that. It was inevitable. Your ex has had enough bad publicity without fathering a little bastard with your last name on the birth certificate." The phone remained silent. "Blythe! Say something."
"He married her…" Blythe murmured into Luke's antique receiver, feeling as if she were speaking underwater. "He married her within hours of divorcing me…"
"Yeah… well, guys like Christopher Stowe do things like that," Lisa snapped as if her client were avoiding the obvious.
"I'll be alright…" Blythe said faintly, wondering why she felt the need to reassure a lawyer who had offered her client no sympathy whatsoever.
Fact was, nothing between her sister Ellie and her had been right for years… way before she'd walked in on her husband getting it on with her own flesh and blood on the chic sofa bed in his director's trailer. There were some things in life that simply defied fixing. Unfortunately, as events had shown over the years, Eleanor Barton specialized in making things worse.
"I just can't stand it that Ellie actually got him to marry her!" Blythe added in a rush. "It wasn't enough that she fucked my husband and knocked herself up with my baby? Now she's even got my name!"
"With a little help from old Mr. Midlife Crisis himself," Lisa added caustically. "As you can imagine, every tabloid in the universe managed to cover the nuptials. CNN has gone with the story big-time. The bride looked like a blimp, of course, which made their reporting even juicier. The cooing newlyweds left today for Africa. In Kenya starts filming there on a closed set next week. That leaves the Fourth Estate in L.A. with no pictures of them, so the TV trucks are back in front of your house, and everyone's calling here, trying to find you and—"
"Okay, okay, I get the picture…" snapped Blythe.
She swallowed hard. There was silence on the line as Lisa gave her time to absorb the details of this latest revelation. As reality sank in, Blythe felt as if she were rolling naked in a bed of nettles. The pain was sharp and the exposure complete. "I suppose Cornwall's as good a spot for exile as anyplace else," she added dully. "Thanks, Lisa, for arranging for the extension on the lease. You'd better get on to your deposition."
Hooking the earpiece onto the vintage black telephone, she gently hung up. She leaned back in Lucas Teague's leather desk chair and stared blankly into space. Not into space, she realized absently, but at the desolate seascape that hung above the mantelpiece, a near twin to the one over the fireplace in her own cottage. The sweep of vacant sand, lacking footprints or even seaweed, for that matter, seemed as empty as she felt inside. Nothing growing, nothing living, a barren landscape of sharp, treeless cliffs where—
Blythe closed her eyes and then opened them, startled to see a standing figure suddenly etched against the painting's remote, brooding promontory. Tall, and leaning heavily against a stag horn walking stick, the dark-haired man stared disconsolately down at the churning waters of Veryan Bay, his gaze riveted on an overturned dinghy that bobbed forlornly on the sea.
Blythe didn't hear the knock reverberating lightly on the sitting-room door.
"Ready for my tour?" Lucas said cheerfully, and then paused at the threshold, gazing at the stricken look on Blythe's face.
"What's happened?" he asked, shutting the door behind him. "You've had some bad news." It was a statement, not a question. "Something back in the States, is it?"
"You couldn't possibly understand," she said in a tight voice. To her astonishment the painted seascape was once more devoid of any sign of life. And so was she.
"Understand loss?" he asked evenly. "Yes, I think I can."
"Not my kind of loss," she said, startled from her nearcatatonic state by a sharp stab of galvanizing anger. Luke's wife had died. To be sure, it must have been a tragic,
"He married her…" Blythe murmured into Luke's antique receiver, feeling as if she were speaking underwater. "He married her within hours of divorcing me…"
"Yeah… well, guys like Christopher Stowe do things like that," Lisa snapped as if her client were avoiding the obvious.
"I'll be alright…" Blythe said faintly, wondering why she felt the need to reassure a lawyer who had offered her client no sympathy whatsoever.
Fact was, nothing between her sister Ellie and her had been right for years… way before she'd walked in on her husband getting it on with her own flesh and blood on the chic sofa bed in his director's trailer. There were some things in life that simply defied fixing. Unfortunately, as events had shown over the years, Eleanor Barton specialized in making things worse.
"I just can't stand it that Ellie actually got him to marry her!" Blythe added in a rush. "It wasn't enough that she fucked my husband and knocked herself up with my baby? Now she's even got my name!"
"With a little help from old Mr. Midlife Crisis himself," Lisa added caustically. "As you can imagine, every tabloid in the universe managed to cover the nuptials. CNN has gone with the story big-time. The bride looked like a blimp, of course, which made their reporting even juicier. The cooing newlyweds left today for Africa. In Kenya starts filming there on a closed set next week. That leaves the Fourth Estate in L.A. with no pictures of them, so the TV trucks are back in front of your house, and everyone's calling here, trying to find you and—"
"Okay, okay, I get the picture…" snapped Blythe.
She swallowed hard. There was silence on the line as Lisa gave her time to absorb the details of this latest revelation. As reality sank in, Blythe felt as if she were rolling naked in a bed of nettles. The pain was sharp and the exposure complete. "I suppose Cornwall's as good a spot for exile as anyplace else," she added dully. "Thanks, Lisa, for arranging for the extension on the lease. You'd better get on to your deposition."
Hooking the earpiece onto the vintage black telephone, she gently hung up. She leaned back in Lucas Teague's leather desk chair and stared blankly into space. Not into space, she realized absently, but at the desolate seascape that hung above the mantelpiece, a near twin to the one over the fireplace in her own cottage. The sweep of vacant sand, lacking footprints or even seaweed, for that matter, seemed as empty as she felt inside. Nothing growing, nothing living, a barren landscape of sharp, treeless cliffs where—
Blythe closed her eyes and then opened them, startled to see a standing figure suddenly etched against the painting's remote, brooding promontory. Tall, and leaning heavily against a stag horn walking stick, the dark-haired man stared disconsolately down at the churning waters of Veryan Bay, his gaze riveted on an overturned dinghy that bobbed forlornly on the sea.
Blythe didn't hear the knock reverberating lightly on the sitting-room door.
"Ready for my tour?" Lucas said cheerfully, and then paused at the threshold, gazing at the stricken look on Blythe's face.
"What's happened?" he asked, shutting the door behind him. "You've had some bad news." It was a statement, not a question. "Something back in the States, is it?"
"You couldn't possibly understand," she said in a tight voice. To her astonishment the painted seascape was once more devoid of any sign of life. And so was she.
"Understand loss?" he asked evenly. "Yes, I think I can."
"Not my kind of loss," she said, startled from her nearcatatonic state by a sharp stab of galvanizing anger. Luke's wife had died. To be sure, it must have been a tragic,
Similar Books
