Bound To My Ex-Fiancé’s Uncle

Chapter3:PerfectRecipeForRevenge

VIVIENNE

I placed my palm across my forehead and winced. The sunlight streaking from the curtains of the floor-to-ceiling window almost blinded me the moment my eyes opened.

Where am I?

My eyes wandered around the unfamiliar room and I tried to recollect the events of the night before but nothing came to mind.

I let myself up on the soft mattress and gasped when I saw the man beside me with a striking figure sleeping with tousled hair and a frown on his face—almost like he was at war in his sleep. I noticed he was bare-chested and I swallowed. The dark trail of salt and pepper hair on his chest had me gulping hard.

Wait….

What went down exactly? I winced again because my head was banging continuously. Suddenly, memories of last night came flooding back in bits.

The club…the kiss…the tense ride back to his place…the hot makeout session in the elevator and bedroom…the vomit?

Oh My Goodness! My hands clasped over my mouth.

The last thing I remember before I blacked out was nibbling on his neck and then throwing up all over his chest.

My head snapped back to him. He was still frowning. I hit my head and shuddered in embarrassment.

I looked at my body clad in clothes that didn’t belong to me—sweatpants and a hoodie. I was neither wearing my minidress nor my underwear. He must have changed me. As I was about to get up, a phone screen lit up on the bedside table, indicating he had received a text.

I didn’t know this man from Adam but like they say curiosity killed the cat so I was itching to know something…anything about this man. So, I read the text. It was from an Ava.

Who was Ava? His girlfriend? His wife? An unfortunate girl like me?

“Where are you and why haven’t you been taking my calls? Are we good? I miss you.”

I suddenly felt a metallic taste on my tongue. I had bitten it too hard. I was so stupid! Did I really think this handsome man didn't have a woman outside? But also, doesn’t that make him a cheater?

Why did all men have to cheat? f**k!

I groaned in annoyance.

Where the f**k was my phone and my purse? I need to leave.

I got up slowly, trying not to wake him up. My eyes scanned the room and landed on the coffee table with my gold purse on it. I tiptoed to it and grabbed it and searched for my phone.

Phew! It was inside.

5:30, the time read. I didn’t want him to catch me when he got up so I had to leave immediately. I dropped a couple of hundred bucks on the bedside table, just beside his phone.

I had to compensate for the trouble I caused last night.

I glanced at the beautiful man on the bed for the last time before walking out of the room and shutting the door behind me quietly.

I ordered a ride back home and tried sneaking back into the house without my parents noticing. All the lights were off except for the dim light coming from the kitchen, which the chef must have mistakenly left on. I tiptoed my way around.

“And where are you coming from this late?” My heart almost left my chest at the voice coming from behind the wine cellar. I turned slowly.

Shit.

It was my mother. She was drinking wine in a silk robe. Her manicured nails in a pale French tip grasped the stem of the wine glass so elegantly.

My mother has always been prissy—maybe that’s what comes alongside getting married to Riviera’s Senator.

Her hair was never out of place and she was never not in heels and she always looked like she was polished to perfection. She never laughs too loudly, has a strict daily routine where she takes a run by 6am and has coffee at 7. She never touches cash because it feels too “dirty”. She is uptight and extremely judgmental and she abhors my existence. As a child, I always wondered why, and sometimes now, I still can't help but wonder.

“I…I had something to do with Adam.” I lied, blaming my best friend and manager.

“Do you know what it would cost this family if people were to find out that the Senator’s daughter goes to late-night parties and sneaks back in whenever she wants, notwithstanding that she is yet to come out of a wedding scandal?”

“Mom—” I start to say but I’m cut off immediately by her hands in the air.

“Your father and I are doing our very best to wipe this slimy shame that you caused, off this family’s name and you’re partying? The whole city of Riviera has your name on their lips and you’re not bothered?,” she scoffed, “You’re ridiculous. Did you know that Julian is set to marry that woman he cheated on you with?”

She informed me, knocking the air from my lungs. What? How could Julian get married just after ours was called off? Did I mean nothing to him? Was five years nothing to him?

“What? That’s impossible”

“Well, the wedding invites beg to differ.” She picked up a card from the table and flung it across the room. It landed a few metres from me and I bent to pick it up.

Julian Ravelli Weds Selene Voss.

No…no…no! Bile rose to my throat and I just wanted to throw up all over again.

“Vivienne, you had just one job. Marry Julian to solidify the union between both families and what did you do? You messed it up by not being capable of keeping your man. You messed it up like you messed up all the opportunities your father and I gave you. Now, he’s made fun of us by getting married to an absolute nobody.” She grimaced at the absurdity, “Do you know we are being mocked in the city? Have you seen the headlines? Do you have any idea what this is doing to your father’s career?”

I winced. I was hurting too, couldn’t she see it? Why does everything have to revolve around my father’s political career? My eyes pricked with tears threatening to fall.

Why would Julian do this to me? He said he loved me.

“I’m sorry.” I croaked out.

“I don’t need that. I just need you to stop making a miserable mess out of yourself. Can you do that?”

I didn’t reply.

“I said…Can you do that?”

“Yes…Yes, Mom.”

“Now, get out.” She waved me away like a fly she was disgusted at.

*******

All I had been thinking about all day was how to get even with Julian for what he did to me. I couldn’t stop checking all the blogs and posts that highlighted the worst moment of my life and the stark comments the trolls made concerning the drama.

While my life has been all shades of shitty, Julian was busy posting up with his new bae, fuelling the fire. There was a comment on one of his posts that ruined me.

“After all, she’s just as conniving and nasty as her mother, if I were Julian, I’d ditch her too. Good riddance.”

I couldn’t believe all this was happening to me. I thought Julian was the one. He was nice, got me expensive gifts, always said the right words and he never gave me any reason to doubt him. But all along, he had been a cheating asshole.

I hate him so much.

I was scrolling through my feed when a video popped up and what—or rather who I saw, made my eyes bulge.

It was a post about a charity gala and a man giving a speech. The man looked so familiar but could it really be him? I waited to see if he was the one.

It was the same piercing blue eyes.

“Good day. I am Ares Ravelli representing Ravelli Holding.” and just by his left was the man I recognised to be no other person than Julian’s father, Dante Ravelli. How were they related?

Ares Ravelli.

So that was his name—the man who had danced with me at the underground club and led me to his hotel room—was related to the man who broke my heart on our wedding day.

I searched him up. The more I looked him up, the more the fire of revenge kept burning inside me.

This was the perfect recipe for revenge.