Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry,” he says. “You know I’ve been under so much pressure at the office—”
“That can’t be your excuse for everything, Edward. For being home less with me and the girls. For working all the time. For saying your assistant’s name in your sleep.”
His head snaps up. “I explained about that. Nothing’s going on between Amber and me. We’ve been working so hard on these projects that I—”
“Dream about her?” I cock my head to the side, snatching my hands away from him to fold my arms across my chest.
“No, I…” He shakes his head, his contrition and patience wearing thin. “We don’t have time to rehash this. Not right now. It only happened a couple of times. God, are you holding me responsible for my subconscious? I told you it was nothing. Can we just go?”
He reaches for my hands again, looking at me with pleading eyes.
“Sol, baby, I need you.”
I stand, glaring down at him, still not ready to release my indignation. “Then act like it.”
I leave him there and head back into the closet, flick through the clothes until I find what I’m looking for. The one-shouldered gold dress I wanted to wear shimmers among the blacks, grays, and other more muted colors. I’ve never worn it, but I remember how it cuts low over my breasts and rides high up my legs. Letting the robe fall to the floor, I wrench the dress from the hanger and yank it over my head, showing little consideration for the delicate material.
“I thought we agreed on the red,” Edward says with a frown.
“You like the red dress so much?” I shove my feet into the five-inch stilettos I coveted online for months before breaking down and buying. “You wear it.”
I leave the room in a flounce of gold and fury, taking the stairs at a breakneck pace, slowing when I realize I could literally break my neck in these heels.
“Wow, Mom.” My daughter Lupe whistles from the bottom of the stairs. “You look great.”
“Thank you, honey.” I pause to kiss her cheek. At fifteen, she already stands a few inches above me, but the heels give me a slight advantage. “I have a feeling I’ll regret these shoes, though.”
“There’s still time to change.”
“And waste all this glam?” I kick up one heel and force myself to smile even though I’m still seething from the confrontation with Edward. “No way. Looking this good might be worth losing my pinkie toe at the end of the night. Beauty is pain sometimes.”
“I’ll remember that for prom.”
My smile drops and I slap my forehead. “Ugh. Can we not talk about prom right now? I’m not ready.”
“You’ve got plenty of time to adjust. Maybe no one will ask me.”
My daughter is so pretty she gets stopped on the street by modeling scouts. We both know someone will muster the courage to ask her, but I’m not ready for her to grow up. Next will be college, and I’ll probably have to get several cats and a dog to survive that.
“Make sure your sisters do their homework,” I say, diverting the conversation. I was already furious. Why add melancholy to the emotional mix before we even arrive at this party?
The thud of Edward’s footsteps descending the stairs revives my anger, slipping a rod down my back. When his hand curls around my hip, I barely resist the urge to slap it away.
“We’ll be home late, baby girl,” he tells Lupe. “Call if you need anything.”
“Okay, Daddy.” She flicks a look between us, a slight frown knitting her brows.
My three girls are my greatest joy. Lupe looks the least like me with the red hair she inherited from my father, Edward’s green eyes, and her own pale-gold skin, but her temperament is the most like mine. Overachieving. Naturally nurturing and deeply intuitive. If there’s a ripple in the water, she feels it. A tsunami is happening between her parents, and I think she senses the tension in me. With a conscious effort to relax my muscles, I pull away from Edward and head for the garage.
“Love you, Lupe,” I call over my shoulder, not waiting to see if Edward follows. “Watch your sisters, and don’t wait up.”
The thirty-minute drive to Brett Callahan’s house is quiet and frosted with tension. Neither of us breaks the brittle silence. The first time we attended one of these holiday parties at the CEO’s sprawling mansion a few years ago, Edward had just started at CalPot. We barely concealed our awe, elbowing each other and trying not to gape at the ostentatious surroundings.
“I’ll get us one of these someday, Sol,” he vowed, eyeing the high ceilings and priceless art decorating the walls.
I laughed it off because, though we live a comfortable life, in many ways a privileged life in Skyland, one of Atlanta’s most desirable in-town communities, we’ll probably never have a place like that. Brett Callahan’s palatial home is practically an estate north of Atlanta. I always find myself squirming when we come this far north of the city, places that less than half a century ago didn’t welcome people who looked like me.