The Wallflower's Revenge

Prologue: The Betrayal

One should rather die than be betrayed. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised. Betrayal, though ... betrayal is the willful slaughter of hope.

-Steven Deitz

Tatiana Rostova's POV

I stood frozen on the doorway. My brain refused to translate what my eyes had been telling me. It couldn't be happening, I told myself repeatedly. My stepsister, Sabrina, whom I loved more than a real sister was not on the bed naked with the man I loved with all my heart—my fiancé, wasn't it?

He just resembled the man I adored. His twin, maybe? But the shock of the two naked people on the cabin bed was mirrored to mine. It was like we're figurines out of the shelf.

"What the hell is the meaning of this?" I asked in stark silence.

It seems that the two of them had finally recovered from their surprise and realized that they had been showing their full glory right before my eyes. They struggled to cover themselves into the white sheets that were rumpled on the bed.

"Tatiana," Paolo, my lying fiancé, started. Looking desperately to his discarded boxers on the floor. "Let me explain."

Until this moment, I have been praying that my Paolo had a twin that he'd forgotten to introduce to me. The headache I've been experiencing during dinner was not near to the pain in my heart right now. The reason I was in Sabrina's room was to ask for some medicine when I found them together on the bed!

"Explain?" I repeated coldly. "Explain what? That you've been enjoying the bed with my sister while your fiancé was in the other room suffering from a headache?"

"Tati."

For the first time, my mendacious stepsister had joined the conversation. I tried not to cry out loud and demand an answer from her. I treated her like a real sister I've never had and yet she did this to me? I mentally block the image I saw earlier from my brain—Sabrina sobbing my fiancé's name as he pleasured her.

What an idiot have I been? I should have known from the start that a gorgeous Italian would never fall in love with a woman like me.

A wallflower.

A woman who always fades in the background at social gatherings. A woman who is socially awkward and can't even carry a proper conversation at parties. A woman who prefers baggy clothes than flashy ones that accentuates her figures.

Paolo Ranaldi belonged to someone like my stepsister who is often dubbed as the 'darling of the Manhattan society'. With her blond hair and pretty big blue eyes she was New York City's most celebrated debutante.

That's why I felt like Cinderella when Paolo swept me off my feet. But I should have known that there's no such thing as a real life fairy tale. The handsome prince would always belong to the beautiful sister—not to the ugly one.

"Tatiana. Please, let me explain to you," Paolo had said, reaching for his pants. I looked away when he put on his pants.

Despite the fact that we will be marrying in months' time, Paolo and I had never shared bed even once. I stupidly thought that he just valued my innocence to patiently wait for our wedding night. It never occurred to me that he'd been enjoying my stepsister's bed to bother in seducing his ugly fiancé.

The thought of them having an affair behind my back—God only knows since when. I wanted to do something violent.

"Don't bother," I smiled at them. I felt my jaw would crack in effort. "You don't have to explain things to me. I will spare the two of you from the lies you'll try to put on my head." I removed the engagement ring laid on my fourth finger on my left hand and tossed it to Paolo not caring how much that blasted ring cost. "I am happy to tell you that the engagement is off."

With every ounce of dignity felt from me I walked out of that cursed room without a backward glance. I may be a timid woman, but I still have the pride of the Rostova's in my veins. I will not shed even a single tear from their betrayal.

"Tatiana," my newly ex-fiancé called after me, walking out of the room only with his jeans. "Let me talk to you first."

I hastened my pace. "Leave me alone, Paolo. I have nothing to say to you. As far as I'm concerned, you and Sabrina are dead to me."

He was still persistent and followed me. I went to the deck to clear my head. It should have been a happy vacation with the two people who I loved with all my heart in the beautiful Amalfi coast with our family's fifty-foot yacht. But the idly vacation had just turned into my worst nightmare.

"Tatiana," Paolo grabbed my arm. "Please talk to me, per favore."

I removed my arm from his grip. I already hated his touch. "We have nothing to say to each other. By tomorrow, New York will know that I broke out of engagement."

"Cara mia," he cajoled, holding my hands with his, once I melted with the endearment now all I could feel is disgust. "Please..."

I struggled to be free from his touch when I noticed Sabrina also came to the deck. Great, now they will try to feed me with lies.

"Let me go, Paolo!" I struggled hard. I don't want him touching me with those hands. "We're through. Done. It's over!"

The unexpected thing happened. He suddenly released me, and I lost my balance, making me fall on the cold sea below. I gulped some salty water as I tried to keep myself floating which is hard when you don't know how to swim.

"Help me!" I called out. They knew I couldn't swim. "Help!"

"Dio!" Paolo exclaimed, looking down at me. "Tatiana!"

"Don't save her." Did Sabrina just really say that? That she wanted me to die here? "This is a good opportunity, right? She'll be out of our lives forever and the Rostov billions would be ours."

"But Rina—"

"You don't intend to marry her for real, don't you?" Sabrina said brutally. "You're just after her money, right?"

How many more home truths have I been so blind to see before? If finding them in bed together broke my heart, this information shattered my broken heart into pieces.

So, the real reason why Paolo had courted me is because he is just after the Rostov fortune? He is not really in love with me?

I was praying that my Paolo would deny it fiercely. Seeing his silence, Sabrina pounced again. "Let's go and leave her here to die. By tomorrow, the news about the death of the Rostov heiress would be on the international media. We'll claim that she accidentally fell on the deck."

The stepsister I have trusted with all my life was really capable of such cold-hearted murder. It's like she's an entirely different person. I was helplessly watching her pulling the man I ever loved away from the deck.

They're dead set on killing me!

"No!" I cried frantically, struggling to float on the water. But as I tried to open my mouth, I gulped the salty water.

I heard the yacht engine start and slowly drive away from me. I can't die here—not yet until I avenged the people who played me for fool.

If only...

I was getting tired of paddling and keeping my head from the water when I saw light...was that the light through heaven?

I don't want to die here. Swallowing plenty of water, I gradually surrendered to the darkness. Promising myself, "I will come back for my revenge."