Casual Encounter Vol. 1

  Casual Encounter

  Vol. 1

  By M.S. Parker

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 Belmonte Publishing LLC

  Published by Belmonte Publishing LLC.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Acknowledgement

  About The Author

  Book Description

  My wedding day was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. Instead, my heart was shattered into a million pieces.

  When twenty-five year-old Bree Gamble was left at the altar by her long-time boyfriend, she’d no idea where to go from there. Her friends is now trying to help by setting her up on blind dates, telling her she needs a casual encounter to move on. When a mysterious stranger comes to her rescue from a disastrous date from hell, Bree thinks that maybe she's met the one person who can help heal her broken heart. What she doesn't know is that her handsome hero isn't the white knight she imagines.

  Don't miss the first installment in the Casual Encounter series, the latest by best selling author M.S. Parker.

  Chapter 1

  Everything was perfect.

  My wedding dress was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I'd fallen in love with it the moment I'd first seen it at the bridal store and everyone said it was made for me. The only one, of course, who hadn't given an opinion was Ronald, but everyone assured me that he'd love me in it.

  As I stood at the back of the church, watching my bridesmaids make the slow walk up the aisle, their royal purple dresses shimmering, I hoped everyone was right. I wanted today to be the most special day of my life. I was marrying the man I loved and I'd remember this day forever.

  Then came the wedding march and my dad gave me a supportive smile. We started down the aisle and the audience stood. All eyes were on me, but… no one was smiling. In fact, the expression on every face – my friends, my family, my co-workers – was one of pity. I didn't understand. What was wrong?

  I was halfway toward the front when I looked up. My bridesmaids were all there, lined up in order. My two closest friends, my sister-in-law and my cousin. Their face held pity as well. I looked to my right. The groomsmen were all there, including my brother, but I didn't see Ronald anywhere.

  My heart began to pound as my father and I kept walking. Where was Ronald? Why wasn't anyone stopping the music and looking for him? Why was the priest just standing there, a solemn expression on his face?

  Suddenly, the pressure on my arm was gone. I looked to my right but my father had disappeared. A glance to my left and found him sitting with my mother now and they were both looking expectantly at the priest. I turned toward the old man as well.

  “Dearly beloved,” he intoned in a flat voice. “We are gathered her to witness the humiliation of Bree Gamble as her fiancé Ronald Peterman has chosen to desert her on their wedding day...”

  I jerked awake, a protest on my lips and breathed a sigh of relief as I flopped back down onto my pillows. My pulse was racing and there was a thin sheen of sweat on my skin despite the air conditioning in my tiny bedroom.

  It was a dream. A nightmare. Sort of.

  I turned my head and in the dim early morning light, made out the stack of presents sitting in the corner of my room. Their unopened paper and untouched ribbons reminded me that it was a nightmare based on reality. While the events hadn't played out the same way, the ‘humiliation of Bree Gamble’ had occurred.

  I rolled away from the gifts and punched my pillow a few times, wishing it was Ronald’s face instead. He and I had dated for five years, then been engaged for nearly two. Everything had been perfect – until that day. I'd been standing in front of the mirror, waiting for my maid of honor to come and tell me it was time. Instead, she'd come into the bridal room looking both pissed and upset in equal measure. Ronald had left... with our wedding coordinator.

  Over the past week, I learned that the two of them had slept together one night when Ronald had volunteered to go over the seating arrangements because I'd been sick. Now, they were living together in the apartment we'd picked out, leaving me to figure out the best way to return all of the gifts we'd never opened.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, wishing I could block out my memories as easily as I could the gray light. The pain was still fresh, but I supposed that was normal. It had just happened last weekend. This past week, I'd intended to be on my honeymoon, but instead, I'd given the tickets to my parents, hoping the Caribbean cruise would make up at least some of the cost of the wedding. I hadn't gone crazy with it, but I was the only girl, so my parents had been more than happy to pay for the wedding of my dreams.

  I barked a harsh laugh. For the past nine nights, I'd been learning the hard way that there was a difference between a day-dream wedding and an actual dream wedding. I sat up and raked a hand through my short, cocoa-colored curls. I was still getting used to that. My hair had been down to the middle of my back last week, but on Wednesday, tired of moping around the house and avoiding phone calls, I'd decided I wanted to make a change. I'd gone into a stylist and gotten my hair cropped shorter than it had ever been before. Even I didn’t recognize me sometimes.

  I glanced at the clock. Five minutes until my alarm was scheduled to go off so no point in laying back down. I climbed out of bed. Other than that one little foray to the salon, today is the first day I ventured outside my apartment since my non-wedding. I hadn't even gone to the teachers' meeting on Friday.

  Headmaster Norris had already given me permission to miss the meeting for my honeymoon, so she was willing to give me time off for my bittermoon as well. She’d been pretty sympathetic and it hadn't taken much to convince her I was having a hard time pulling myself together. That wasn't entirely true. I wasn't falling apart. Sure, I'd spent pretty much the entire week in my pajamas, sitting on the couch binge watching television shows online, but I wasn't breaking down in tears or drowning my sorrows in alcohol. Double chocolate fudge ice cream worked just as well.

  I was actually looking forward to getting back to work, getting my mind off of things. One of the reasons I'd been thrilled to get hired at Legacy Academy last year had been their rigorous academic standards. Their students were among the brightest in all of Chicago. Keeping lesson plans that would engage, interest and challenge students whose IQs were in the gifted to genius ranges was quite a challenge.

  The one thing I wasn't looking forward to, however, would be the questions from students and staff as to why the diamond ring they'd gushed over hadn't been joined by a wedding band, but had, rather, disappeared. Only a couple of the other teachers at Legacy had been invited to the wedding, but I was hoping they'd at least told the faculty what had happened. I didn't want to spend the entire first day having to repeat that story.

  Almost unconsciously, my thumb rubbed against the inside of my ring finger. In the two years I'd worn it, I'd gotten in the habit of playing with my engagement ring. Ever since I'd taken it off and mailed it back to Ronald, I'd found myself behaving as if it was still there.

  My phone buzzed as I finished laying out my clothes. I glanced at the name before swiping the screen to read the full message. I'd gotten a text apology from Ronald a few days ago and ever si
nce then, I felt a knot of dread inside me whenever my phone alerted me to a text.

  This one, however, was from my best friend, Adelle Merriman-Dane. She and I had grown up next door to each other in one of Chicago's middle class suburbs and we'd been inseparable almost from moment one. Our birthdays were even only two weeks apart, with me being the older one. We'd been through a lot together. My mom's breast cancer, her father's heart-attack. Her marriage at twenty-two and then being widowed just six months later. Everything had just brought us closer together. She'd been the one to tell me about Ronald leaving and the one who’d held me while I cried, telling me I'd feel better in time.

  I read through her text, the tension inside me easing when I saw that it wasn't more bad news.

  Hey sweetie, wishing you luck on your first day back. Don’t let the little hellions get to you. Don't forget dinner at L20. You, me and Mindy are getting our wine on Friday night!

  I managed a faint smile as I sent back a quick thank you and five emoji shaped bottles of wine. Adelle and I had made Friday dinners a thing since we were in college, though those had usually consisted of pizza in our dorm room. When she'd married a dot-com billionaire, we'd started going through the finer restaurants in Chicago. By the time I met Mindy at Legacy while we were both student teaching three years ago, Adelle and I had regular reservations at L20, a beautiful seafood restaurant with amazing service and even better food. Adding one more to our table hadn't been difficult.

  I climbed into the shower and thought about how nice it would be to drown my sorrows in some expensive wine. It had taken me a while to get used to Adelle paying for our Friday nights out, but once she'd shown me the extent of the fortune her late husband had left her, I hadn't let it bother me. I’d do the same for her if the situation was reversed.

  I dressed automatically, but when I looked in the mirror to apply my make-up, I did a double take. My skin had always had a golden touch to it and it got even darker if I tanned, but now I looked practically pale. The circles under my eyes were purple, almost the same shade as my violet irises, and I looked at least ten years older than twenty-five. I scowled at my reflection and then got to work. By the time I finished, I didn't look completely like my old self, but I was at least presentable.

  I took a deep breath and looked myself square in the eye. I could do this. So what if my entire adult life so far had been as Ronald's other half. I'd moved into my own apartment after I'd signed my contract at Legacy. Granted it was in Washington Park, but it was still my own place. I could stand on my own two feet.

  I kept telling myself that as I headed out the door, determined to have a good first day.

  Chapter 2

  If the whole wedding thing hadn't been an issue, the first two weeks back to work would've been great. I had amazing students. A few who were going to be a handful, but only because they were so smart. No complaints about the curriculum or reading lists from either students or parents. After the first day of fielding questions, everyone basically ignored what had happened, which suited me just fine.

  Even all of this, however, wasn't enough to lift my depression. My determination that I would be okay was getting harder to stick to. It seemed like everywhere I went, I was seeing happy couples and wedding announcements. They were all over TV too. Worse, I hadn't considered this as a possibility when I'd been planning my reading lists for this year. I always re-read the books with my students, which meant I'd spent the last two weeks dealing with Romeo, Mr. Darcy and Heathcliff. At least my seniors were reading Paradise Lost, no romance in that one. Though I had to admit, by comparison to Ronald, even Satan was looking pretty good at the moment.

  Now, as I was making my way through L20 to the table where Adelle and Mindy were already sitting, I wondered what they'd say if I ordered something stronger than wine. I didn't even know if they served that kind of alcohol here, but I was seriously considering finding out. To top it all off, as I walked by the table closest to where I'd be sitting, the man dropped down on one knee and his girlfriend squealed. It took all of my willpower not to tackle the happy couple or, at the very least, scream at the girl to ‘run’.

  “Here,” Adelle handed me a glass of wine before I'd even taken a seat. She glanced at the kissing couple and rolled her eyes. “His timing sucks.”

  I shrugged and took a gulp of the wine, barely registering anything beyond the buzz as it hit my empty stomach. “He'll screw her over soon enough. They all do.”

  Mindy winced and I wondered if I'd spoken loud enough for the couple to hear. Oh well. Harsh truth. The girl would learn sooner or later. I took another drink of my wine.

  “So, Mindy, did you have any more problems with Frank?” Adelle asked, not so subtly changing the subject.

  I forced myself to pay attention as Mindy caught us up on her latest incident with her nosy old neighbor who'd taken to lurking outside her apartment door so he could hear everything going on inside. About ten months ago, he'd found out that she was bisexual, and now, her every move was cause for complaint.

  Mindy narrowed her eyes and tossed her strawberry-blond curls over her shoulder. She was the smallest of the three of us, the very definition of petite, but when she got riled, she wasn't someone to mess with. “He told the building super that I was violating some sort of ethics code of conduct by having both men and women spend the night.”

  As my friends began to debate the merits of taking legal action against the creepy old man, I let myself zone out. I didn't want to think about anything or anyone. Nice, quiet darkness; that sounded good. I snapped out of it for a few minutes when the waitress took our orders and chatted a bit, but once she was gone, I was back to letting everything just slide by. I thought too much anyway. Not doing it would be good for me.

  I wasn't even aware that I'd been eating until Adelle's impatient voice interrupted my non-thoughts. “Sorry, what was that?”

  She gave me a stern look. “I was saying that you're being quieter than usual and I was wondering how you were doing.” She glanced at Mindy who shared a concerned expression. “But I guess that answers my question.”

  “I'm fine,” I snapped then sighed, instantly regretting how I sounded. “Look, it's just going to take a while, okay. Ronald and I were together for seven years. It's not that easy to get over someone like that.”

  Adelle's face tightened slightly, not enough that anyone else would've noticed, but I did. I reached across the table and put my hand on hers. “I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking.”

  “It's okay.” Adelle smiled. “Morgan's been gone for over two years.”

  I squeezed her hand before releasing it. Even Mindy didn't know how much Morgan's death had devastated Adelle. My best friend sat here now in designer clothes, her long chestnut brown waves styled by someone who made more a year than I did, and I knew she'd trade it all for just one more day with her husband. He'd been the love of her life and she missed him terribly. She'd dated in the years since his death, but never anything remotely serious.

  “You know what you need,” Adelle said. “You need to get back on the horse.”

  I laughed.

  “I'm serious,” she said. “If there's one thing I learned from losing Morgan, it's to live life to the fullest, and that means moving on. The best way to do that is to get back in the saddle.”

  “You're really enjoying these horse metaphors, aren't you?” I drained my glass. “Need I remind you that, before I started dating Ronald when I was eighteen, I'd had a total of two boyfriends and one of those was Timmy Gardener in the sixth grade. We held hands on the haunted hayride and that was a big deal.” I poked at my food. “I've never even slept with someone other than Ronald.”

  “All the more reason for you to get back out there,” Adelle said. She grinned, her crystal blue eyes lighting up in a way I knew was trouble. I wasn’t going to like what she was about to suggest, but that wouldn’t stop her from suggesting it. “I know the perfect way to get things started. You need to fuck someone.”

  I w
as glad I didn't have anything else to drink because I probably would've spit it out. “I'm not going to hook up with some random guy.”

  She shook her head, giving me her ‘no shit’ stare. “Of course not. You're far too conservative for that.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, then snapped it shut again. She was right. Out of the three of us, I was definitely the most... conservative. Growing up, Adelle used to tease me about being innocent and naïve. I was a bit more worldly wise than I had been back then, but I was still far from adventurous, especially when it came to sex.

  “There's this guy. Absolutely gorgeous and hung like a fucking horse.” A gasp from one of the other tables said Adelle wasn't being as quiet as she thought. She grinned and kept going. “He's perfect.”

  I shook my head. “I don't think so.”

  “Come on, Bree. Why not?”

  “Reason number one: I'm not ready to date.” I held up a finger before she could offer any sort of argument against that. “And reason number two: I know what kind of guys you like.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  Mindy and I exchanged glances.

  “You do tend to gravitate towards a certain...type,” Mindy said tactfully.

  “And what type is that?” Adelle asked.

  “Flaky,” I supplied. Adelle glared at me. “Ninety percent of the guys I've seen you date were either hipsters who were right at home in a coffehouse poetry read or frat guys with more brawn than brains. Basically, whoever you think is going to be good in bed.”

  “That's not true.”

  I sighed. “One name, Adelle. Tad Boffer.”

  “What was wrong with Tad?”

  “He was a twenty-one year-old poet who wrote about meat,” I said.

  She grinned at me. “But you should've seen what he was packing.”

  I groaned. “Seriously, Adelle?” I shook my head again. “And you wonder why I don't trust your taste in men most of the time.”

  “How about this?” Mindy interrupted.