Victoria raised her coffee cup to hide her smile.
“Why don’t you let me answer that one?” a voice said. Cassandra advanced toward the table, her large straw hat shading features that were laced with disgust. Behind her came Joy, a fiery vision in a jumpsuit patterned with red, yellow, and marigold-orange swirls.
“Good to see you, chook,” she said, crouching beside Skye’s chair and staring pointedly at Martyn. “This your great big twerp of an ex, is it?”
“We’re actually still married,” Martyn muttered.
“Sure,” Joy replied. “For now.”
Cassandra dragged a chair over from a neighboring table, the metal scraping across the stone slabs with a screech that set Skye’s teeth on edge. Surrounded on all sides, Martyn could only gape at each of the people circled around him.
“I think we should start with a thank-you,” Cassandra said coolly.
“To whom?” Martyn replied.
“Well, how about to Skye, for starters? It’s thanks to her that the watch you stole was sold to someone reputable who was prepared to return it to its rightful owner. If she’d put the thing up on Vinted, we probably wouldn’t have been quite so fortunate. Although by ‘we,’ what I actually mean is you. You’re the only one standing to lose in this scenario.”
“But she stole the watch from me,” he argued. “She was the one who—”
“No,” Cassandra corrected patiently. “My daughter was desperate. She needed to find the means by which to escape you and your abuse of her. She has an excuse—what’s yours, I wonder?”
Martyn pressed his lips into a thin line.
“Mr. Newbolt was surprisingly agreeable about the whole thing,” Adam put in. “So you probably owe him a thank-you—and me, for smoothing things over with him. While we’re at it,” he went on as Martyn began to fluff up like an angry parrot, “you can thank my wife, too.”
Victoria raised a hand.
“That’s me,” she said. “I always knew that drama class I took in college would come in handy one day, and tipping that drink over on you, that was just a nice bonus.”
Martyn rounded on Skye.
“You set me up,” he said.
“Weset you up,” Cassandra interjected. “These are Skye’s neighbors. Her community.” She lingered deliberately on the word, daring him to mock her. Martyn said nothing. He picked up his glass and drained it, made as if to stand.
“Oh no you don’t.” Adam put his hand on Martyn’s shoulder. “We’re not done yet.”
“Get the fuck off me.” He shrugged hard, twisting out of the other man’s reach.
“Read the room, Martyn,” Cassandra drawled. “You’re not in charge here, and if I were you, I’d listen to what your wife has to say.”
Skye took a breath, made herself face him.
“You have to sell the house in Epsom,” she said. “My mum and Jonathan have paid for the Rolex to be returned, and I need the money I put into that property to pay them back.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then she’ll call the cops on you,” Joy put in gleefully. “Sounds to me as if you’ve been a bit of a naughty boy, haven’t you, Marty?”
“I won’t only report you,” Skye said. “I’ll speak to your parents, tell them what you’ve done to me and the story you made up.”
Martyn deflated a fraction, his chin dropping toward his chest.
“Fine,” he snapped. “You can have your paltry contribution back, but—”
“I want a divorce, too. No contest. Pay me what I put in, and you can have everything else.”
“You think I’d want to stay married to you?” he spat. “After this?”
