Chapter 3
Late that night, I lay in the soft guest bed, wide awake after a year on a stiff hospital mattress.
I couldn’t get comfortable.
During that year, Lewis never visited.
Not once.
Fear had eaten me alive.
I used to scream and beg the doctors and nurses, threatening to hurt myself if they didn’t let me call him.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
He never picked up.
Slowly I went numb.
And by the time I got better, I didn’t want to call him at all.
The next evening, I attended the charity gala at the estate because disappearing too early would have made Lewis suspicious.
Mia arrived wearing a white diamond necklace that cost more than most people’s houses.
As she said something to the women around her, she cut her eyes over at me.
It was a familiar look. Soft mouth, wounded voice, triumphant eyes.
A year ago, that look would have ripped me open.
This time, I only felt tired.
Lewis caught her before she could stumble, one hand firm at her waist. He turned to me with that same cold impatience he used when he thought I was being unreasonable.
“Go sit down,” he said quietly. “Don’t start.”
I almost laughed.
He still thought I was standing on the edge of some cliff, and all it would take was one more push.
The truth was, I had already fallen, hit the bottom, and crawled back up without him.
Mia leaned heavier against him. “Betty won’t mind,” she murmured, though she was very clearly speaking to me. “She knows how things are.”
I looked at her necklace. White diamonds, bloodless under the lights. Seven hundred million dollars sitting on the throat of the woman who had climbed into my bed, worn my perfume, borrowed my friend’s voice to destroy me.
Then I looked at Lewis.
He was watching me the way people watch a fuse.
Waiting to see if I would spark.
Instead I smiled.
“Of course,” I said. “Why would I mind?”
For the first time all night, both of them looked unsettled.
I turned and walked away before either of them could stop me.