Free June Bride: Now and Forever Romance by Regina Duke

 
    CHAPTER 1
    Friday, June 5th
    “W ho are you?” Meredith Oakley stared at herself in the motel mirror and waited for an answer. She still had the same short dark hair as the day before. She had the same russet brown eyes and flawless skin, with its natural tan. But yesterday, she’d had a good-paying job and a future, and this morning she was two thousand miles away, driving a rental car, reading want ads, and wondering who stole her life.
    She knew who, and the thought of Sienna sent an angry flush to her cheeks. That red-headed hussy had pranced into the boss’s office—Meredith’s fiancé’s office—a month ago, wearing skin-tight white pants and a clingy low-cut blouse that would have been at home on “Dancing with the Stars,” and began ripping Meredith’s neat and ordered life to shreds.
    First, her “imminent” promotion got postponed to “maybe next year.” Next, Dwayne, her boss-cum-fiancé, began canceling dates. Two of her best subordinates were transferred out from under her and assigned to Sienna. Then, seven days ago, she’d seen them having dinner together at Chez Nous, the restaurant she and Dwayne had lovingly called their special place. Sienna was wearing practically nothing, using her thick red waves of hair to keep her bare back warm. Her dress would have been illegal on a woman with short hair. Dwayne never saw Meredith. His eyes were glued to Sienna’s décolletage, which was deep enough to hide a poisoned apple in. But the wicked witch saw her, and the expression on her face said it all. She might as well have stood up and shouted, “Too bad, Meredith. I win, you clean-cut wholesome loser, you!”
    That was last Friday night. On Monday morning, after stewing all weekend—a stew made of tears and shredded photos of tall, dark, slithery Dwayne, washed down with “Americone Dream” ice cream—she’d marched into his office to demand an explanation. She got one, but it was nonverbal. Sienna’s plump behind was perched on the boss’s desk, and he was bending to kiss her, one hand caressing her perfect hair.
    Meredith screamed. She didn’t remember it that way, but four other people in the outer office said she definitely screamed. Meredith felt it was more of an outraged roar. Either way, the whole office saw her take off her engagement ring and hurl it across the room, then grab her purse from her desk and storm out of the building.
    It was Wednesday before she was able to clean out her desk. Her cubicle neighbor, Teresa, let her in after hours. She pinned her resignation to Dwayne’s door, and as she carried a box of her personal possessions to the car, her friend said, “I left a little surprise on Sienna’s desk.” Once they were in the car, she showed Meredith the photo she’d taken of it. She’d put a banner up that read “Home-wrecking Ho.”
    Meredith had protested. “We weren’t living together.”
    “I know. It’s the thought that counts.”
    “They’ll blame me for that.”
    “You’re right. Want me to go back and take it down?”
    “No freaking way.”
    Now, in her motel room, she felt like she was living a scene out of The Body Snatchers . She was tempted to check under the bed for an empty pod. Being taken over by a pod meant losing all feeling, and the pod-person who stared back at her from the mirror certainly qualified in that regard. Yesterday, she’d been running on adrenaline, buying a last-minute airline ticket and packing all her clothes. She’d left a ton of other stuff behind, but took her iPhone and MacBook with her. Now here she was in California. She’d woken up with no job, no prospects, and no emotion of any kind. Like a pod-person.
    She’d gone to school at UC Davis, so when she decided to run, it was the first destination that came to mind. It was the last place she’d been happy. At least, prior to the false and deceptive happiness of her boss-scum-ex. The only memorabilia she’d packed was her college yearbook. She planned to