Chapter 5 - The Reassignment
"So what happens now?" Paige whispered, the fight completely drained from her. She looked down at her Louis Vuitton luggage, suddenly realizing it was sitting on my floor. "Are you throwing us off the island?"
I looked at Oliver. He gave me a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
"No," I said, my voice returning to the polite, pleasant tone of a gracious host. "Oliver wanted to see his cousins, and I would never ruin a family reset vacation."
I turned to Henri.
"Henri, please inform Mrs. Anderson of her new accommodations."
Henri smiled—a sharp, fiercely satisfying smile. "Of course, Madame. Mrs. Anderson, as the Presidential Villa is occupied, we have relocated your party to the Garden View Bungalows on the interior of the island. They are our entry-level rooms. They do not have private plunge pools, and they face the staff pathways rather than the ocean. Your all-inclusive dining package has also been adjusted to the main buffet."
Vanessa looked like she was going to faint. "The buffet? We don't even have a beach view?"
"If you prefer a beach view, Vanessa," I offered sweetly, "there is a public resort three islands over. I hear their rates are very reasonable."
Paige closed her eyes. The ultimate humiliation for a woman obsessed with status was not being banished; it was being downgraded. It was being forced to walk past the oceanfront villas, knowing the woman she had called a barista was sleeping in the master suite.
"Take the bags to the bungalows," Richard told the bellhop, his tone defeated but accepting. He looked at his wife. "Come on, Paige. We have a lot of resetting to do."
As the Anderson family began their long, humiliating walk toward the back of the resort, Oliver wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me tight against his side.
"You know," Oliver murmured, kissing the top of my head as we watched them retreat, "I always knew you were brilliant. I just didn't realize you were lethal."
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"I told you," I smiled, leaning into his warmth as the ocean breeze washed over us. "I just didn't want to make a scene."
We turned our backs on the lobby and walked hand-in-hand toward the Presidential Villa, leaving the noise, the arrogance, and the illusions of the Anderson family behind us. The island was quiet. The water was perfect. And for the first time in three years, I felt absolutely, unequivocally at home.
