PAYBACK IS A BITCH

Chapter one: Why women kill

So that is a picture of me up there. Now, I will introduce myself properly.

Isla Reinhardt is thirty, married with three kids and a husband. We have been married for ten years, and I will tell you a brief tale of how we met.

I am a small-town girl, innocent, naive, very trusting, and a Christian. I hadn't had many dealings with men before I met Billy.

I had just finished college in a community college near our town because my parents didn't want me to go far, as they didn't trust the city. It was a den of sin, filled with decadence and immorality, and they feared me getting corrupt and taking away from my faith.

I was a very obedient girl and did everything my parents wanted. I never gave them trouble. There were no parties, drinking, or sneaking out of the house.

Our little town wasn't very excited anyway, so I was safe.

Like I said, I had just graduated from college and moved back home to teach at my old high school.

My parents were glad to have me back, but it didn't take long to start discussing marriage and marriage prospects. They wanted me to find a good church boy and settle down. It didn't matter to them that I was a little young, at twenty, thinking of marriage.

Every girl I attended school with was married and had a second child. I didn't want that kind of life, and none of the boys in our small town aroused any spark in me.

I believed something was wrong with me because I didn't feel anything for all seventeen of the suitors my mother had set me up with. That is until Billy...

The day we met was like every other day. It was boring and monotonous, but it was also beautiful and sunny.

I had gone to the grocery store to get things for dinner, as the pantry and fridge had run empty. I turned from the aisle where I had just picked up the milk when I crashed into someone.

I am as skinny as a rail, fighting tooth and nail to put on weight, but it never happened. So when I crashed into this hard surface, I fell to my ass, and there was nothing graceful about my fall.

I moaned in pain and looked up to scream at the blind person, not watching where they were going, but the words got stuck in my throat as my green eyes beheld the most gorgeous face I had ever seen.

No, I have only seen it on the cover of magazines or in the movies.

I could only gawk as my heart fluttered like a hummingbird in my chest.

Here is a man I will willingly follow to the end of the earth.

"Are you alright, Miss?"

I do not know how often he said the words before they penetrated the fog I was locked in.

I flushed bright red when I realised how much I was staring. "Pardon me." I tried to rise from the ground, but he quickly offered his hand.

I laid mine on it, and the sparks felt like a live wire near water.

"Apology is mine to offer," he said with a charming smile and twinkling blue eyes, and there and there, I lost my heart for him.

Long story short, Billy wined and dined me into marriage within three months of his arrival in town. He was a real estate agent who had come into town to purchase a property. He was ten years older than me, but who was counting? I was in love; nothing else mattered.

Ten years later, we live in our home with three kids afoot. Billy is doing so well in his career that he started his own real estate business, and I am doing everything I can to support him and take care of our kids.