The other woman gave a happy nod. “Party turned out great, it looks like. I know everyone’s pleased.”
“Everyone?” Marlys only spoke because it seemed to help her keep breathing. Dean. Oh, God. Dean.
“The sisters. Well, half sisters, I guess is more accurate. They’re donor siblings, all products of the same sperm-donor father but different mothers who used the same fertility clinic.”
“Oh.” Closing her eyes, she thought of his face, those clean-edged features, the clear eyes that had seen into the soul she’d not been sure she had until him. Dean.
“I was the one who kind of spilled the beans to Nikki that she was related to Cassandra. I didn’t realize she was at Knitters’ Night, and I didn’t know that while Cassandra had located one of her sisters, she hadn’t told her right away they were related. But all’s well that ends well, right?”
“Right.” It wasn’t going to end well for her though, was it?
“The story gets even better,” Oomfaa said, bending closer to Marlys. “I overheard Cassandra talking about their biological father. He was a medical student when he was a sperm donor. You’ll never guess who’s the father of Cassandra, Nikki, and Juliet.”
“Who?” she repeated obligingly. “Who’s the father of Cassandra, Nikki, and—” Juliet?
“Dr. Frank Tucker,” Oomfaa whispered. “You know. They call him Dr. Tuck on that show.”
Marlys did know. Dr. Frank Tucker, who was called simply Dr. Tuck on the reality TV show he starred in, Fountain of Youth, was one of the most eminent plastic surgeons in the country. He was Juliet’s father? Juliet had sisters?
Something spilled into Marlys’s chest from her new wound. It felt bitter and raw, like bile, and if it had a color she knew it would be an acid, ugly green. Juliet, the Deal Breaker, the Happy Widow, the woman who had taken Marlys’s father from her and left her with nothing, now had her very own father, her very own family.
Before Marlys, the crowd parted, and there stood Juliet, in front of a blowup of General Wayne Weston. Noah stood close to her side, and Marlys noticed that while their shoulders remained a discreet distance apart, the backs of their hands were touching.
More poison leaked around her heart.
As she watched, two women closed in on the couple. One had a river of rippling brown hair and wore a beautiful, lacy, obviously hand-knit sweater. Cassandra, Marlys guessed. The other woman, who had shoulder-length, gold-streaked brown hair, glanced around the room. Her eyes were that same bicolor as Juliet’s and she waved at a man standing nearby with a cup of coffee. Marlys recognized Jay Buchanan, well-known L.A. bachelor. Engaged to Nikki, Oomfaa had said.
So now she could identify them. Cassandra and Nikki, the two women who were supposed to be her friends, but who were instead Juliet’s sisters. The chef said something, and Juliet laughed.
More acid leaked, burning inside Marlys’s belly and fertilizing another ugly emotion growing inside of her. Two others approached the sisters, obviously a reporter and photographer. Without saying a word to Oomfaa, Marlys advanced on the group as the rest of the world fell away.
It was only the press she saw, the press who seemed less interested in Marlys’s father, the general, a true hero, than the treacherous woman who’d married him. It was the press Marlys focused on, and also on the woman who now had a happy, supportive family and an adoring new lover. Her father’s aide.
She heard the reporter say, “If I could ask another question, Mrs. Weston?”
And Marlys remembered she’d come tonight with questions, too, and they’d all been answered except for one that she’d never dared utter before, not even in the ear of her source at the tabloids. It came out of her mouth, though it wasn’t much more than a whisper.
“Juliet, did you have something to do with my father’s death?”
Noah’s head turned at the sound of Marlys’s voice. What the hell had she just said? She stood just outside their small circle of people—reporter, photographer, the three sisters, and himself. The majority of the launch party attendees had gone, but there were still a dozen or so left, enjoying the food or in line to buy the general’s book. Juliet had handled the crowd like a pro, even taking on the most cutting press questions with unflappable cool.
A few media members continued to hang around—those standing beside them, and another photographer that Noah just now spied, tucked near a beverage urn. He recognized the rat—that damn paparazzo he’d caught sneaking around Juliet’s pool weeks ago.
Torn between throwing that guy out and not wanting to leave Juliet’s side, he was still standing there when Marlys raised her voice and repeated her question for everyone’s ears.