Winter Heat

This is here as a beta/arc unedited story. I will be posting chapters as I write them. Once the story is complete and edited, it will be *REMOVED* and then *PUBLISHED* to Amazon under my 2nd pen name, Seren Pierce

ELYA

Christmas Eve is supposed to be a great day full of merry and cheer. Joy and love. Not deceit and heartbreak. Yet here we are, standing under a gazebo in town square, tears streaming down my face as my fiancé tells me he has fallen in love with a woman from work and wants the ring back - to give to her. How lucky am I, right?

“Are you fucking kidding me!?” I screech out, sounding like a croaky frog from the lump in my throat. Tears are blurring my vision and the cold wind slapping against my face is making my lips dry. My fingers have gone numb - my dumbass having forgotten gloves - and I’m shivering. It’s winter and winter in Snow Rock Ridge without gloves is asking for frostbite. Gibson told me we were going out to lunch, so I figured I’d be warm inside a restaurant.

We didn’t make it to one.

Instead, he took me to our favorite gazebo - where he proposed to me four months ago - to tell me he is breaking off the engagement as he wants to marry Alice instead. He said he was going to do it after lunch but decided to just rip off the band-aid. Why he decided to do it where he proposed in the first place is beyond me, unless he was trying to hurt me more.

“I’m sorry, Elya. Alice and I are in love and I want to marry her.”

“You wanted to marry me four months ago when you proposed to me in this freaking spot!” I yell back, tossing my arms in the air manically.

“And I did want to marry you. That was before I met Alice.”

I now understand the expression seeing red because looking at him all I see is red. That could be from the red and green lights running along the gazebo, but I choose to believe it’s from my anger.

“And when did you meet this, Alice?” I clip out, sticking my frozen fingers in my armpits.

“Two weeks after I asked you to marry me. We hit it off immediately, and I knew then it was over between us.”

“So, you wait four months to break it off?”

“I didn’t know how to tell you. You were in so deep with wedding planning that I couldn’t find a time to tell you.” He rubs his neck. “Anyway, I really need that ring back now. I was going to get Alice a different one, but I showed her a photo of it and she loves it and wants that one.”

My jaw drops.

This stupid bastard.

I pull my hand out from my pit, slapping him hard across his face. His head whips to the side from the impact. I stomp down the gazebo stairs, twisting the ring off my finger as I do. Once at the bottom, I drop the ring to the ground and I stomp on it over and over using my boot clad heel. Then I pick it up and throw it at his face. It hits him in the forehead before dropping to the ground at his feet.

He doesn’t say anything, staring at me in shock as if he expected me to hand it over with a smile and my blessing or something. He leans down, picking up the damaged ring and slipping it in his pocket.

I walk away, not looking back.