Chapter 1 - The Ten-Year Trap
The rotor blades of the sleek private helicopter beat against the heavy Ohio air, kicking up a furious cloud of dust, grass, and old memories across the Cedar Ridge High School football field. Beneath the white canopy, champagne flutes stopped mid-air. Selena Hart’s meticulously styled blonde hair whipped across her face, completely ruining her planned reaction, while Derek Calloway shielded his eyes with both hands, his jaw slack in sheer disbelief.
Ten minutes earlier, they had been laughing. They had been standing around folding tables lined with faded senior portraits, mocking the girl who used to wear shoes until the soles separated, the girl they had cruelly lured back with a fake reunion invite just to watch her squirm. Selena had poured champagne, Derek had made his smug joke about delivery vans, and they had all basked in the comforting illusion that time stood still, that they were still seventeen and at the top of the social food chain.
Now, the heavy cabin door of the twin-engine aircraft swung open.
A polished leather heel stepped down onto the retractable metal stairs. Then came the tailored midnight-blue pantsuit, sharp as a razor, followed by a woman wearing oversized designer sunglasses that hid half her face. She didn’t look like the girl who carried her textbooks in a backpack repaired with black electrical tape. She looked like someone who bought companies for breakfast.
“Is that… is that Mara?” Noah whispered, his voice trembling as he lowered his history teacher’s notepad.
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Jasmine Cole, standing beside him, let out a slow, victorious smile. “I told you guys she wasn’t coming to manage a bakery.”
Mara Bennett paused on the top step of the stairs, adjusting her cuffs. She looked out over the stunned crowd of two hundred former classmates who had gathered to gloat. The silence was absolute, broken only by the slowing whine of the turbine engines and the sudden, terrifying realization settling into Selena’s chest: the joke was no longer on Mara. It was on all of them.
