Read Online Elizabeth the First Wife by Lian Dolan - Free Book Online

you know what you’re doing. Oh, and I have something I need to ask you later. Find me.”
    â€œOkay, everybody look here please,” shouted Newsboy Cap, snapping the fingers of one hand above her head, while with the other she held the camera to her eye. “Big smile, Lancaster family. Big smile.”

Oberon
& Titania

FROM A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

    HER: Queen of the Fairies and force to be reckoned with. Sassy, sexy, and proud. Uses her magic to get what she wants. Good dancer.
    HIM: King of the Fairies, but he likes the ladies. One of the original players who enjoys the sport of the chase. Not above using a little black magic to win over a woman. Can be a jealous jerk, but that only makes him sexier. Suspiciously close relationship to Puck.
    RELATIONSHIP HISTORY: Extremely turbulent. On again, off again, sometimes in the same scene. Custody battle over child/changeling. Epic fights that can upset the natural world, literally. Great make-up sex.
    RELATIONSHIP LOW POINT: Oberon uses his magic to make Titania fall in love with a horse’s ass. Really, a guy named Bottom wearing a donkey head.
    WHY THEY WORK: Open marriage—very open. Use of performance-enhancing drugs. Barely clothed most of the time.
    HIS HOTTEST LINE: “Ill met by moonlight, Proud Titania.”
    HER HOTTEST LINE: “What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?”
    SHAKESPEAREAN COUPLE MOST LIKELY TO: Have a reality show.
    WHO THEY REMIND YOU OF: That couple who lived down the hall from you sophomore year who had huge fights, broke up, and then got back together. Then another huge fight, breakup, and reconciliation. Or Carrie and Big.
    CHEMISTRY FACTOR: 4 OUT OF 5

CHAPTER 5
    Now that the Revelation by Fire portion of the evening was over, I was greatly enjoying the furtive glances and open stares from the other guests, so many of whom had doubted the “rumor” that I was once married to FX Fahey. I’d heard the whispers of disbelief more than once in my life when I was huddled in a bathroom stall at a bar/restaurant/reunion/wedding. My short marriage had become a sort of urban myth in Pasadena. But tonight, proof had arrived in a Prius, wearing a Dolce & Gabbana suit.
    The crowd was the typical assortment of designers, money, and media, the sort of people who mixed easily in Pasadena. There was the old guard sporting their Bill Blass jackets over black or white pants, sipping wine and scanning for fellow country clubbers. The designers tended to be younger and hipper, but not so hip that they alienated their clients, who preferred Schumacher to steampunk. And the media was local, chummy, and in the bag for an event like the Showcase House.
    Pierce DeVine was holding court near the deep blue pool; even though I could only see him from behind, I’d recognize the shape of his perfect head anywhere. When I dropped off the signed contract and the first of many checks, he told me he only committed to a guest bathroom in “the House” this year because, and I quote, “Those committee ladies will bleed a designer dry. Let somebody else do the kitchen for free.” (Charity work really brings out the best in people.) Presumably, Pierce used his third eye to sense the presence of a movie star, because he turned, mid-conversation, to acknowledge us with a namaste gesture. I bowed my head in return, before realizing how ridiculous I must have looked.
    I spotted several Divorced Dads in the crowd checking me out with new interest. These were the men my friends had set me up with because, as Shelly Bixby told me, “It’s hard to find someone on the first go-round at your age.” True, Shelly, but I was child-free, which I thought put me in a “more single” category than a man with two kids in grade school. Unfortunately, there weren’t many men in Pasadena who’d had the good sense to divorce before they procreated like I did, so I made a few mistakes before I figured out that