Page 1 of Desperate Games

Prologue One-Andrea

Volkov-Fury Wedding, Private Island

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

Whoever came up with that line?

Deserves to be slapped.

With a stiletto.

Repeatedly.

I knock back another shot of ouzo and scan the reception like I’m searching for a reason not to start sobbing into my slice of wedding cake.

It’s a sun-kissed nightmare out here.

Everyone is glowing.

Gleaming.

Pregnant.

Lee-Lee’s radiant in that floaty ivory gown, literally sparkling with sapphires and fairy-tale magic.

Aella’s got the new-mom glow, her arms protectively wrapped around her newborn son, my nephew, Samuel Angel Ramirez.

Little cutie.

Clementine’s juggling two toddlers while growing a third.

Shelly can’t stop cooing over her first.

Michaela’s probably halfway to baby number four.

And Lucy? Lucy looks ready to pop. Her man’s practically worshipping her belly like it’s holy.

And then there’s me.

No man.

No baby.

No diamond. No game plan. Not one fucking clue.

Just a ticking time bomb in my uterus and the vague, unhelpful memory of Marisa Tomei yelling my biological clock is ticking like this in My Cousin Vinny.

I should’ve listened harder.

Instead, I’m here—drunk, dateless, and dangerously close to crying at a wedding full of happily-ever-afters.

The music shifts, the lights twinkle, and I take a deep breath of ocean air, letting it sting the back of my throat.

That’s when I hear him.

“Why do you look so sad, Andy?”

Andy? No one calls me that.