"Where are you going all dressed up like that?" my cousin asked the moment she saw me.

It was the first time in a long while that I had made an effort with my appearance. I wore a white formal dress, tied my hair into a ponytail since it looked dry and lifeless, and put on makeup to hide how exhausted I looked.

"I'm meeting August."

"Which August? Salvatore? Seriously?" she reacted with immediate disapproval.

"Seriously. He invited me to dinner, and I accepted."

"Isabelle, I really want you to move on, but not with August. The guy's been back in town for less than a month, and he's at Lush almost every night surrounded by women he uses and then throws away."

"It's not a romantic date. It's just dinner between two former classmates."

"For starters, you two were never friends in school."

"Don't worry. Nothing's going to happen," I said while heading out the door.

The truth was, I wasn't so sure about that.

When I arrived at the restaurant, one of the most expensive in the city, August was already waiting for me.

The moment he saw me, he stood up and, like a perfect gentleman, pulled out my chair for me to sit.

"I thought you'd change your mind. I'm glad you came," he said with a flirtatious smile.

August ordered a bottle of champagne and the restaurant's most expensive dish. The waiters treated him like royalty.

"So, how exactly do you want to do this?" I asked directly, with no patience for small talk.

"Relax. Let's enjoy dinner first. If this arrangement is going to work, we need to start looking like a real couple."

"I doubt we'll convince anyone that we're actually a real couple."

"Of course we will. We just need to pay attention to the details. Like I said, we reconnect after years apart. You're devastated after a failed marriage and rediscover love with an old schoolmate. And that schoolmate, a notorious playboy, changes after realizing the love of his life was in front of him all along. It's perfect."

August spoke with confidence and charm.

Listening to him like that, I found the story almost believable.

But the more I listened, the more absurd it seemed.

I looked around.

The restaurant was elegant. Back when my father's business was still profitable, we used to frequent places like that all the time. After everything fell apart, I had never returned to environments like this.

During the last year of our marriage, Carl wouldn't even go out with me anymore. He said he couldn't stand looking at happy families when he didn't have one himself.

"Are you okay?" August asked after noticing I had drifted off.

"I'm fine. So that's our story? And where exactly did we reconnect?" I changed the subject to avoid talking about my problems.

"At Lush nightclub. It's better to keep the story close to the truth. When I saw you, I wanted to help you get back on your feet. Then there was chemistry and attraction."

When he said "attraction," he looked at me suggestively.

Heat rushed to my face, and I awkwardly looked away.

"And just like that, out of nowhere, we're getting married? Who's going to believe that?"

"Stories like that happen all the time."

"You always seem to have an answer ready."

"I'm a businessman. I always need to have an answer ready." His arrogance hadn't changed at all.

"So what's the next step?" I asked.

"Next week, there's a dinner at my father's house for my grandmother's birthday. It's the perfect opportunity to introduce you. There's an unspoken rule in my family: you only bring someone if the relationship is serious. After that, we'll take a trip together, then comes the proposal and, of course, the wedding. It has to be worthy of my family name, a huge wedding. I don't know what your first marriage was like, but ours needs to be better."

He already had everything planned.

It sounded like August had been designing his future wedding for a long time and was only missing the bride.

"Looks like you've already thought of everything."

"Not everything. I didn't have a bride yet," he said while looking at me intensely.

"And why me? You're surrounded by women all the time. I'm sure plenty of them would love to marry you."

"If I suddenly showed up with some random woman claiming we were getting married, nobody would believe it. But someone from my past is perfect. People love reunion stories. And when you told me about your divorce, I knew immediately. Our story makes perfect sense. Or did you forget I was your first kiss? It's basically destiny for you to marry me."

I didn't want to remember that he had been the first boy to kiss me, a secret I had never told anyone.

Strangely enough, August had also pretended for years that nothing had ever happened between us.

It was uncomfortable hearing him talk so cynically about relationships.

To August, marriage was nothing more than a means to an end.

Maybe he was right.

Love certainly hadn't gotten me anywhere.

"So what's your plan?" he suddenly asked, interrupting my thoughts.

"My plan?"

"Your revenge. The Isabelle I knew in school was sweet, romantic, and too kind to even raise her voice at anyone. I'm guessing you don't have much experience with revenge, right?"

His tone made me feel stupid, and I didn't know what to say.

"That's what I thought," he said after my silence. "I'll include a few lessons. First lesson: psychological revenge. Look, when a man leaves his wife for another woman, he can make whatever excuses he wants, but he'll never want to see his ex doing better than him. So, my dear, you're going to show up looking breathtaking in the most expensive dress my money can buy, smiling like a woman deeply in love at a dinner hosted by the richest family in town. One photo on social media, and your ex will have a complete breakdown."

The bastard was brilliant.

I had to admit it.

I didn't know if it would actually affect Carl, but I wanted it to.

Karen would definitely be furious and jealous.

She wanted the life of a millionaire heiress, and her love story with Carl made no sense. He wasn't a millionaire, even if he owned a successful company.

"All right," I said firmly. "Let's do this."