Chapter 1- Lily

Finding her boyfriend on the bed with a man was beyond heartbreaking, especially in the midst of their out-of-world-nasty bed scene, with all the props and all. It was unnerving, insulting, and degrading.

Oh, yes, it was a disaster... because her boyfriend's boyfriend was way hotter and bigger? Probably yes. With eyes so blue and those abs to die for? Yes again. No wonder Lily's boyfriend just came out of the closet.

However, Lily Walter was not exaggerating, and yes, she waited at the door and broke up with Gabriel immediately. No questions asked. There was nothing to ask anyway. Done! She was done!

And yes, it happened just yesterday, and now her eyes were dry, her throat sore from crying, her hair uncombed, resembling a bird's nest, and she was now alone. So lonely and miserable.

But could she just murder her ex-boyfriend over the non-stop ringing of her phone now?

‘If so, she certainly had got to start working on her alibi. '

"Lily, please, ... come on-" Her ex-boyfriend, Dr. Gabriel Faiz, screamed through her mobile phone speakers, sounding like an arsehole with his intense, throaty, real noise, like that sound a cat makes just before it throws up, "...you’re making an enormous issue out of thin air, Lily, I purchased that book. It’s mine, so just send it to me, okay?"

"Wow, Gabriel, that’s really mature. Out of thin air, you say? You f*cking dick!" She shot back, trying to hold her phone to her shoulder with her ear while she balanced two different boxes of chocolate donuts. She has a business appointment with her sugar with her hungry stomach in less than a minute. "I thought you were a smart jerky-doctor, not a spoiled arse. Did you walk into the wrong hospital after you fucked your patient in your bed?"

"Lily—please, I need that book."

Unbelievable. The nerve of a man.

The unfortunate thing was, she should have seen this coming. The clues had all been there. From the sudden change of perfume to the almost non-existent sex life, if one could call it a sex life.

But no—when they first started dating, Lily was actually fascinated by Dr. Gabriel’s perseverance. She had been like, wow, the man was willing to keep asking her out after she had shot him down many times. Well, she had better give him a shot! This man was also a resident at the nearby hospital, which was a plus.

He email-stalked her and contacted all her colleagues when he didn’t know where she was for an hour before she had her monthly visit to his clinic. Well, he was her gynecologist, and with that, she thought, aw! What compassion and concern!

Bullocks!

For the first ten months of their relationship, Dr. Gabriel was nothing but a gentleman, loyal, honest, and far too good... Then one day, she read through his email until she found all the red flags and was supposed to confront him yesterday.

But seriously? They had a relationship for ten months, and he didn't even tell him that he did not actually like her, love her, but rather... he used her because he was gay and was in love with the blue-eyed hotty.

She thought Gabriel's love of feminine staff meant he was caring, creative, and sensitive to her wants and needs—'f*cking arsehole.' But then, last night, with a bottle of wine for a companion, she realized that his true love and tenderness were just a ploy to make other people believe that he was the perfect boyfriend.

She had thought his possessive, cute, jealousy of other guys was reasonable and meant he really loved her until she found his very long, flirtatious email with packdoc20hottie and she thought he must be cheating. Oh yes, he was... Indeed, but with the f*cking man.

Unbelievable. She thought.

And now he wanted his book sent back to him at his office? Oh, no! Jerk! She thought she could not be counted on to behave like a mature and responsible adult, right?

"Are you f*cking kidding me, Gabriel?" Lily barked, barely managing to unload the boxes of sweets onto the bed before they tumbled out of her arms. 

"I need it, Lily... It is important... very-"

"Gabriel, It was a gift! You do comprehend the notion of a gift, right? When two people love each other very bloody much, or when one person loves the other and the other one is under the prestige of a mist of dishonesty and thinks his interest in that person vaguely resembles love—"

"Goodness me, Lily, if you could stop being annoying for a second—I need that book urgently."

"You don’t even like time travel and horror stories! You hate cats. You moron! Y-you ... " She paused and continued, "...why t-the hell you k-kept this from me for so long…" She exploded.

And therein lay the nature of the problem. This was the fad that was really getting to her, at the core of the whole petty matter: the insight that Gabriel was trying to make everything perfect in their relationship, and now taking away something he knew she loved, out of bitterness, just to hurt her. Yes, it was a gift from him, and now he wanted it back? Such an arse...

Gabriel, on the other end, sighed as though she had dumped the weight of a couple of the bigger moons onto his shoulders. "Come on, Lily, you know I can’t understand you when you go into this ridiculous speech."

"Ridiculous speech?!" She stabbed a fork into her donut with venomous gratification.

"Look, Lily, I invested a lot of wealth in this relationship," Gabriel whined in his professional voice. It was hard to believe she once thought his pouting was sweet. It was even harder to stomach that thought. "See... do this for me, as a favor... I just think I should be able to recoup some of my expenses—"

"Fucking favor? Recoup? Gabriel, I’m a person, not a fucking small business loan!" She growled right back at him. "And don’t try to act like you know anything about ‘recouping expenses’ when you fail to tell me about your issues. No wonder, we only did it once and it was not even good, it was bloody exhausting with all the back-end positions that I fucking hate." She shouted.

"Jesus, seriously, we are talking about this now? Oh, right, I forgot, you’re a complete bore," Gabriel hissed, starting to lose his cool. He had an annoying notion of anger that once resulted in all her makeup accessories being thrown away, so she was suddenly glad of the distance between them.

"Fuck you, Gabriel. And I am not boring, and this is as aggravating and provoking as talking with you always is, this is goodbye... And by the way, your d*ck is ugly and small, bitch!"

"I’m coming over—" He started firmly as she pressed her hand down on the End Call button with enough satisfaction. "Go to hell, Gabriel!"

*****

In the late afternoon, Lily was driving her old Toyota, and she knew she was going too fast. But she really needed to yell herself up. And it was a wonderful, orange-grey sunset on the last day of February, on Abbey Road, the perfect kind of day to drive with the windows down, playing "Dry Your Eyes Mate" really loud. 

The cold, snow-scented air blew in and swirled around her, stirring her hair as she screamed right along with the music. She was beating out a rhythm on the steering wheel and swinging around curves with abandon. She wanted to laugh or maybe cry again, but her heart was aching, maybe relieved, but she didn't know how to start again. She was miserable.

Too bad she wasn’t really feeling it—not the beauty of her state, not the little orangey late afternoon, not the chilly winter air whipping her hair around her face, not even the hard-driving beat of the music turned all the way up.

Ten minutes later, a light bar started flashing behind her. A siren blared.

"No! Darn it!" she shrieked. "Oh, come on! This cannot be happening…"

But it was. Lily turned off the radio slowly and took her foot off the gas. Easing her ten-year-old Toyota to the side of the road, she switched off the engine. She was not lucky today, indeed 

The police cruiser, lights still flashing, pulled in behind her, the nerve-shredding siren cutting off in mid shriek.

A ticket was definitely in her future, she thought. She shouldn’t be the least bit surprised. It was all just more unfortunate, piled on top of an already bad day.

Thinking dark thoughts, she raked her blonde wind-tangled hair back off her forehead and watched in her side mirror as the officer—tall, blonde-haired, broad-shouldered, handsome, and very fit,"...the fuck?" She exclaimed to herself.

It took her a second or two to realize who he was. Gabriel's lover? Bloody hell. The blue-eyed hotty?

No way.

"Are you kidding me?" she muttered under her breath when the officer leaned in her window.

"Miss, you were speeding," the hotty chided as if he was disappointed, but being disappointed wouldn’t stop him from doing his job. He took off those black sunglasses and gave her a melty look as his plush mouth curved in a warm smile. 

"Licence and registration?"

"Hell No! You have the bloody nerve?"

"Pardon?"

"You took my boyfriend from me and now I have a ticket? A-are you out of your fucking mind?! No! I don't care if you are an officer, but what the hell is wrong with you? Fucking with my boyfriend? S-seriously,.. and now t-this?!"

The man just turned his eyes wide, "What?!"

"Oh, so you are going to pretend that you don't know me and my boyfriend? I mean ex now, thanks to you, didn't you give him a f*cking bl*wjob?" She grumbled, then halted when she realized that his eyes weren't blue but green, a luscious green like fresh grass. Odd. She thought to herself.

However, the officer sighed and just kept on leaning in the window, those velvety, grassy-green eyes patient, like he could wait forever for her to stop being cranky and pass him her papers.

"Listen, woman, I have no idea what you are talking about, but believe me, I've never f*cked a man before. So, license and registration now!?" He grumbled back with annoyance.

"I know it's you! My eyes never lie... Oh, now... I know you have those fancy cameras on your uniform. That's why you are denying fucking my ex, yes?" She shouted back at his face, which made the man raise his brows.

"Lady, one more word and you will be sleeping at the station." The man added, with visible irritation.

"So, you are denying this? Did you know how disappointed I was? How heartbroken... you-"

"I don't care, miss. Give me your paper and let's get this over with." 

Unbelievable! But she doesn't have a choice. So she leaned across the console, popped open the old broken glove box, got out her registration, handed it over, then fished her wallet from her purse and gave him her license, too, while her never-ending profanities never left her mouth and she didn't even stop pouring her heart out. The man needs to know that she was really hurt! And this ticket would triple it!

"Good, now do me a favor and shut up," he asserted. "... and I’ll be right back."

"I was afraid you’d say that," What a jerk! She thought to herself. She doesn't care anymore how handsome the man was or even how green his eyes were.

The officer turned to his cruiser. With a groan of frustration, Lily flopped her head against the seat and closed her eyes. Such a waste of time... She wished she had never left her apartment.

He was back in no time with a clipboard. "Now, are you done being crazy, Miss Lily Walter?" 

She looked him in the eye with visible hatred. 

"Here you go... you are good to go," He handed her documents through the window and mumbled with the same intensity, "... by the way, Miss Lily Walter, again, I've never fucked a man before, but... someone like you? I can consider that, but you are not my type. I disliked someone like you, crazy and stupid!"

The nerve?!

She took her papers, then muttered back with a devilish smile, "You better watch your social media account, officer," she sneered, and couldn’t resist reminding him as she looked at his nameplate, "Sgt. Leon -whatever sir, I can give you a good email complaint that will make you wish you hadn't given me this ticket!" She snapped and closed the window and drove away.

"You are going to pay so much for fucking my boyfriend and giving me this ticket!" Lily grumbled under her breath as she brewed a plan.