the front page of Tea Time, Teasdale’s one and only daily paper. Inhaling deeply, she caught the scent of seafood and candle wax as she tried to calm herself.
But she failed because he’d started talking over her again, and that she wouldn’t tolerate. “Excuse me, Eddie.” She used some emphasis of her own and put as much attitude in her voice as she could muster. That shut him up and had his beady eyes bulging from behind his wire-rim glasses. What had she ever seen in this guy? Why had her mother ever introduced them?
“Let’s get a few things straight,” she said, and stood abruptly. Silence descended in the restaurant for the second time in two minutes. “I would never marry you, you pompous ass, if you had ever bothered to ask instead of just wrongly assuming. I do not have my shop as some kind of hobby until some schmuck like you comes along and whisks me away in your boring, brown, four-door sedan. And last but by no means least, you need to get hair plugs that actually cover all of your bald spot. No one has an inch strip of baldness above their ears.”
She threw her napkin on the table and stalked away from the idiot she’d wasted the last three months of her life on. The shush of her flats on the polished wood floors echoed in the stillness of the upscale establishment.
She was throwing away these damn shoes as soon as she got home.
She was done with the guy who thought she was some kind of useful decoration, like a chair you set up next to the door to hold your coat. The next time she saw her mother, she was going to ask her what on earth she’d been thinking when she set Claudia up with this idiot. In the meantime, Claudia had to ask herself why she had stayed so long with someone who did nothing for her.
Exiting the restaurant, she pointed herself toward home. Dammit, Zoe had been right about more than just the bad hair. He was a jerk and not worth her time. Where was her cake? A part of her wanted to find out what it was like to be with a man who wanted her for her. She hadn’t been with anyone like that in years, since high school and Justin’s father, Peter, if she were honest. And apparently she was being honest right now.
She was honest enough to admit she wanted cake with all the icing. Honest enough to listen to her sweet tooth singing.
Walking the few short blocks home, she pulled her wrap a little tighter around her shoulders. It might be April on the calendar, but the air was cooler than normal, especially after the above-average heat of the day. At least she’d been able to make her dramatic exit without tripping over anything or needing to figure out how to get home. Teasdale had its drawbacks, but you couldn’t fault a town where you could pretty much walk from any point to your house. It certainly suited her just fine this evening.
And she still had several hours stretched out in front of her. Justin would be disappointed if she picked him up from Nate’s too early. She’d had brief thoughts of ending up in bed with Edward this evening, since that’s where things were probably heading after the amount of time they’d spent together. But now she was glad she didn’t have to expend the energy for so little payoff. Ha! Talk about three-day-old cookies! With Edward it was probably better done in the dark, with the covers up, and when she was half-asleep. She’d have bet her best whisk that there was almost no reason for her to be there except as a substitute for a hole in the mattress.
But she wasn’t going to go there right now, since she wouldn’t have to deal with it ever again. Well, something good had come of this whole mess then, hadn’t it?
A brisk wind picked up as she rounded the last corner on her way home. Discreet security lights glowed from behind the large windows fronting Decadence. One of her mom’s original wedding dress designs stood in the near window, a wonder of lace and satin and white tulle draped over a high-backed chair as if patiently waiting for the bride to come in with her entourage and get ready for her special day. The dress was timeless and had lain there for the last