The plush leather seat on the private jet molds to my ass like a dream, like it remembers me. Total comfort. The lap of luxury. I don’t have a single thing to worry about.

Except, you know, the smoking rubble that is my life.

And the fact that I desperately need a mimosa.

Up until last night, I was the brightest star in the fucking sky, in my prime, not a care in the world.

Today? I have a hangover, and not even this dreamy memory-foam seat can cure it, because I’m not suffering from something as simple as a hangover. No, what’s crippling me is a broken—and mortified—heart.

And, truth be told, this is a semi-private jet, but that’s neither here nor there.

My head throbs from overindulging on wine last night. Namely, two glasses with dinner and an entire bottle at home, not that I was keeping track. I’m not typically an aficionado of red wine—I’m more of a cocktail girl—but it was what was on hand when disaster struck.

Not once, but twice, because I’m lucky like that.

* * *

It all started during dinner with my parents. Even when I’m eighty years old, that’s where I’ll begin the story of the unraveling of my formerly perfect life.

Scene: Orchid in Hell’s Kitchen. I’m late. My parents disapprove of my tardiness. It’s the usual set-up, only this time they decide to go off-script.

I knew something was up the moment I sat down at the table.

My mother adjusted her posture, visibly straightened her back, pursed her lips, and twirled the stem of her wine glass in her slender fingers. She used to assume that position back when I was still in high school and it was time yet another family sit-down over my grades. Not that I ever failed a class, a test, anything—no, not even once. But, she’d explain in her most patient tone, colleges appreciate consistency.

“Mom, Dad.” As soon as I sat down, I’d feigned the brightest smile I could manage, because the strange mood wasn’t the only disappointment of the evening. My fiancé, Rolly, had begged off joining us for dinner, leaving me in the lurch at the last moment.

He’d called my cell phone while I stood impatiently on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, freshly dropped off by the car service. ”I’m sorry, Josephine. You know my career—”

“Your career is our future,” I’d intoned, cutting him off. “I know, babe. I’ll bring you something for dinner.”

“Text me when you’re on your way home.”

If I’d remembered to do that, I wouldn’t be on this plane right now.

When I sat down to join my parents at the table, Rolly was still on my mind. Can you believe that? I was still trying to figure out how to make his life a little brighter, right then probably by placing some five-star takeout order. I perched on the edge of my seat and shelved the debate between filet mignon and the pork tenderloin—they’re both unbelievable at Orchid, but I wanted to pick the perfect thing because Rolly loves his meat—but as soon as I saw the expression on my parents’ faces, I decided to hold off on making a decision.

“Josephine, we need to talk to you.” My father started right in with his head-of-household tone, a far cry from the always-smiling demeanor he casts at the office. At work, he makes people feel completely at ease—a handshake here, a personal comment there—and uses it to his advantage. It’s how he built Infinity Media to massive proportions, tripling the fortune he inherited from his father, a self-made man who earned his billions in the railroad business. Or maybe it was coal mining. Either way, he was loaded.

My father had reached out and was stroking my mom’s hand gently. “Let’s get it out in the open, Miriam.”

More wine glass twirling from my mother. I’d leaned farther ahead in my seat, folding my hands on the table. Three years out of college, and here I was bracing against the inevitable icy splash of cynical reality down my back. What the hell were they up to?

Dad took a deep breath. “Josephine, your mother and I have spent a long time discussing—”

“Just tell me, Dad. Put me out of my misery,” I said the words while signaling for a waiter. Wine. And lots of it. I ignored my father’s flinch.

He’d nodded, once, sharply. “We’ve decided to withdraw our support.”

The waiter, obviously sensing the thick band of tension that had settled over our little gathering like a thundercloud ready to burst, uncorked the bottle of wine near my elbow and poured a glass. “What do you mean, withdraw your support?” I looked from my mother to my father, a nervous little laugh escaping. “Mom?”

The pause quickly became awkward, as you can imagine.

“It’s not the kind of lifestyle we want to encourage,” my mother said finally, giving me a look that was equal parts sympathetic and bone-weary.

“Three months,” my father cut in. “Three months to establish your life’s direction, Josephine, or—”

“You’re cutting me off?”

“Three months,” he repeated, like those two simple words explained everything. Then he signaled for the waiter and proceeded to order pork for all of us.

* * *

I kept it together for the remainder of dinner, a smile painted on my face but acid flowing through my veins. Was I going to throw a fit right there at the table? No, because I’m an adult woman who’s moved on to a higher plane. Instead, I ordered Rolly the most expensive thing on the menu—a filet/seafood combo that costs only slightly less than our rent—and had it boxed up.

I exchanged pleasantries with my parents through the rest of the meal.

I kissed my mother’s cheek on the way out.

I didn’t stomp my foot, or scream down a dark alley on the way home. Instead, I bought a bottle of something expensive and red to go with Rolly’s dinner. He would be with me in my time of need.

In the five years we’d been together, he’d never once let me down.

* * *

How did he miss hearing the ding of the elevator? I still wonder that, even though a night and most of a day has passed since then. Wouldn’t that have clued him in that someone was on the way up? We only have two neighbors living on our floor, and both of them know us as a couple.

Knew us as a couple, anyway.

My stomach twists. I try to convince myself it’s from the hangover, but it’s a lie and I know it. It’s from constantly reliving the moment last night when the elevator doors opened and I stepped into our front hall, the bottle of wine in-hand, a smile lifting the corners of my lips, and saw my fiancé lip-locked with his executive secretary.

And here I’d thought the losing-my-inheritance portion of the evening had been bad.

I had been overcome by the sensation of ice water rushing through my veins. Then came the pounding in my head. Next thing I knew, my mouth was opening before I had time to vet the words. “Rolly?”

They’d leapt apart like the other had turned into a poisonous snake. Rolly jerked back so hard that he thwacked his head on the doorframe. Deer in headlights. Guilty, pale as a ghost faces. Rolly instinctively shifted his hand to the back of his neck. The hot white rage kindling in my gut fed on the fancy meal churning there, and bloomed.

“Josie, I—”

“Rolly, what the fuck?”

“Listen. I can explain all this.” He’d motioned between himself and the secretary as my skin burst into flame from the mortification. “I’ve been wondering for a long time if—”

“Shut up!” I’d hissed, squeezing my eyes shut to avoid looking at the shambles of my life, and then forcing them open again. “Shut up, Rolly. Give me a fucking second to think.” Nothing came to mind except, ”Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, this is a thousand times worse than I thought it would be.” A weight settled on my shoulders like an anvil, like I was a cartoon character being pushed off the side of a cliff.

With all the strength I could muster, I lifted my chin, and looked his secretary in the eye. “Steve, I think it’d be best if you left.”

* * *

The stewardess glides back toward my seat, her heels silent on the carpeted floor of the jet. I jerk my head up in time to look like a weird heiress marionette, and I swear, the corner of her mouth twitches. She must know. Somehow, even though this flight crew is fresh off a long layover, she must have heard about what happened to me. She leans in, even though there’s nobody to overhear. “Can I…get you anything, Miss Paxton?”

“You don’t happen to have a new life in the beverage cart, do you?” I laugh, too loudly. I make a silent vow to myself that this is the last time I’m going to be so embarrassed about this. I will make a plan while I’m on the island. I will.

The Stepford Wife-like stewardess hardly blinks.

I sink down into my seat. “A mimosa,” I tell her with a sigh. The memory foam seat gives my ass a commiserating squeeze. “A mimosa would be great.”