THE WOMAN BEFORE

Chapter 1

I S L A

Present Day

     THEY SAY LOVE is blind. I wish I had known it ten years ago, or maybe I did know, but I didn’t understand it then. I was gullible, naive, foolish, and all the other clichés you would use to refer to a young lady who blundered. The truth is that I never expected this. Never dreamt it. It still doesn’t make any sense. Okay, perhaps, it does.

     They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I don’t believe that. If it truly does, Evans wouldn’t have found my replacement so quickly while I languished in prison for a crime he committed. Stupid me. I thought I was in love. I was willing to sacrifice everything for him, even my freedom, and what did I get in return? A broken heart.

     When I was in college, I watched my female friends get broken hearts over something as silly as being dumped for another girl. I used to watch them cry their eyes out over a man who they probably wouldn’t meet again after college, and through it all, I sat by them as any friend would do, saying, “I’m so sorry. It’s going to be all right. The right person will come your way eventually.”

     I didn’t know what I was saying, but now I do, and I understand what they felt. I didn’t feel it before. It didn’t happen to me, but now it has happened to me and it’s excruciating. It’s not the thought of another woman replacing me that hurts me. It’s the thought of being betrayed by someone close to me. Someone I trusted so much I was willing to go to prison for. Was that how my friends felt? God, if I had known it would be this painful, I wouldn’t have fallen in love.

     It’s unfair how men easily find soulmates even when they are aging. But it’s a lot more complicated when you’re a woman, and you’re hitting forty with no stable job, along with a criminal record too. What’s worse, the man you trusted has left you for another woman. A pretty young woman who is a decade younger.

     I must admit, Rosina Scott is extremely beautiful. Brown hair cascading down her slender shoulders like a sliding avalanche, an oblong face, a nose that ridges into thin lips—God, she looks like one of those cover girls. Those girls I can never compete with in terms of beauty. Those girls that have everything that I don’t. I’m the polar opposite of them, and it becomes clearer each day why Evans chose her over me.

     Rosina Scott has no idea I’ve been stalking her ever since I was released from prison and found out she’s Evans’ wife-to-be. Wife-to-be my foot! That stupid wedding will only come on in their dreams. Evans thinks life is as easy as ABCD. He has no idea.

     My mother once told me that you reap what you sow. I reaped what I didn’t sow because love blinded me. Now I’m supposed to watch as the man who shattered my life gets married to a woman who isn’t me. That isn’t happening anytime soon. Maybe you wouldn’t do anything and rely on karma, but I won’t. If karma exists at all, I don’t think I can wait for it. After all, what do I have to lose? My life is pretty much shattered at this point. No husband, no children, no sort of commitment to anybody—only an uncle. He could continue with the journey called life without me. I’m so done with it. My only focus is to make Evans suffer. I will hit him from where it hurts the most. His wife-to-be.

     Flipping the glove compartment open, I take out the picture of Rosina I took days ago. My fingers tremble around it.  I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to strike. I mustn’t get cold feet when it comes. You can do it, Isla. You’ve come too far to quit.

     I stare back at my reflection in the rearview mirror. My lips slowly move apart and I close them, repeating the mantra. You can do it, Isla. You can. . .

     I swallow a sigh and slide the picture into the glove compartment. Picking up my Nikon binoculars, I look into the lens, zooming in on her.

     She’s laughing like a crazy woman. I don’t blame her. She thinks she’s on top of the world because she has my Evans. She raises her mug and sips from it, then places it down and talks to the woman sitting across from her in the corner booth.

     She can’t imagine the things in my head. The horrible things. I’ll probably take her by surprise. I can’t wait to see the horror on her face when I do. She’s got no idea what I’ve planned to do to her. If she knew, she’d have run for her life. Only if she knew. She deserves worse than what I’ve conspired against her for being a gold digger. Didn’t her mother teach her not to play around with men old enough to be her father? What a shameful lady!

     I look around my surroundings. Eddy’s Café stands right on my left, nestled between shops and smaller stores. Across the tree-lined pavement, commuters move briskly ahead of one other. A door to a shop that says NATALIE’S BOUTIQUE flags open, and a woman wearing a cashmere overcoat sprints out with a shopping bag. The man in the jogging suit suddenly stops in his tracks and glances at his wristwatch. The mother with the baby strapped to her tummy strokes her child’s head while she speaks on the phone. Too many witnesses.

     I direct the lens to the glass pane. Rosina is still there. This is where she takes her coffee every morning. She mostly comes alone, and I watch her from my car, as she lingers with a newspaper over her beverage. But today she’s with somebody. A friend or a coworker.

     Oh, crap! I’ve forgotten Rosina doesn’t work, or maybe she does, and I don’t know. She’s going to be Evans’ trophy wife—she’s going to take my place, and I can’t stop hating her.

     I zoom in again. She’s talking to a plump waitress with short blond hair, a white apron tied around her waist. I’ve seen her a couple of times. She’s served me before. She hands her dollar notes, and the woman scurries away. They’re about to leave! I should too. If I stay another minute, I might succumb and do something I’ll regret later. It isn’t time to attack yet. My plan is flawless, and I’d hate to ruin it in haste. Patience is bitter, but its fruit is delicious. I hope that’s true. I can’t wait to taste it.

     I fasten the seat belt and pull out, hitting the road to someplace. I will see her soon. She isn’t getting married to Evans. That—I promise—will only happen over my dead body.