“So…” Darcy licks her lips. “I’ve heard great things about the desserts here.”
Ray looks at her fondly, and I laugh have to at her enthusiasm even as I stand up. “Excuse me. I need to visit the ladies’ room.”
A server lets me know that the restrooms are on the first level. I hurry down. Maybe I shouldn’t have had so much wine, but it was impossible to turn down such great vintages. The bathroom stalls are individually done with those fancy Japanese bidets. The warmed seats feel like heaven.
After I’m finished, I wash my hands, freshen my makeup and exit. I walk down the long corridor and into the main dining area, where I almost bump into a woman coming the other way. “Sorry.”
“Excuse m— Wait. What is this? Why are you here?”
I stiffen at the tone. “Hello, Elle. Fancy running into you again.”
Her gaze rakes me up and down. “Do you…work here now?”
“Actually, I’m here to have dinner.” I note with catty satisfaction that my dress is made of finer material than hers. Last time we ran into each other, she acted as
though I was the hired help, beneath notice. “In the loft.”
“Are you now? Well, I see you’re playing this game far better than your mother. Did you snag someone who spends money on you? I hope he’s not secretly married…”
I inhale sharply. The way my father treated Mom will always be a source of raw pain.
“You should’ve never been born,” Elle continues. “People like you absolutely ruin it for the quality folk. If it weren’t for you, Dad would’ve never stayed so long with your pathetic mother.”
“Don’t you dare talk about my mother that way.”
“Why? Does the truth hurt?” Elle smirks. “And it is all true. My mother told me everything. God, how stupid was your mom to think Dad could be a blue-collar worker? I mean, really. He had a banker’s hands.”
“Why are you so hateful, Elle? What did I ever do to you?”
“You keep running into me, for one. So embarrassing it is to have someone like you in my past. Do us both a favor and take your cut-rate boyfriend and get out of L.A., Ava. Please.”
Fury and humiliation choke me, and I can’t think of a clever comeback. All I can do is clench my hands so Elle doesn’t see how badly they’re shaking.
“There you are, Ava.”
Lucas. He slips an arm around my waist and pulls me closer. He turns to my half-sister, his face a hard mask. Apparently he heard her last line. “You are…?”
“Elle,” she says, cataloguing his clothes. Lucas’s outfit is simple, but impeccably tailored in superb material. Her gaze takes in the Rolex on his wrist, the two-thousand-dollar shoes.
“You’re the reason a word like cunt exists.”
She gasps, and so do I. I’ve never heard him speak so brutally before.
“Who do you think you are?” she says.
Before Lucas can answer, a man comes over. It’s her fiancé, whose picture I saw when I got the Google alert about her engagement. “Sweetheart, you were gone for so long I thought you’d gone on safar— Lucas! Good to see you.”
“Hello, Cedric.” Lucas’s voice is ice smooth. “Do you know this woman?”
“I do, in fact. She’s my fiancée.”
“I see.” Lucas smiles. “Normally I’d offer congratulations, but in this case I’m sorry to hear you’re marrying a vicious, ill-mannered shrew who sees nothing wrong with harassing another woman.”
Cedric pulls back, his eyebrows almost hitting his hairline. “Excuse me?”
“I had to intervene when I noticed your fiancée was verbally abusing Ava here.” Lucas pulls my hand up and kisses the back of it with his eyes on both Cedric and Elle. “Perhaps you should ask her who gave her the right to behave so abominably to the woman I intend to marry…so we all can be enlightened.”
“Cedric, how can you let him talk to me like th—”