The Stranger

When I woke to my phone ringing just after 5 am on a Sunday—my only day off—it was safe to say I wasn’t impressed. I answered the call with an abrupt, “What!” The audible gasp and berating that followed had me grumbling, “Someone better be dead, Mother.”

“After the relationship status you were tagged in on Facebook, no less, I very well could be,” was her reply.

Relationship status?

With who?

I immediately clicked on the app, only to find it was true.

Delilah St. James had one of those faces that was hard to forget, and I knew I’d never laid eyes on this pretty blonde with beautiful blue eyes before.

I could’ve let my assistant, PR company, or my lawyer deal with it, but against my better judgement, I clicked on the Messenger app.

“Do I know you?” I typed.



When my sister decided to post photos of her—on what was supposed to be my honeymoon—with my ex-fiancé on social media, I did something reckless and impulsive. I tagged her long-time crush, Spencer Prescott, in a fake relationship post. The last thing I expected was for him to reach out.

I apologised profusely and told him I’d take it down immediately, briefly explaining why I had done it, and he replied with something unexpected.

“Leave it up. What can it hurt?”

Minutes later, I got a friend request from his mother … immediately inviting me to brunch. I only agreed to go, so I could tell her the truth to her face.

What happened next was a domino effect that would change the course of all our lives.