Page 73 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)
Chapter One
Best Laid Plans
Miles William Oliver Cumberland IV, aka Oliver to his friends, aka a billionaire on the run
Of everything I expected to feel when I left my father’s welcome-home party four hours ago, joy over my headlights illuminating a Welcome to Pennsylvania sign wasn’t top on the list.
It wasn’t on the list at all.
But here I am, driving into—actually, let me stop there.
I’m driving .
Myself .
Alone.
In the front seat.
No chauffeur. No executive assistant rattling off my meetings for the day. No business associate pitching a marketing partnership. No hovering security listening in to every word.
No relatives demanding to know why their exclusive, limitless credit card has been canceled or why I sold the family estate on Martha’s Vineyard.
No phone calls interrupting with an emergency that needs to be dealt with.
No weight of my family’s expectations squeezing my lungs and making it hard to breathe.
Just me, the pitch black of a moonless night, endless possibilities with zero expectations, enough therapy that driving on the interstate doesn’t trigger panic attacks anymore, and my road trip playlist.
This must be what peace feels like.
There’s an edge to the peace—tossing my old phone so it can’t be tracked and operating with cash only isn’t a foolproof method of disappearing—but it’s more peace than I’ve felt at any point in my life, but especially the past five years.
I feel around on the door for the button to roll down the window, hit it, and my seat starts to recline.
The unexpected motion startles me, and I swerve the SUV before straightening it out. No panic. Road’s practically empty, and I corrected, and everything’s fine.
“Just the wrong button,” I mutter to myself.
I feel around again, and ah, yes .
There it is.
The right button this time. Fresh, cool air whips into the vehicle, drowning out the symphonic pop music coming out of my stereo system, which I’m playing in honor of knowing how much my mother hates it when major symphonies cover pop songs.
And also because I love it.
It’s unexpected.
It makes me smile.
And smiling has been rarer than flowers in the desert for the past five years.
Thirty miles to go once I hit my exit, and I should—ah, yes.
There it is.
My headlights illuminate the large green sign telling me that my escape off the beaten path and into the backcountry of nowhere-land is fast approaching.
I roll my shoulders, feeling even lighter than I did with the Welcome to Pennsylvania sign. The exit approaches, and I swerve onto it.
Huh.
Going a little fast. And that’s a sharp curve. A sharp curve that keeps going.
Oh, this is one of those exits. The kind with a two-seventy curve.
Probably need to?—
“Slow down!” someone shrieks behind me.
Someone in my car .
I wrench the steering wheel and hit the brake.
“ Slow! ” she shrieks again. “Brake! Brake! Slow! Turn! Shoulder!”
Who the fuck is in my car?
Am I hallucinating?
Why isn’t the road stopping? Why am I leaning against my window? Why am I going faster when I’m hitting the brake?
I— shit .
Gas pedal. I’m hitting the gas pedal.
I switch my foot position and slam on the brake in the middle of the off-ramp while memories of crunching metal and screams reverberate through my head.
The SUV swerves. Tires squeal. The centrifugal force has me smushed against my door, and no matter how I turn the wheel, the car doesn’t go in the direction I want it to go.
It’s spinning.
It’s spinning out of control.
I’m spinning out of control, the laws of physics taking control of my car and my body, making breathing impossible and squishing me against the doorframe with my head leaning of out the open window while I relive the reason I haven’t driven myself anywhere since I was in college.
This is it.
The end.
Four hours after freedom , four hours after leaving the life I was stuffed into thanks to my father’s greed, ego, and pride, and it’s over.
Done.
Just when I thought I was finally free, it’s done .
I’ve never eaten a fresh chocolate chip cookie straight out of the oven in my own kitchen.
I’ve never gone skinny-dipping.
I’ve never watched a rainbow from when it formed to when it faded, or seen the sun rise or set from the top of a mountain.
I’ve never held a baby.
I’ve never held a fucking baby .
And now I never will.
News headlines flash in my vision.
Convenience Store Heir Dies in Inconvenient Fiery Crash
Fitting End for Criminal’s Son on the Run
Billionaire with Burnout Perishes in Spinout
My eyes are squeezed shut, total blackness behind my eyelids, old terrors torturing me as my world jerks to a sudden near-stop.
My lungs engage, and I gulp in a massive breath as I open my eyes again.
My SUV is facing the pavement that was behind me a moment ago. My headlights illuminate rounded tire marks on the sharply curved exit ramp, the beams bouncing as the SUV settles.
My fingers have gone numb. My thigh muscles quake as I push with all of my might onto the brake with one leg and into the floorboard with the other.
Dots dance in my vision.
My breath comes again in a gulp of air that’s too much and not enough at the same time.
The symphony hits a crescendo that matches a rush of loud, heavy breathing.
Is that me?
No.
Not me.
I still can’t get my lungs to work to take in another breath.
“ Hooo ,” the person in my backseat says. “That was a trip, wasn’t it?”
The person.
In my backseat.
The one who yelled for me to slow down as I exited
I finally make myself take two more breaths, more in control but still mostly fueled by adrenaline, before I shift to stare back at her.
We.
Almost.
Died.
And she thinks it was a trip ?
“ Park! ” she shrieks as the car starts rolling. “Shoulder! Park!”
What.
The actual.
Fuck?
I slam on the brake again with a still-shaky foot while I gape at the vision in my backseat.
No.
Absolutely not. This is not happening. I’m hallucinating.
I’m dreaming.
I’ve anticipated this day for so long that I’m dreaming, except my dream has turned into a nightmare.
Which means this—this woman I’m staring at—she’s not real.