the guy, a friend of a friend of Lita’s, had been… insistent. At the last second, I’d bailed. And he’d died.
Lita had done this. All of it. I’d known it the second I saw the photo.
Derek’s pointed questions about trust. Jane’s snide comments about Lita. Was I the only one who was surprised by the betrayal?
But what was Derek’s role in it all?
I couldn’t picture him with her. Couldn’t see him falling for her wiles. He had his own, and he’d wielded them on me. Somehow, in a way that made no logical sense, I still didn’t doubt his feelings for me.
But he’d gone behind my back. He’d put himself in a situation that forced the doubt. And again had told me nothing.
I’d surrounded myself with too many people who didn’t love me, didn’t have my best interests at heart. And that was the price I was paying.
But I was finished with that mistake. And now that the purge had begun, I was ready for more. Rock bottom was nothing but a foundation. And I would rebuild. But this time, it would be the life that I wanted.
I tapped the notecard against my palm, debating.
“Screw it,” I sighed to the dark. I slipped my thumb under the fold and ripped it open.
Emily,
We still have business. Tell me what you want.
Love,
Derek
Of course, it wasn’t an apology or even a plea to explain. That wasn’t Derek Price’s style. This was a reminder that we weren’t done yet.
“Boof.” A dark shape lumbered toward me.
“Jesus, Brutus! Don’t you ever sleep in your own house?” I asked as the St. Bernard wandered into the room and climbed up on the bed.
I had work to do. I flopped down on the mattress next to the zip-code-sized dog and reached for the phone. It was time to wake some people up.
“Jenny?” I said when my attorney picked up on the second ring.
“Tell me what I can do,” she announced briskly.
“How are you even awake right now? It’s two in the morning.”
“I’m on my seventh cappuccino. I’ve got nine cease and desists with threatening legalese drafted and ready for business tomorrow. Then I started the defamation filings just for something to do. I also spent twenty minutes scaring the shit out of that Nina Nowak into spilling everything after Jane and Derek tracked her down. You?” Her words were flying out in an over-caffeinated explosion.
“Yeah. About that. Are you up for a few more legal maneuvers tonight?”
“Fuck yes. I’m ready to legally rearrange some people’s faces. Unleash me!”
“This could be seen as conflict of interest seeing as how I’m being ousted,” I reminded her.
“I’ve been warming up my middle fingers for my departure tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to leave the company just because I do.”
“Emily, I believe in you. Not some name on a letterhead. And certainly not some snively, money-grubbing board of weasels. Where you go, I go.”
“In that case, I’m going to have an in-house counsel position opening up in a new venture if you’re interested—”
“Dibs! Mine! Gimmie!”
“Jenny, maybe you should drink some water or something?”
Two hours later, I tiptoed out of the guest wing into the main living space. Luna’s living room was a shrine to all things shiny, Eastern, and yoga. Architectural Digest had been begging for a photo shoot for years. But Luna stood firm in her belief that a home should only be shared with love.
Daisy was snoring on the couch. Her life vest slung over a rattan chair. An empty bottle of cheap pink champagne rested on its side on a cloud-like vegan wool rug.
Love.
Daisy and the rest of the girls had dropped everything. For me. There was no inconvenience. Nothing required in return. Because we loved each other.
Small, strong circles.
I drew an alpaca blanket over her and hastily scrawled a note on Luna’s recycled house stationery, leaving it on the coffee maker where someone would be sure to find it.
46
Emily
It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to break into Derek’s condo in the middle of the night. The front desk attendant, an unfairly chipper woman at four a.m., greeted me by name as I slunk into the lobby.
“Ms. Stanton, so nice to see you!” Adhering to the propriety code of people who served the scandalous, she politely did not mention my public disgrace.
I appreciated it.
Her name tag said Kimmy, and she shimmied back and forth on her stool like a kid who couldn’t sit still.
“Hi, Kimmy,” I said, leaning on the desk. “I forgot my key to Mr.