Read Online French Quarter by Lacey Alexander - Free Book Online Page A

up the phone at her desk and dialed his office.
    Damn, voicemail. But then, maybe that was a blessing in disguise. She hadn’t planned to actually break up on the phone anyway, only to arrange a meeting with him. So she said, “Todd, it’s me. I need to see you. Meet me at noon today at the Red Rooster.” It was a small downtown diner where they sometimes grabbed quick meals together.
    At twelve o’clock sharp, Liz was seated in a booth with a cup of coffee. Todd walked in looking hurried and a bit frantic, but she supposed she couldn’t blame him, considering that she’d been out all night, had left a cryptic message not bothering to explain why, and that he had no idea she knew about his extra-curricular activities.
    He spotted her immediately and took long strides to the booth, sliding in and placing both palms on the table, as if to keep his emotions down. “Where the hell have you been?”
    “That’s not important,” she said calmly. “What matters is that I know where you’ve been.”
    His pale brown eyebrows knit. “What are you talking about?”
    “I saw you last night, Todd.” She kept her voice void of emotion, and it wasn’t difficult—she suddenly felt so indifferent toward him. She couldn’t believe she’d ever agreed to marry someone who clearly held her in such little regard. “I saw you at Club Venus.”
    His mouth dropped open. He ran a hand back through his hair, took a moment to think. “Okay, yes, I was at Club Venus last night. A little happy hour with some guys from work—no big deal. We finished the project we were working on, so decided to reward ourselves. I was going to tell you when I got home, but you weren’t there .”
    Liz released a tired sigh. What a liar. She’d have to be more direct. “Okay, how about this? I saw you pay a woman to dance naked in your lap. And I know that two nights before—and probably every night for the last two months—you indulged heavily in that particular pastime. I know because I thought you were having an affair, so I hired someone to follow you.”
    Now his eyes were as round as plates, gaping at her blankly. She decided to take the opportunity to press onward.
    “I’m breaking off the engagement, Todd.” She’d taken off her ring before last night, but she’d worn it to work today specifically so she could return it to him. Slipping it off her left hand, she laid it in the center of the table.
    “Let me get this straight,” he finally said, sounding a bit manic. “You’re breaking off our engagement because I’ve gone to a strip club a few times to unwind after work?” He said it like she was crazy and unreasonable, as if he hadn’t lied to her, as if it had indeed only been a few times. And as if getting lap dance after lap dance without having mentioned it was a perfectly acceptable way to run an engagement.
    “Well, actually, there’s more to it than that,” she said. “For one thing, I’ve realized I don’t love you, and for another, I’ve met someone else. But neither of those things probably would have happened if you hadn’t started lying about working late so that naked women could wiggle around in your lap, so I guess that going to a strip club to ‘unwind’ did indeed lead to this.”
    Todd looked absolutely livid. “You’re seeing another man? Cheating on me?”
    She gasped her disbelief. “Not before I found out what you were up to, so don’t act as if you’ve been wronged.”
    “Who the hell is it? I’ll kill him.”
    She rolled her eyes. Compared to Jack, Todd was scrawny. “That doesn’t matter,” she said, getting back her composure. “The important thing is that our engagement is over.” She looked at the ring she’d placed between them. “You’d better put that in your pocket before it gets lost.”
    Todd began shaking his head. “No, I won’t accept that ring, Elizabeth.” She cringed—she’d always hated that Todd insisted on calling her that, and she suddenly hated it even