“It will be,” Lizanne said. “It always is. If anyone knows weddings, it’s Rose. She planned our wedding, after all.” She said it lightly, easily, with the smile she used when she needed something to read as warmth at a distance. She felt Rose go very slightly still beside her. They continued talking for a fewminutes, about Rose’s new found fame as well as Lizanne’s new show, then Loraine called cut.
The crew dispersed. Loraine moved away to check something on the monitor. In the small quiet that followed, Lizanne turned to Rose.
“Can we talk?” she said, low enough that the room wouldn’t catch it.
Rose withdrew her hand. She did it without looking at her, a smooth movement, as if she’d already decided exactly how much of herself she was prepared to have in contact with Lizanne today and had reached that limit.
“I have nothing to say to you right now,” Rose said.
“Rose, I just want you to forgive me—” This wasn’t what Kayla had advised her to do and she knew it.
“Which part would you like me to forgive first?” Not sharp. Worse than sharp — tired. “Not telling me about Trina? Or paying off Jeremy while I sat across from you in that meeting and told you exactly what I wanted to do?”
Lizanne said nothing. There was nothing to say that wasn’t another form of management.
“I can apologize,” she said finally. “I can apologize a hundred times. I don’t know what else I can offer you right now.”
“Neither do I,” Rose said. “That’s the problem.”
She stood up before Loraine came back, smoothed her jacket, and walked to the window. She stood there looking out at the garden with her arms crossed and her profile very still, and Lizanne sat on the sofa and did not follow her.
Chapter 32
Rose
It had been a week since the confessional filming. They had been professional about it. Lizanne was very good at professional. Rose was getting better at it than she wanted to be.
She came down to the pool house kitchen in the morning to find Quinn and Kayla already at the table. Quinn was never voluntarily awake before nine. Kayla had her laptop open.
They both looked up when she came in. The look on their faces stopped her in the doorway.
“What?” Rose said.
Quinn turned the laptop around.
The headline was large. The photograph larger. Lizanne in the driver’s seat. Trina beside her. The kiss. Rose had seen it before, but seeing it blown up on a gossip site with a headline readingPOWER COUPLE REUNITED?was a different experience entirely.
She sat down.
“Trina leaked it,” she said.
“Obviously,” Kayla said. “Which, for what it’s worth, kind of proves what Lizanne was saying. She’s fighting dirty. Clearly, Lizanne did say no to getting back together, and now here is Trina doing her worst.”
Rose said nothing.
“Rose.” Kayla’s voice was careful. “The fact that Trina is the one who put this out — that matters. It means Lizanne was telling the truth about being set up.”
“I know,” Rose said.
Quinn and Kayla exchanged a look.
“You seem very calm about this,” Quinn said.
“I’m not calm.” Rose looked at the table. “I’m numb. There’s a difference.” She was quiet for a moment. “I was blackmailed into this marriage. Then I fell in love with the woman who blackmailed me. Now the same woman has been photographed kissing her ex, it’s on the front page, and I’m sitting in a pool house that isn’t mine. I cannot locate the part of me that’s supposed to be surprised.”
“She pushed Trina away,” Kayla said. “I talked to her. She says—”
“She can say whatever she wants.” Rose’s voice didn’t rise. “How do I know it’s true? Even if it is, it doesn’t change what she did with Jeremy.”
