I’m just trying to get you home in one piece,” he said.
“I have a life…here. I have a rep-u-ta-tion. Don’t ruin this. I’ll run out of places where I can start over.”
He turned into her driveway and pulled to a stop. “I’m not trying to ruin anything, TK. I came to Florida for a lot of reasons, and none of them involved exacting some kind of retribution on you for deserting me.”
“I did not desert you. I divorced you, because…” She stopped squinting, opened her eyes and made sure their gazes connected.
She focused carefully on what she was about to say. “Because I believed everything that was said about you. And I still do. I was there, CJ. The signs were all around me, only I was too young and stupid to pay attention. But some of those friends of yours…weren’t as presentable as your cockroach buddy, and not nearly as safe to be with.”
“A good businessman doesn’t turn his back on contacts who can help him. And yes, some were questionable, but nothing that I did was. Except trust the wrong people a few times too many, and not move quickly enough to shore up everything when I got the first whiff I was going to be investigated.”
“There was more to it.” She nodded forcefully and quickly wished she hadn’t. “And that’s the man I divorced. That CJ. The one who used people. The one who used me because I was so obli—oblivious to what he was doing.”
“I think you need a good night’s sleep.” CJ opened his door, but she grabbed his arm.
“Don’t get out!”
“I’m just going to help you to the door.”
“Don’t…bother.” She gathered her purse and shawl, and managed to get herself out of the car with only a smidgen of difficulty. “I’m fine. Thanks for the ride.”
He looked skeptical. “I’m going to sit here until you get to the door. Just to be sure you can.”
She didn’t even look back—afraid that turning her head might bring on a wave of dizziness. She walked toward her door in something approximating a straight line. When she finally got there, she heard the engine turn over, then the sound of gravel crunching under his tires, and finally the sound of the Aston Martin disappearing down the road.
She sighed and opened her purse. And that was when she realized that the yacht club valet not only had her car, he had her keys, including her house key.
Janya’s house smelled like Rishi’s favorite paneer jalfrazi. It was too bad he had not bothered to come home to eat it. It was also too bad that he had not thought to call her and tell her he would not be home. After turning down her request to go away together for the weekend, as Wanda had suggested, he had promised a whole evening together. That was to be his compromise.
A compromise that was never enacted.
She had cleaned up the kitchen long ago, and Rishi’s portion of dinner had gone out to the garbage, where she would not have to look at it and be reminded of her abandonment.
She was just getting into her nightgown when she heard a scuffling noise at the front door. She suspected Rishi had finally made his way home, but when no key turned in the lock, she went to the door and flipped on the light, peeking through the side window to see who was there.
Tracy stared back at her.
Janya unlocked and opened the door. “Is anything wrong?”
Tracy had one hand pressed against the wall beside the door, as if to prop herself up. “Alice…has my extra key. She’s…not home.”
“She and Olivia took the bus up north to see Lee.”
Tracy nodded just a fraction. “That’s right.”
“You don’t have yours?”
Tracy shook her head—again, just a fraction.
“Come in. Why are we talking on the porch?”
“I had…no place else to go. I couldn’t go to Wanda’s. She would never let me forget this.”
“You are always welcome here.” Janya opened the door wider and put her hand on Tracy’s arm.
“I…had a bit too much to drink. I left my car at the yacht club.”
“I suspected. About the drinking, I mean. Can you make it inside?”
“Yes. I didn’t have…that much.”
Janya still didn’t let go of her friend’s arm. “You must need a place to sleep tonight.”
“If it’s not too much trouble. Alice will be home by morning. Right?”
“Their bus gets in very late tonight.”
“I can sleep on your sofa.”
“No.” Janya had already figured out the solution to both their problems. “There