slammed behind her.
“Do you know my cousin?” Morticia asked me in confusion.
“Sarah is your cousin?” I was caught between my need to show Morticia that I cared about her and my need for closure with Sarah. “I’ll be right back,” I stammered. “Just wait for me, okay? I’ll explain.”
I raced to the elevator, hoping to beat Sarah downstairs. She was just exiting the stairwell as the doors opened at the lobby.
“Sarah!” I yelled.
She was sobbing. “You said you were going to love me forever,” she said accusingly.
“You left,” I reminded her, trying to figure out where to put my hands.
Sarah was here. I had dreamed about this moment for years after she had left. I didn’t think I had even gotten over her leaving. Periodically, when I had a magazine article or a big marketing push, I had wondered if she would see it and think of me.
But lately, I hadn’t thought of her at all. Morticia had been the one on my mind.
“You were supposed to wait for me.” Sarah sniffled, taking a few steps over to me and resting against my chest. “Why are you with her?”
“Morticia?”
“You cheated on me,” Sarah yelled around the sobs.
I was speechless. “You left. It’s been years. How is that cheating?”
“It’s emotional cheating,” she insisted.
Impossibly high platform heels clacked on the polished concrete floor behind me.
“I thought that was you,” Keeley snapped. “When I saw you with your holier-than-thou attitude walking piously down the street, I knew you were up to something.”
Sarah sobbing in my arms, Keeley yelling at her—it was too early in the morning for me to deal with hysterical women.
The elevator dinged. Morticia walked out, looked around, and slowly returned into the elevator.
“No, don’t leave,” I begged her, disentangling Sarah then running and hauling Morticia back into the lobby.
“You’re sleeping with him?” Keeley screeched.
“She stole the love of my life. You had no right to sleep with my husband-to-be!” Sarah screamed at Morticia.
“Oh, this is rich,” Keeley exclaimed gleefully. “You slept with Jonathan after all the shit you gave me about sleeping with Trevor. Morticia, you’re a dirty fucking hypocrite.”
“Sleeping with Jonathan is not the same as sleeping with Trevor,” Morticia said, lip curling up to reveal sharp teeth. “I do have standards.”
“Who the fuck is Trevor?” I yelled.
The women looked at me.
“Sarah’s husband,” Keeley said impatiently.
“That you slept with on her wedding night,” Morticia shot back.
“That’s not as bad as you! You’re cheating on the bake-off contest!” Keeley yelled, launching herself at Morticia.
She took out a Taser and brandished it at her cousin.
“Sarah, you left me,” I said slowly, “to marry some guy named Trevor?”
Sarah dabbed her eyes.
Keeley smirked. “Sarah, Sarah, you dirty little lying slut; you had everyone convinced you were a virgin!”
“I am a virgin,” Sarah insisted.
“No, you’re not,” I retorted.
I was worried what Morticia would think of me now that she knew Sarah was the former love of my life. I chanced a glance at Morticia. She didn’t seem as if she cared. I didn’t know if I was hurt or relieved.
You were only with her to win that property.
Yes, but after last night…
It’s for the best if she doesn’t like you, I assured myself. Especially if Sarah is her cousin. Morticia would probably also just run off in the middle of the night.
“Jonathan says you two did it,” Keeley exclaimed. “Though I’m sure it wasn’t that good.”
It hadn’t been that great now that I thought back on it. I had been young, and Sarah had clearly had some mental hang-ups. Hindsight was probably making things a lot better than they actually had been.
“I’m a virgin now,” Sarah insisted. “I performed a purity ceremony and took a vow.”
“Did you sew your hymen back on?” Morticia asked, one black eyebrow raised.
“Why?” I asked Sarah. “Why did you leave?”
“Because,” she spat, “you refused to do what I wanted you to do. You and I were supposed to go live in the woods on a homestead and have twenty children, and I told you that’s what I wanted. You promised you would, but then you decided to start that hedge fund and go to all those parties.”
I frowned. “I told you I had to attend those events for networking. I invited you. I bought you nice dresses.”
“I didn’t want to go!” She stamped her foot. “I wanted you to stay home with me. You never did what I wanted.”
“I was trying to make money to support us!” I said incredulously. “One of us had to work.”
“I didn’t want you