“Oh, nice,” he said sarcastically.
She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Really?”
Rubbing his hands over his face, he said, “Right, right, right. Sorry, it’s fine. It’s fair. I have been letting myself go. Be as mean as you want to be. I can take it.”
“Well, I can’t!” A sob erupted from her chest. “I can’t take it. I can’t handle this because you’veruined everything!” She stormed into their bedroom.
Billie, who’d been laying on her dog bed, got up when Sienna walked in, her tail wagging as she followed her across the room. When Sienna reached the hallway, she stopped dead in her tracks.Oh my God, had he been there when the baby was born? Had he held her hand and wiped her forehead and cried happy tears?Spinning on her heel, she found Zane exactly where she left him, looking shell-shocked. “Were you there?”
“What?”
“When he was born? Were. You. There?!”
He shook his head. “No. I could never do that to you.”
She burst out in the laugh of an insane person, which was exactly what she felt like.
His phone rang and Sienna pointed at it. “Is that her? Is it?!”
He glanced at it and shook his head. “It’s Dean.”
“Why?” she asked, her heart in her throat at the thought the story was already out.
“He offered to come by and help if we needed him.”
“Tell him no thank you!” Sienna yelled, turning around again. Then, she spun around again, not done yet. “In fact, tell him to go fuck himself.”
Zane’s voice was calm, and she could see he was worn out. “He’s just trying to protect us.”
“You!He’s trying to protectyou!” Sienna shouted. “He doesn’t give a shit about me or the kids. And if this little bastard hadn’t turned out to be yours, he would’ve kept his mouth shut so you could continue screwing anything with two legs and a pulse!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Sienna saw Billie in the doorway. Her ears were pinned back, her tail drooping. Sienna closed her eyes and lifted a hand to her aching head. She shouldn’t have called the baby a bastard. It was uncalled for, even if it was technically correct. The baby was innocent. His parents were both raging assholes, but that baby couldn’t help being alive.
And now she sat, the memory eating away at her as she chomped her way through a salty lukewarm fry. The phone rang again and, again, she watched until it went silent.Can you please call me back so I know you’re all right? I’m really worried.
“Like I care how you feel,” she said, snorting again. She popped another french fry in her mouth and chewed it furiously. Nope, she wouldn’t call him back. She would let him think she drove off a cliff. He deserved to worry. He deservedto think the worst. He deserved to cry himself to sleep. Only he wouldn’t, would he?
9:45 P.M.
CLAUDIA CRAWFORD
The temptress. The harlot. The brazen slut. The homewrecker. The horrible friend. The gold-digger. She knew exactly what she was doing. She trapped him on purpose. It was her plan all along, the bitch.
Over the years, she’d said all these things herself, she was sure of it. She distinctly remembered in the 8th grade when her best friend, Heather’s boyfriend, Trent, kissed Maureen R. behind the Circle K. With tongue. She threw every label at her. The ones she knew at the time, anyway. Claudia wasn’t exactly sophisticated back then. She still wasn’t.
But she certainly didn’t intend to become any of these things, and only some of them were true. She was the worst sort of friend, but she didn’t trap him on purpose. But then again, maybe she did. Whether she was an actual homewrecker or not remained to be seen.
She leaned her head against the white shabby chic sofa, her right arm sore from the weight of her newborn son’s head, and her eyes sore from hours in front of the TV. It was late evening and other than the flickering from the episode ofSuddenly Susanplaying, the only other light came from the arc floor lamp behind her sofa. The sound was turned down so low she could barely hear what Brooke Shields wassaying. But the plot didn’t matter. Only picking up the phone when he called.
She’d find out any minute. Or maybe months from now, because it could take a long time for the dust to settle. It was all in Sienna’s hands now. Hers and Zane’s. Provided he had told her already. A twisted part of her kept playing out a fantasy that he wouldn’t call, but would show up on the doorstep of her cozy Spanish-style bungalow instead. He’d tell her his marriage was over, and Sienna’s actually happy about it because it turns out she fell out of love with him a long time ago, only she didn’t have the heart to say it. They were going to divorce amicably, and he was there to stay. For some reason in her fantasy, it was pouring rain and he was drenched (because it would be more dramatic that way). They’d open a bottle of wine, order Chinese food and watch Elliott sleep, marveling at the fact that everything was already sorted out and tied up with a neat, little bow.Isn’t it amazing? Yes. Clearly, it was meant to be.
Glancing at the clock on the thick dark wood mantel, she saw it was quarter to ten, which meant it had been just over thirteen hours since she had gotten the results from Dean. Claudia already knew who the father was, but when you’re dealing with a man like Zane, nothing is done in isolation. There was a team of handlers in the background, keeping him going, clearing paths, protecting him. Although this time, only Dean, Zane, and Claudia knew. (Well, her mother too. She’d broken down and told her on a hot summer’s day, her feet swollen, her heart aching with loneliness. Her mother was horrified, yes, but that quickly turned to a giddy delight when she realized her daughter was about to give birth to a windfall.)
When Zane first told her he’d need to get the test done,it felt like a hot knife to her chest, but she smiled anyway. “Of course. I understand.”
“It’s not that I think … it’s just … you know.”
She had slept withhimwhich made it plausible that she might’ve slept with some other guy right around that time. “Sure, yeah.”
