Lexi covered her face with her hands. “Oh God, you’re right,” she sniffled through her fingers. “I’m a total pushover. Just like my mom. A man shows the slightest bit of interest and I drop everything to please him—even my family. What kind of person does that?”
“A person who doesn’t want to give up on someone because she knows what it feels like to be walked away from,” Abby said, licking the top off one of Pricilla’s passion-fruit-and-pineapple petits fours. “Don’t give up, Lex. Don’t let him win.”
Abby leaned in and dropped her voice. “Do you remember that time we went skinny-dipping?”
Lexi did remember. It had been a few months after Abby’s parents died. “Jeffery was so mad when he found out. He never believed me when I told him that I didn’t really want to do it.”
“I knew you didn’t. You’re way too uptight for that.” Abby ignored Lexi’s protest and continued, “But I did. And you knew it. You also knew that the only way I would ever get in a car again after the accident was if it meant doing something wild and irresponsible. So you stole your grandmother’s car, picked me up, and we went skinny-dipping in the lake.”
Lexi gave a chuckle. “I kept my underwear on, and we broke into Mr. Patterson’s pool because you couldn’t wait to get to the lake. Thank God he didn’t report us.”
“He lived on Lake Drive, and if you hadn’t been laughing so hard he would have never caught us.” Abby went serious. “The point is, we did it together. I got over my fear of cars, and you did something crazy, like grand larceny and showing some skin in public, a totally unvaledictorian thing to do.”
Lexi shifted in her seat, mushed a piece of icing with her fingertip, and waited for Abby to go on.
Abby sat back, arms folded, a cocky smile curving at her lips.
“Wait?” Lexi said, wiping at her tears. “That’s your big plan: go skinny-dipping?”
Abby nodded. “Our plan is to go big. Together. We go forward with the new kitchen. And by we, I mean that I will handle most of the remodel while you cater your way to a full grand opening. By next year you’ll have a bistro, a new menu, customers, and Jeffery doesn’t win.”
Abby looked at her expectantly. What she’d outlined was not only plausible, it was brilliant.
“Think about it, Lex. You get the chance to reinvent yourself. Your life, your cooking, your career, everything would get a clean slate. You can be Alexis Moreau instead of Lexi Balldinger.”
Lexi had been Mrs. Balldinger for so long, she was afraid that Alexis Moreau no longer existed. Or worse, what if she didn’t recognize her? But the idea of rediscovering that girl who loved to laugh and cook and had dreams, big dreams, was less terrifying than living the rest of her life as a failed Balldinger.
“All right, I’m in. I’ll go big”—Lexi threw air quotes around the last two words—“if you agree to file for divorce.”
“What?”
“If I have to spend the next six months alternating between dating and cater—” She shivered, unable to finish the sentence. “If I have to win, so do you, and that means flipping Richard the finger and taking your life back.”
Her friend’s face went completely white.
She placed a comforting hand on Abby’s shoulder. “I’m sorry that the bank account in the Caymans turned out to be a dead end. I know how badly you needed this to be over so you could move on. And I get it, divorce by publication would mean that you would have to put an ad in the local paper stating what a bastard he is and that he walked out, but at least you could finally start over. Maybe even go out on a date.”
“A date?” Abby snorted. “He’d better not scare easily.”
A big part of the reason Abby had fallen for Richard was that he was the first guy her brothers didn’t threaten, maim, or scare away.
“Fine.” She flapped her hand nonchalantly. “You find me a man who can handle the DeLuca four, and I’ll go on that date.”
It was a lie, and they both knew it. Abby wasn’t only a Roman Catholic, she was also a DeLuca, which meant that she, just like her brothers, took their vows seriously. Oh, the DeLuca men didn’t live like monks in any sense of the word, but the moment they found the one, it would be forever. Of that,