Yes, she made sure to divorce me. That way her wealth was walled off. No one could ever get at it. Wishing me dead was not enough.
She locks on me with laser focus, raising one eyebrow. Her hair is still silvery white, framing her face in movie star curls. She stands tall and straight as a splinter in her glittering silver gown before beginning to walk slowly toward me.
I had often asked myself what would happen if I ever saw her again. How would I feel? Would I ache for her? Certainly I adored her. When we first met, I think it’s fair to say that she enchanted me. Barely out of law school, I was supposed to be setting up my own practice. My father expected me to help out with the family business, of course. With a brief background in business management from Wharton, law was the next logical step. I was perfectly poised to take our company into the next century and beyond.
But Whitney took over my life. Every thought was about her from the day that I met her.
Over the years, I’ve considered the possibility that I would step right back into that habit of being in love with her. Old flames never really die, I reasoned. Given a little oxygen, maybe it would set me on fire all over again.
But now, confronted with her, I don’t feel any heat at all. She is a shiver in my soul, a barren landscape of ice.
With one hand on her hip, I know that she is standing there, waiting to be appreciated. A man sidles up slowly behind her, his sneer imperious. His eyebrows are sculpted and his skin is so smooth I can only assume that my wealth has paid for a good deal of cosmetic enhancement to this person.
When he takes her hand as if to assert his privilege over her, this woman I used to call my wife, I still don’t feel anything. Not even a twinge of jealousy.
Out of the corner of my eye, all I can still see is Lola. Whitney might as well be a piece of ice floating in my drink. She’s nothing.
The bartender slides my drink toward me and grimaces sympathetically. I down the bourbon in one burning gulp and turned toward her, standing and straightening my cuffs.
“Well, look at you,” she sighs in a voice that sounds like ice cracking. “You don’t look like you’ve been dead for more than a week!”
“Neither do you, dear,” I smile and then walk away, leaving her standing there.
Chapter 17
Lola
I do not know what I imagined, but this is definitely not it. I mean, I guess I had a picture in my mind’s eye of walking into a party filled with literary agents, celebrities, and paparazzi, surrounded by five of the most handsome men anyone has ever seen. I did imagine that part. But then… What did I think was going to happen next?
Did I imagine Carty sulking at the bar? No. Did I imagine Jake standing over everyone like a sergeant-at-arms or something? No. Did I imagine Liam and Kill immediately drinking shots like a couple of frat boys?
That part, okay, I did imagine that.
But truthfully, I imagined us all together. Like a unified front. Like a force of nature. That’s the way we’ve been for weeks. I hadn’t realized how much I had gotten accustomed to the ebb and flow of their individual moods, their needs, their attitudes. I hadn’t realized just how in sync we had all become until just now, when we got dropped into the middle of this infernal, idiotic party.
“Oh my God, isn’t this amazing,” Nance coos in my ear, grinning maniacally.
“Oh, it is definitely something,” I answer uncertainly.
She grabs a champagne flute off a passing tray and presses it into my hand. Though she is speaking to me, she has not looked at me even once.
“Okay… That is Judd Apatow over there, I am absolutely certain,” she breathes.
“I know who Judd Apatow is," I assure her. “I’ve only been gone for a few weeks, Nance.”
She raises an eyebrow, finally looking at me from top to bottom, as though she has never seen me before. Her eyes narrow as she appraises my dress and obviously understands it’s a custom piece, probably costing more than her car.
“A few weeks? Is that all it was?” she wonders aloud. “It seems longer. You sure got a lot of work done!”
“Yeah, well, I had a really good story,” I answer, unable to keep the sour edge out of my voice.
Some part of me knows that even though the guys came along willingly, I may have done a bad thing. Looking at them trying to mingle in this crowd right now, looking like fish out of water, I feel terrible. Why did I do this to them? Why did I let Nance talk me into this awful party? Couldn’t we have simply arranged some other way?
“This is awful,” I blurt out.
“This is amazing!” Nance objects, letting her voice carry and her mouth fall open. “There are three hundred people here who want to talk to you! Has that ever happened to you in your whole life?”
“Thankfully, no,” I answer sarcastically.