAL CHAPTER ONE
I’ve made it my mission to drink as many free mimosas as possible before I land in the sunny Caribbean. The heartache built up in my chest threatens to crack wide open with each second closer to takeoff, and I need something to ease the growing split before I dash straight off this plane.
My fingers tighten around my cell as it vibrates with an incoming text.
Sebastian
Please don’t go
Sebastian
I’ll come after you. If it’s the grand gesture you want, I’ll do it. Because you mean that much to me.
I avoid looking up the aisle toward the door. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to board this plane. And if he did, god help the unholy rage I would unleash on his unfaithful, lying ass.
Forcing myself to loosen the hold I have on my phone, I swipe over to the video I’ve seen probably a hundred times.
The clear footage of Sebastian plowing his assistant into my living room couch plays on a loop.
Even without the sound turned on, I can still hear her exaggerated moans echoing through my head.
The fake screech drives a stake into my battered heart.
How do I know it’s fake? Because there isn’t a passionate bone in that man’s body—including the one in his pants.
“Honey, why the frown?”
I startle and find the source of the voice to my right. “I’m sorry?”
“In all my years, I’ve never seen someone look so morose heading to a vacation.”
Vacation? More like failed honeymoon.
My lips twitch in a forced smile. “This isn’t exactly the vacation I had planned.”
“Nothing a few cocktails and a sandy beach can’t cure, I’m sure.” The woman states her beliefs like she’s reading them straight from the Bible.
I look from my phone to her face, catching her tucking a gray curl behind her ear as she waits expectantly for my reply. Inhaling the stale air pumped into the cabin, I drop my gaze back to the clip playing in a short loop.
“I think it’s going to take a bit more than that.”
“What’s that?” She flips a wrinkled hand out at my phone. “Are you watching one of those reality TV shows? Those are my guilty pleasure!”
“No, it’s not—”
“Bring it over here,” she demands, leaning into the aisle to better see my phone.
I don’t know what comes over me. Maybe I’m trying to scare her away or maybe I want someone to commiserate with my pain, but I move from seat 3A to 3B and hand my phone to the older woman in 3C.
She drags her silver, rhinestone glasses from her hair to the bridge of her nose and studies the clip.
“Oh! I haven’t seen this one. Is this Love is Blind?”
“No, this is I was blind, season forty-one,” I mutter. I wave at a flight attendant. “Can I get a mimosa?”
“One for me too, please!” My meddlesome neighbor peers down her nose at the small screen. “Why does it keep cutting short? I want to see more.”
I grimace. “Trust me, you don’t.”
She hands my phone back as understanding dawns. “You know this young man.”
“This was supposed to be our honeymoon. Until I caught him with his assistant facedown, ass up on our couch.”
Her gasp draws the attention of our neighbors. “No! He cheated on you in your own house?”
“That he did.”
My chest feels concave and hollow as the burning anguish of infidelity lights up with my admission. I feel like I could puke, and it wouldn’t be the first time. I spent two days wrapped around my bathroom toilet before my brother’s wives peeled me off the floor intervention style.
The flight attendant waits while I open my armrest tray table and deposits my mimosa in front of me with such perfect timing that I guzzle it down in one gulp.
Her judgmental glance bounces off my shield. My ego took enough of a hit since my fiancé cheated that I’m pretty sure I’m impervious at this point. Her opinion means nothing.
A flash of yellow crosses my line of sight. “I’ll get another when we’re up in the air.”
My seat neighbor must have read my mood because she didn’t even ask before offering over her mimosa.
“Thanks.” I throw her drink back too.
“What’s your name, dear?”
“Cortney.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Cortney. I’m Delaney McBride.”
I nod. “Likewise.”
“If I can offer up some wisdom from an old lady.” She pulls her glasses off and tucks them back on top of her head.
“By all means, I’m an empty well these days.”
She laughs and twists toward me in her seat. “I’ve been single for thirty years. Had a falling out in my marriage after fifteen years and decided I never wanted to do that again, and let me tell you, the companionship is not lacking.”
Her light brown eyes lock on mine.
“Do you get what I’m saying?” She looks at me pointedly.
“Oh, I hear you loud and clear, Delaney.”
She nods and bites back a grin. “The sea is full of fish. Big fish. Muscled fish. Young fish.” She giggles. “Sometimes I even catch two fish at once.”
The force of the laugh bursting from me vibrates my lips. I’ve learned more about this dear woman beside me in ten minutes than I ever knew about my own birth mother.
“Noted.”
“Really.” She pats my knee. “Someone as beautiful as you will have no problem finding someone to fill the void if you so choose.”
“I don’t know, Delaney. I live in a really small town, and most of the men I know are my brothers and their friends.”
She leans in like she’s sharing a secret. “Maybe start there. Have you ever dated one of your brother’s friends?”
Immediately, my mind flashes back in time. Memories tumble loose of being eighteen and carefree. Of roaming hands and warm, naked skin. The stuffy air on this plane does nothing to ease the heat of my sudden blush.
“I wouldn’t call it dating. We spent a night together.”
“Just one?”
I force a smile. “He left the next day.”
She tuts. “He must have been young and dumb.”
“Something like that.”
We both were. Young. Dumb. In love. Spencer Stone was the sun that brightened my every day until he became the night.
“That was twenty years ago.” I uncross and recross my legs the other way.
“Oh, that’s ancient history.” She bats her hand through the air. “Give that man another spin and show him what he missed out on!”
My heart flutters tiredly at the mere prospect.
“I have more self-worth than that.”
“Honey, self-worth comes from how you think of yourself. You could sleep with a new man every night of the week and still have your dignity intact as long as you enjoyed yourself. Lord knows I have plenty! And I know nothing fixes a broken heart better than treating yourself to a few well-deserved orgasms.”
Spencer’s face flashes in my mind. Not the teenaged version. A much older one. One with smile lines and a few wrinkles. One with bandages over fresh burns on the side of his handsome face.
I shut that image down as simply as closing a book.
“I’ll consider it.”
“I’ll be at the Champagne Shores resort if you need any company or assistance.”
A reluctant smile sneaks free just thinking of having a sixty-year-old wingwoman. “I’m just hoping for some sunshine and relaxation. I think I’m done with men for the foreseeable future.”
“As long as you remember, they’re not all like your ex, so don’t become bitter. You never know who might waltz right into your life when you least expect it.”
The flight attendants walk around snapping overhead bins shut, signaling our approaching departure. The two mimosas sit warmly in my stomach, easing my earlier distress and ushering me into a happy place I haven’t visited in a while.
This vacation will be good. I can feel it.
Instead of the honeymoon I envisioned, I’ll spend a week on sandy beaches and glittering shores, sipping cocktails I don’t have to prepare for myself, soaking in the sun, reading some smutty romance on my Kindle, and only having to think about myself.
No vet appointments, no stray animals, no nosy brothers, no mothering.
And definitely no cheating, self-serving, bastard ex-fiancés.
Just me, myself, and I.
The blissful bubble in my mind warms me nearly as much as the two mimosas.
“That’s the spirit!” Delaney cheers from my right. She must be reading my face because I haven’t said a word.
“We’re boarding the final passengers, and we’ll be on our way shortly. Thank you.” The disembodied voice of a flight attendant sends an electrical pulse to my nerves.
I’m about to embark on my first ever solo trip. I sink into my seat and close my eyes. This is really happening, and I’m feeling weirdly proud about the fact I’m on a plane and not curled in my comfy cozies in bed with a glass of Merlot like I had been the past several weeks.
Allegedly.
A girl has to mourn. Though I think it’s about my dignity and the opportunity to wear a gorgeous dress rather than anything to do with my ex, Sebastian.
There’s no tears shed over the loss of him.
His assistant can keep him and his average-sized dick.
She fakes her orgasms, and he fakes everything else. The two are perfect for each other.
“Oh, my.” The quiet reaction is just loud enough for me to hear over the activity on the plane. Delaney’s words are breathy if not a little excited. “Now that’s a nice fish.”
Footsteps sound down the narrow aisle. I keep my eyes firmly shut, not wanting to draw anyone else’s attention before takeoff. I could use a nap after that gab session with Delaney. At least until I’m up in the air and can enjoy another mimosa.
Besides, the seat beside me was reserved for my ex and our nonrefundable honeymoon package, so I have the entire row to myself.
I feel the warmth of someone entirely too close to my face before a deep, rumbling voice sounds in my ear.
“I believe you’re in my seat, love.”
My eyes fly open, locking onto those familiar icy blues as he pulls back.
“Or should I say my wife.”
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