Chapter 1

RAINI LAVERNE

“Oh-em-gee! It's on! It's on, it's fucking on!” My sister squealed, leaping for the TV remote like a model frog with a bad case of arthritis so that I felt the balls of my eyes grease the moist foams of my frontal lobe.

“Goddammit River, turn that shit off,” I gritted through clenched teeth, watching the brown melon of her head bob up and down as she settled on the floor, slapping her back on the tart green foam of the low cushion as the man’s face flashed across the small screen.

I allowed myself a few seconds, my hands stilling on the silver knit of spools in my hands as I took in the angular cut of the man’s face, the way he appeared large even while he was seated.

Zavier Cross. Oil magnate, richest man in upstate New York, billionaire of the century, and the stuff of every sensible maiden’s wet dreams.

Something about the jet-black fade of his wolf-cut hair made my stomach clench in a way that usually had me running for the white porcelain of the toilet.

I disliked men like him, power magnets who used and discarded women as they pleased. I was not a sensible maiden. Not like my sister who was yapping on about the interview.

It was only the second time the ‘Wife for thirty days saga’ had been aired and I was already tired of it.

I was this close to rinsing my ears with bleach! If it would be enough to drown the sound of his deep baritone from my memory.

It was like he had the whole city swooning under his thick thumb. The one he was running through the forest of his hair now.

“Focus Raini! Bloody goof!” I swore inwardly, moving the spool into the wool until it looked more like a tablecloth than Freddy Kruger’s halloween mask. Before my sister’s sing-song cut through my reverie.

“You should REALLY think about this Raini! What if you win? Everyone in the city’s talking about it! Even at work!” She groaned, her face pale against the harsh light of the television as she turned to peer at me over the foam of the couch.

I stifled a long-suffering sigh as she inched forward, wringing her hands in her white flare skirt with faux meekness.

Would winning the wife lottery be a good step for my modeling dream? Maybe.

Would I absolutely lose my mind playing house with a man I’ve stabbed excessively in my head, several times over? Absolutely.

Nothing would put a dent in my aspirations like a murder and absconding charge.

“Know why he’s stuck looking for a wife on TV River?” I hissed, fixing the olive-colored imp with a deathly look, my eyes narrowing at the smirk on her face, steeling myself when she let out another loud squeak.

Good Lord, stick a pine needle in my fucking eye already! How in the world had I gotten stuck with a pair of harried chickens as family?

“Because he’s searching for his soulmate?” The girl crowed, pointing pink-tipped fingers at me and I felt a blush rise on my cheeks despite myself. I struggled to hold the scowl on my face, pursing my lips and rolling my eyes when she didn't stop smirking.

“BECAUSEEE River, none of those air-head bimbos he's fucked came back for seconds!” I harrumphed, throwing up my hands when my mother yelled “Language!” slapping her tray down on the dinner table and eyeing me meaningfully.

I rolled my shoulders until they popped and crackled like a dried out hag’s, taking my mother’s evil eye as my cue to set the table.

There are three plates only.

It had been like that since my father died. Something I still struggled to believe at some point everyday.

“You should listen to your sister Raini. I’ll be throwing you both out of my house soon. I’m tired of cooking for grown women as it is.” The Armenian woman with a gold tooth hidden in the sides of her mouth grumbled, tearing off her apron.

“A-all the more reason why you should apply! You’re not going to be working at Giselle’s Fashion forever!” My sister stammered, widening her eyes when I turned to face her.

I’d watched River cut in with a measure of amusement, thankful that she had saved us from another spiel about having grandchildren to liven up the space.

Did I mention the flowery green of the wallpaper was the exact same as the cushion?

Precisely. Not even Cinderella’s freaking godmother could lighten up the space.

“Yeah, trust me munchkin, I'll be better off oiled and slapped up on a gurney ready for a fucking lobotomy.” I deadpanned, damn near snorting the soup when my mother smacked her left hand against the back of my head.

Dammit were they trying to kill me? That was her strong hand!

“I will not have my daughters cursing like a gang of ill-fortuned sea pirates!” My mother scolded, and I affected a look of submission, meeting my sister’s wary eyes as she watched me over the corpse of the turkey propped like a trophy on the table.

I didn’t like the somber gaze in her watery brown eyes, or the pitying look she gave me. I snapped my eyes away from her, turning my green glare to the window where the sepia blackness was rolling over the mid-sized compound of our cottage house.

I felt the ball of anxiety rumbling in my gut tighten as the icy draft of the night’s air stung at my cheeks and nose before my eyes rested on the crack in the glass, the gaping hole where the wind came through.

The entire house was like that, Broken and hurting.

However bubbly River tried to make things, it wasn’t enough, not for me.

There was something lingering in the air. Something that made goosebumps rise on my skin as I sat hunched in the small wooden chair, watching the whirl of the women around me.