Free Revenge of a Chalet Girl: by Lorraine Wilson

and I couldn’t go through with it.”
    “So that’s why you switched plates and were acting so weirdly?” Josh heaved another sigh and came to sit next to her on the edge of the bed, just far enough away so they weren’t touching. He looked…gutted. “Do you really hate me that much?”
    There was raw pain in his voice. It broke her heart and she had to squeeze her eyes tight shut to stop the tears from falling. Silently she shook her head.
    I can’t tell him now. Not here and like this…
    “And telling me all this is supposed to make me believe you’re telling the truth about Juliet?” he turned to examine her and the expression in his eyes made her want to climb onto his lap and tell him everything, to make him like and respect her again.
    “I am telling the truth Josh,” she replied sadly. “Coming to talk to you wasn’t about us or even about me. I’m telling you because I want you to be happy. She doesn’t deserve you and I’m having a hard job believing you love her. Why are you marrying her?”
    Josh stared at Amy, trying to work her out. A thousand questions swirling around his mind in a blizzard of words. Did she have an agenda? What was she hoping to accomplish? Is she telling me the truth?
    But the biggest question of all was the one she had just asked him. Why was he marrying Juliet? Because she’d come along at the right time. Because he’d given up hope of getting back in contact with Amy, convinced she was happy and had moved on with someone else.
    The day he’d got the call telling him about Mum and Dad had changed everything for him. He’d taken their support for granted, they’d provided a home, a network, somewhere he knew he could always go back to. Home. He was tired of travelling the world alone and living as an ex-pat bachelor. He needed roots, ties…a family of his own.
    He’d wanted to get married and so had Juliet so…
    Did he love her like he’d loved Amy back at Uni? No, but then that kind of first love was unique, you couldn’t expect to…
    Oh God.
    He looked at Amy, at the pain in her eyes. All this time he’d been trying to do the right thing and yet he’d hurt her. Hurt her so much she’d wanted revenge.
    It would be the ultimate revenge for her to ruin your wedding…
    But Amy was right; he just couldn’t believe she’d be capable of lying about something like this. And his body burned for her every bit as much as it had the first time round. Even more this time because he knew what it was like to make love to her. He knew what he was missing.
    “What are you thinking?”
    “I’m thinking I’m getting married soon and this is a gigantic mess.”
    “You’re still getting married?” Her eyes widened in shock.
    I have to do the right thing, whatever that is…
    “I can’t call off the wedding and jilt Juliet on the say-so of an ex-girlfriend. That would hardly be fair to her.” He gripped the edge of the mattress with his hands, needing to stop them from reaching out to Amy. She shouldn’t be here in his room, it was too close, too tempting and he was so not the guy who cheated on his fiancée, whatever might or might not have been going on.
    Two wrongs didn’t make a right.
    Amy’s telling the truth and you know it, deep down in your gut.
    But he couldn’t make decisions with his gut. Hadn’t he been trained to use his brain, to apply logic to all problems and reason them out? Logic said he had no evidence and Amy had, of her own admission, wanted to get revenge.
    As for his heart, his gut…that was weakness, his own desires. What would his father have said if he broke the heart of his fiancée and called off the wedding purely because his desires were leading him in another direction?
    Pandering to desire was weak and he had to be strong. To act in a way they would’ve been proud of.
    “So my word isn’t enough; you don’t believe me?” Amy got shakily to her feet, anger flashing in her eyes. “And if I told you Tash can confirm