Confidential(91)

“That’s going to be his downfall,” Flora said. “He underestimated all of us.”

I almost contradicted her; he had never underestimated me, but then, he was getting $100,000 out of me. Lucinda had been seeing him pro bono. Was that part of how he justified what was happening between them?

What she said happened between them. It was her word against his, and I would let him have his day in court. I’d hear him out.

Flora was on a diatribe about how Michael should pay, that he was the devil incarnate. Then Lucinda joined in, and there it was again, that glow from earlier. She was incandescent with righteous anger. In a sick way, they were both enjoying this.

Well, no one had taken advantage of me. I’d propositioned him. I had always owned my own power, and I had nothing in common with these women.

They were both watching me. It was supposed to be my turn. “I’m so sorry for what you’ve both been through,” I said, “but it doesn’t really have anything to do with me.”

“Then why are you here?” Flora said, her eyes blazing, and Lucinda was looking at me with venom, too. Maybe they’d simultaneously had the thought that I could be a spy for Michael. I was the traitor in their midst.

“Did he try to have sex with you?” Lucinda said it accusingly. Really, she was accusing me of not having had sex with him.

“I told Flora when she first accosted me that Michael and I never had sex.”

They could never know that I’d had his sperm. With the way they felt about Michael, who knew what they might do with that information? They could decide to harm my baby with the justification that the world would be better off without Michael’s spawn.

They didn’t know who they were dealing with, what I’d sacrifice, how far I’d go in the name of protection. I was already a mother.

Flora and Lucinda hadn’t moved a muscle, yet it seemed like they’d drawn together, closed ranks against me. They thought I just came here for the gossip. Let them think that. They couldn’t know that I had a vested interest.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I wish I could help you.”

They wore identical frowns and glares. I hadn’t meant it as patronizing as it came out. There was no graceful exit. I stood, dropping money on the table, more than enough to pay for all of us.

“Is this just a game to you?” Lucy asked.

“No,” I said, “it’s most certainly not a game.”

It was my baby’s lineage we were talking about, my baby’s life, because genes were destiny, weren’t they?

No, they couldn’t be. Because if that were true, I’d have as little to give my child as my parents had given me, and there was no way. I couldn’t let that be true. Couldn’t let a few uncorroborated accusations rob me of my happiness, of the first time my heart and my gut had been in utter alignment. What had Michael said? That that was the definition of progress? And these two women were the definition of unreliable sources.

Still, I was glad I’d already dropped the money so they couldn’t see my hands trembling. I didn’t want them to know they’d gotten to me, not even a little. They could have their cabal, but it would be without me.





CHAPTER 74





LUCINDA


And then there were two.

In the wake of Greer’s departure, amid a flurry of silver cart activity, the table filled with food, a third of it hers, underscoring our abandonment. I shouldn’t have thought of it that way. I didn’t know her. I didn’t know Flora, either, despite the intimacy of what she’d just shared. Her cousin. Wow. I had no idea how she was holding herself together. Maybe she needed her fury at Michael or she’d fall apart completely; she’d get lost in her guilt. Because underneath all her ranting about Michael, the subtext was that if she’d never let Michael into her life, her cousin would be truly (and not just technically) alive.

“She’s hiding something,” Flora said, chewing ferociously on one of Greer’s dumplings. “More must have happened, or she wouldn’t have shown up here.”

“Or she just had nothing better to do.”

“No. She reached out to me. I gave her my card, same as I gave it to you. She and Michael have to be involved somehow. Maybe she’s his girlfriend, and he sent her.”

I didn’t think so. Greer didn’t seem like the kind of woman who got sent anywhere. She was way too smart and confident to fall for Michael’s tricks, not like Flora and me (not that I was about to say that to Flora). “Maybe she came here to rub her superiority in our faces. Like, ha, I got away scot-free and you two are permanently scarred.”

“We’re not. Don’t say that.”

It sure felt like it. How was I ever going to recover? I’d never gotten over what happened when I was five years old or with Adam. I thought I did, but that was just the euphoria of new love. I’d fallen for Michael, and it made me believe I could do anything. I even thought I was a good writer, with something important to say. He’d gone on and on about my talent, but he’d been playing me the whole time.

We ate our way through everything. I didn’t know about Flora, but I couldn’t even taste. I was uncomfortably full, and still, I couldn’t stop until it was all gone. I wasn’t a true vegetarian, I just lean that way, so I was eating chicken feet and BBQ pork and who knew what all else. Flora’s ordering had been bananas.