Lovewrecked Read online

  Lovewrecked

  Karina Halle

  Copyright © 2020 by Karina Halle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Hang Le Designs

  Edited by: Laura Helseth

  Contents

  Summary

  1. Daisy

  2. Daisy

  3. Tai

  4. Daisy

  5. Daisy

  6. Daisy

  7. Tai

  8. Daisy

  9. Daisy

  10. Tai

  11. Daisy

  12. Daisy

  13. Daisy

  14. Tai

  15. Daisy

  16. Tai

  17. Daisy

  18. Tai

  19. Daisy

  20. Daisy

  Epilogue

  What to Read After Lovewrecked

  Connect with the Author

  About the Author

  Also by Karina Halle

  Summary

  Daisy Lewis is experiencing a relentless string of bad luck.

  Fortunately, Daisy has her sister’s destination wedding coming up. A week of sand, sea, and sun in the South Pacific as the maid-of-honor is exactly what Daisy needs to forget her upturned life and focus on the positive.

  That is until Daisy meets the best man.

  If you take tall, dark, and handsome, and add a dash of rugged, a pinch of brooding, and a whole lot of sexy, you’ve got Tai Wakefield. Unfortunately he’s also a major grump, total alpha, and seemingly out to antagonize Daisy at every turn.

  As if being part of the wedding party with Tai wasn’t bad enough, Daisy’s bad luck soon resurfaces when she ends up on a cramped sailboat with Tai and the newlyweds.

  Which then shipwrecks on a deserted island near Fiji.

  Okay, so they aren’t completely alone. There’s an oddball research scientist who has been isolated for far too long, they have rundown bungalows as shelter, stores of water and canned food, plus a feral goat named Wilson.

  It’s Lost…without the smoke monster.

  But with rescue weeks away, Tai and Daisy realize the only way they’re going to get through this mess is to stop fighting and start working together.

  And with their guards down, they get closer.

  A lot closer.

  Soon, Daisy realizes that the only thing worse than being stuck on a deserted island, is being stuck on a deserted island with a man she hates to love and loves to hate.

  A man that can break her heart.

  For anyone and everyone who needs an escape right now—I’ve got you.

  And for my wonderful parents, Tuuli & Sven, who allowed me to pursue my own escapes for so many years.

  One

  Daisy

  Have you ever tried to stab someone with a butter knife?

  Because that’s exactly what I’m about to do.

  Granted, my hand is shaking as I hold it, and I could barely cut the tomato for my sandwich moments before, which makes me think that the most damage this piece of cutlery will do is some light bruising, maybe a scratch.

  But even so, it’s worth an attempt.

  The possible victim?

  My boyfriend, Chris, who is standing in front of me totally naked, a pillow jammed in front of his crotch, pure panic on his face.

  Behind him, in the recesses of our bedroom, is my friend Michelle.

  Wearing a lace peekaboo bra and G-string.

  The kind of lingerie set you wouldn’t wear every day, unless you knew you were going to get naked with someone.

  In this case, someone’s else’s boyfriend.

  Mine.

  I should have known something was wrong the moment I came home to make myself some lunch. I had told Chris I was going for a long walk at Golden Gate Park. Usually we would both run it together, but he’d been weird and moody lately, and so I thought I’d go alone. Of course, being me, I got distracted and decided to do some window shopping on Haight, and then I got hungry. I hate eating in restaurants alone, so I came back to fix myself a quick sandwich before heading out again.

  I didn’t notice her shoes at the front door, though now I can see them out of my peripheral.

  I didn’t think it was odd that the bedroom door had been shut, though now I know why.

  I assumed Chris had gone out.

  That was until I had just finished making my sandwich and heard a muffled sneeze.

  High-pitched and stunted, like someone was trying to hide it.

  I grabbed the butter knife and flung open the bedroom door, backing up in horror to the kitchen counter, as I stared at the two of them together.

  Oh, they were trying to hide it, hoping that if they didn’t make a noise, I wouldn’t notice.

  Jokes on them.

  “I can explain,” Chris cries out, stepping closer.

  I thrust the butter knife out into the space between us, shaking it violently.

  “Stay back, asshole!” My voice is caught between rage-induced hysteria and choking back tears. For the sake of my pride, I hope the tears never fall.

  Both of his hands go up like I’m holding him at gunpoint, and the pillow drops to the floor.

  I almost laugh. His penis is naturally deflated, and he looks like a sad sack of a human being. Funny how someone can go from being the love of your life to a repulsive enemy in a matter of seconds.

  Okay, so maybe Chris wasn’t the love of my life. But he was still the first boyfriend I ever truly loved, the first one that I finally let my guard down for, the first one I potentially, one day, possibly, maybe saw myself marrying.

  And this is how all that worked out for me.

  With him sleeping with my friend.

  Oh, I’m mad at her, too.

  Furious.

  But the betrayal is different. I can’t say I ever got too close to Michelle. I never let my guard down with her the way I did with Chris. Still, I considered her a good friend since I had worked with her and we often spent lunch hours scarfing oysters on the embarcadero. We used to do hot yoga together on Thursday mornings before work, and we had margaritas on Mondays at this dive bar in the Mission district with the rest of the old work crew. Our conversations were usually superficial, but occasionally I’d complain about Chris (as couples do), and she’d complain about San Francisco’s lackluster dating scene.

  Never in a million years did I think she’d try and fix that by turning her sights on him.

  “How did this even happen?” I cry out, shaking the knife again.

  “Just put the knife down and we’ll talk,” Chris says. He takes a step forward, and as my gaze drops again, he pauses and hastily picks up the pillow. “Look, it was a mistake.”

  “A mistake?” I say at the same time Michelle makes a scoffing noise. I point the knife at her. “Something funny, bitch?”

  “Yes, a mistake,” Chris says imploringly. I stare into his baby blue eyes, but they’re no longer the eyes of the guy I loved. They’re the eyes of a stranger. One I want to murder with a butter knife.

  “Uh huh. A mistake. I see. So she slipped and fell on your dick?” I ask. “Or you slipped and landed in her vagina?”

  “It didn’t mean anything!”

  Somehow that makes everything worse.

  My blood begins to boil.

  “You threw away our relationship for some screw that didn’t even mean anything!?”

  I make a half-hearted attempt to calm myself but it doesn’t work.

  I turn around and pick up the cut tomato I used for my sandwich, holding it in my palm like a
baseball, seeds slipping through my fingers.

  “He’s lying,” Michelle speaks up, eyes flashing. “He told me he loved me.”

  I don’t even think. I launch the tomato and get Chris right between the eyes with a messy plop, the tomato splattering everywhere. The pillow drops to the floor again.

  “You asshole!” I yelp.

  I whirl around and pick up the top slice of toasted bread and wing at him like a frisbee. It hits him squarely on his junk and he goes down to his knees on the linoleum with an oof. I used to play disc golf on my parents’ apple orchard growing up, and apparently my aim is as good as ever.

  “Daisy!” Michelle cries out, as if I’m the one with the problem, and then I’m reaching for the remainder of the sandwich.

  I pelt it at her. The slice of turkey flies ahead of the sandwich layers with swift velocity and slaps her on the cheek with a satisfying thwack, while the other pieces of mayo-soaked bread and juicy tomato slices explode over the bedroom.

  “Get out!” I scream at the both of them. “Now!” I threaten with the butter knife again. “I’m not done throwing things.”

  Michelle swipes at the cold cut that just bitch-slapped her, and runs to the opposite side of the bed where she yanks on her jeans and sweater. She quickly sidles past me, avoiding eye contact. I’m not a violent person, but it really takes everything in me to not open the fridge and find what other food I can whip at her.

  While she’s shoving on her boots at the front door, I turn to Chris who is getting back to his feet, wincing.

  “There’s a lot more where that came from,” I warn him as she slams the front door.

  He groans, reaching for the pillow again, as if he’s suddenly bashful. “Please, just…hear me out.”

  My eyes widen. “What the hell could you possibly say? Chris, I just caught you screwing my friend!”

  “It’s not what she said. I don’t love her. I love you…I just got…I got confused.”

  “Confused?” I repeat, my voice beyond shrill. “Confused?”

  He winces dramatically again, putting his hand to his ear. “Can you stop being so hysterical? You’re hurting my ears.”

  “Maybe I’ll slice your ear off like in Reservoir Dogs. That should fix the problem,” I sneer at him, waving the knife again. “It won’t be easy with this thing, but believe me, I could make it work. Would leave some pretty nasty scars.”

  He glares at me. “You know, you haven’t been easy to be around since you lost your job.”

  Oh my god.

  He isn’t…

  He isn’t suggesting this is my fault??

  He must read the look on my face because a rush of fear goes across his brow, and he quickly says, “It isn’t your fault. I’m not saying that. I know you’ve never been laid off before, I know you’ve worked for that company forever, I know it’s hit you hard. You’re just…not your sunny self.”

  I can only stare at him, mouth agape. My emotions are zipping from outrage to frustration, and when I get frustrated I tend to cry.

  “Excuse me for not always being my sunny self,” I tell him. “And, by the way, I think I’ve handled the layoff extremely well. You don’t see me moping about and focusing on the negative, and you don’t see me sleeping with other people’s boyfriends.”

  He stares blankly at me.

  “Michelle was laid off, too!” I yell at him. “And screw you for even bringing any of that shit up. That makes you an even worse person for cheating on me when I’m already down on the ground.”

  He laughs dryly and I want to deck him right in the nose. “Down on the ground? In the two years we’ve been together, you’ve never been down on the ground. You’ve never even faltered. Everything just seems to fall in your lap.”

  I bristle. He’s not the first person to say that. “Well things are falling out of my lap now, aren’t they? First I lose my job, next I lose my boyfriend.”

  Oh, now he’s looking sad. “Daisy…this isn’t over…”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. It’s over. And it’s probably been over for a long time, hasn’t it? Even before I lost my job. You’ve been pulling away. I didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to admit that was happening, but it’s true, isn’t it? It’s like you wanted to get caught.”

  Chris looks away and absently wipes a tomato seed off his face. I’d laugh if I didn’t feel so broken inside. “Maybe I was pulling away to see if you’d pull me back in. Maybe I wanted to see just how much you cared about me.” He looks at me, and now he looks more like the man I fell in love with, even though I know he’ll never be that person to me again. “I stepped back but you never came forward.”

  I don’t have time for this. He wants to play the blame game, as if somehow this is all my fault.

  “There’s something called communication,” I tell him. I’m still seething but it’s starting to meld into something else, something sadder, something I don’t like. “You could have talked to me instead of playing a stupid game. Instead of cheating on me. And if you wanted to end it, you could have just done so, like the man I thought I knew. This is all on you, Chris. I’m not going to be the bad guy here.” I pause, summoning up my courage. “I’m going to go back out for my walk. And when I get back, I want you and all of your stuff gone.”

  “Daisy,” he cries out pathetically, gesturing. “I live here! Where am I supposed to go?”

  I cross my arms. “No idea. Maybe Michelle’s? And you should have thought about that before bringing her over here to screw her. In our bed.”

  “You’re being unreasonable.”

  “You’re an asshole! And don’t you even think about squatters rights, because Big Jim is just a text away.”

  Yeah, I have a friend called Big Jim, who is…wait for it…a bouncer. The two of us have been tight since I used to sneak into clubs with my fake ID, and he’s never liked Chris much anyway.

  His eyes narrow. “So that’s it, huh? I’m just written out of your life? Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” I tell him. I pick up my purse from the chair and sling it over my shoulder.

  I start down the hall toward the front door.

  He calls after me.

  “Daisy.”

  I pause, but I don’t turn around.

  “We’re supposed to fly to New Zealand next week,” he reminds me. “Your sister will be so disappointed if you show up without a date, and I know you can’t do anything social alone. Let’s just go together and see what happens. If you want it to end after that, then we can end it. Let’s not waste those plane tickets.”

  My chest feels iced over. Part of me wants to take him up on it. I hate the idea of flying there alone, I hate the idea of going to my sister’s wedding without him there. Hell, the idea of going to any wedding alone.

  But as much as I need him as a crutch, I know it would be a mistake.

  I’ll have to go on my own.

  I glance at him over my shoulder and give him a small smile, maybe because I know this is probably (hopefully) the last time I’ll see him.

  “I’ll be back at ten tonight. That should give you enough time to get your life sorted. Take care, Chris.” I pause. “And eat shit.”

  And with that, I step out of the door and away from the man I thought I loved.

  * * *

  One week later

  “Welcome aboard,” the tanned flight attendant with a stunning shade of red lipstick says to me as I step off the jetway and onto the plane, a huge Air New Zealand 747. “What row are you?”

  I wave the ticket at her. “I’m one of the Skycouches,” I tell her gleefully.

  She nods and gracefully points down the body of the never-ending plane. “Excellent. They’re at the rear of the craft.”

  I thank her and cart my rose gold carry-on luggage behind me down the length of the plane to the very back. Normally, I avoid the back of airplanes if I can help it (I have a somewhat irrational fear of the plane breaking apart during flight and the bottom half la
nding on some island somewhere, but that’s what I get for being obsessed with Lost back in the day). But for this flight from SFO to Auckland, New Zealand, I opted for the Skycouch, which is when you have a whole row to yourself, and each seat extends so it turns into a bed of sorts.

  These days it’s the little things that excite me.

  Last week I was living my normal life, this week everything has changed.

  Okay, so maybe I should go back in time a bit.

  Four weeks ago I was living the good life. I had my boyfriend, I had my friends, I had my job. I was happy…I think. At any rate, I was looking forward to flying to NZ for my sister Lacey’s wedding, with Chris in tow.

  Then I lost my job. None of us at Deschutes even saw it coming.

  One gloomy morning where the fog was cold and dense, Harold the CEO, announced there was to be a merger with Yogalita, another even more successful athleisure wear company, and that massive layoffs would be imminent.

  Everyone in the office was panicking. Everyone except me, that is. You see, I sort of lucked into that job, working for the company straight out of high school. Within a few short years I was moving up and up and up, until I accepted the position as head of marketing. When Deschutes became too big for the office in Beaverton, the company relocated to San Francisco, and I went along with them. I was somewhat vital to the company’s overall branding, and without tooting my own horn too much, helped push them to new levels of success.