Chapter 22
So, I invite Lorna and Hannah over for dinner at my place. Comfort zone. Emergency exit within reach. Dogs close enough to cuddle if I need emotional support that doesn’t talk back.
The thing is, Lorna and Hannah have been orbiting the same moon for years, mine, but they’ve never actually crossed paths.
Hannah was my high school bestie, the one who saw me through my braces and my “I’m definitely going to marry a rock star” phase.
We drifted apart when I went to college and found a whole new version of myself in law school.
Enter Lorna, my sharp-edged, brilliant, whip-smart ride-or-die for three years of caffeine, courtroom hypotheticals, and crying in the library bathroom.
After graduation, life took us all in different directions.
I lost touch with Lorna. Reconnected with Hannah.
Never thought to merge the two. But tonight?
You’d think they’d been swapping group texts for a decade.
They’re perched on opposite ends of my couch like they’ve been best friends since birth, clinking glasses and talking over each other like women who just instinctively get each other .
Apparently, Lorna is married. What? I blinked and missed that entire chapter of her life.
“To Josh,” she says with a shrug, like she’s admitting she joined a book club, not, you know, tied her life to another human. “I never post about it. In my job, people are vindictive enough that they go after families. Josh and I agreed early on, we keep it quiet.”
“And he’s okay with that?” Hannah asks, leaning forward, her whole face lit up with second-hand curiosity.
Lorna smirks. “He’s a stay-at-home dad. I tell him all about my antics at work. Kinda made him scared of crossing me.”
We laugh, because of course she did.
Then Hannah shifts, one hand on her belly, and Lorna’s eyes narrow like she’s solving a case.
“You’re pregnant,” she says.
Hannah gasps. “How do you know that?”
“You’ve got that smug, glowy smugness. Plus, you haven’t touched your wine.”
Hannah blushes, tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “We just found out. It’s still early.”
And then it’s my turn to glow, just from being in the presence of these two wildly different, totally magnetic women. One bringing life into the world, one defending it tooth and nail, both making me feel less alone in mine.
We’re a few drinks in, virgin for Hannah, of course, when I finally say it. The reason for the dinner, the wine, the soft lighting and the dogs curled like protective spells around our ankles.
“So…” I start, swirling the wine in my glass. “I have a dilemma.”
They both straighten. Instantly alert. The vibe shifts. Gone is the playful banter. We’re in it now. Real talk time.
We’re in the living room. On the same couch Mike and I had, how do I put this delicately? Defiled our wedding vows. There’s a wine stain on the throw pillow from the night we said “screw it” and drank champagne out of mugs after signing the papers. That pillow might as well be a ghost.
“I found out something about Mike,” I say. “Something he doesn’t know. But if he did, it would crush him.”
Lorna cocks her head. “And you’re not sure you want to make it public.”
I nod, a single, tight motion. My throat is suddenly sandpaper. I take a sip from my glass, but it doesn’t help.
Hannah leans in. “Last time we talked, you were gonna, and I quote, ‘bitch slap him with the divorce papers and burn his clothes to ash.’ ”
I huff a laugh. “Yeah, well. I was mad. I mean, come on, wouldn’t you be?”
Lorna doesn’t flinch. “Are you still mad?”
I stare into my glass, willing the wine to answer for me.
“I am. But also, not? I don’t know. Mike and I, we had a good thing.
For a long time. He was there for me when no one else was.
But somewhere along the way, it just slipped.
We grew into different people. People who weren’t right for each other anymore. ”
I pause. Let the words settle. The truth is hard and sharp and cold on my tongue.
“Our relationship, it was over. One of us just had to say it. We could’ve ended as friends. As adults. But instead, he torched it. Burned our marriage to the ground. And took the one thing I could’ve salvaged with it.”
Hannah reaches out, touches my knee gently. “Your sister.”
I nod, and that ache, that traitorous, bone-deep ache, comes back in full force. My voice drops, barely above a whisper. “He didn’t just betray me. He took her from me too. And I don’t know if I can ever get that back.”
Hannah leans in and gives me a side hug, the kind that’s half comfort, half solidarity, all warmth. She squeezes my arm just hard enough to keep me from unravelling .
Then Lorna speaks. Her voice is steady, sure, the way it always was back in law school when she'd steamroll a professor’s hypothetical like it was a minor inconvenience on her way to glory. Except now, there’s something softer beneath it. Something I didn’t expect.
“What I do,” she begins, sitting forward with her elbows on her knees, “helping women through their divorces? It’s not about taking their husbands down. That’s the easy part.”
I blink at her. She’s looking right at me, no flinching, no smirking, just truth.
“It’s about uplifting them,” she continues. “Reminding them they’re not just someone’s wife, or someone’s mom. They matter. They belong. They’re allowed to take up space, and feel angry, and heartbroken, and powerful all at once.”
My throat tightens. I’m not sure I can handle this level of tenderness from her. From anyone.
“So, whatever this thing is,” she says gently, “this secret, this weapon you’re holding, if it’s going to make you feel like the bad guy in your own story, then don’t use it. Don’t give him that power. Be the adult now. Look his betrayal in the eye and say goodbye on your terms.”
I stare at her, the wine forgotten in my hand, the words wrapping around my chest like armour .
“Besides, you have Caden now,” Hannah says, giving my shoulder a little squeeze, her voice just this side of teasing.
I roll my eyes, but I don’t hate it. I don’t hate the way her words warm something inside me that’s been shivering for days. She says it like it’s obvious, like it’s a known fact in our universe that Caden equals hope. Or at least distraction. And honestly, she’s not wrong.
Lorna’s eyebrows shoot up. “Who’s Caden?”
She says it like she’s asking who the hell let a new player onto the field without notifying the team.
Hannah gasps, full mock outrage. “You don’t know who Caden is?” She puts so much emphasis on the name it’s like she’s narrating a reality show. “Oh my God, where have you been?”
Lorna holds up her hands. “Apparently in depositions and diaper hell. Enlighten me.”
I let out a breathy laugh, mostly to cover the way my face heats. “He’s… a complication.”
Hannah snorts into her sparkling water. “He’s tall, broody, and hot enough to melt your spine. That’s not a complication. That’s divine intervention.”
I groan, but a reluctant smile pulls at the corner of my mouth. “I hate how much you love this.”
Lorna leans forward, predatory gleam in her eyes. “Tell. Me. Everything. ”
Hannah opens her mouth, clearly about to launch into her version, probably with embellishments and glitter and embarrassing details I never actually said out loud, but I cut her off before she can really dig her claws in.
“Caden is the new CEO of Marx Corp,” I say, a little too evenly, like I’m trying to make it sound casual. Like I didn’t have sex with him, on this very couch yesterday.
Lorna lifts her brows. “Marx Corp, as in multi-billion dollar, owns-practically-everything in Chicago Marx Corp?”
I nod, trying to stay cool while inside, my stomach is doing nervous cartwheels like we’re back in eighth-grade cheer try-outs. “That one.”
Hannah, naturally, cannot let it end there.
She leans forward, giddy and traitorous.
“They’ve been talking on the phone for days,” she sings, dragging the word out like she’s starring in a rom-com montage.
“You should see her, twirling her hair around her finger, biting her lip, the whole thing. Like she’s picturing him naked. ”
My mouth drops open. “I do not bite my lip.”
“You literally chewed your bottom lip so hard last Thursday you were bleeding.”
I gasp. “Traitor. ”
She grins. “Just saying. It was giving full smut novel heroine.”
Lorna chokes on her wine, clearly loving every second of this. “Oh my God.”
I shrug, a little smug, a little dangerous. “Well… I don’t really have to picture it anymore.”
Silence.
Then Lorna lets out a scandalized cackle, practically launching off the couch. “You didn’t!”
Hannah gasps so loudly I think it startles the dogs. “Wait, that’s new. You didn’t tell me that!”
“Because I knew you’d react like this,” I say, laughing and burying my face in my hands, warmth flooding up my neck. “And because it just happened. And also, possibly ruined my ability to feel anything for any other man ever again, so thanks for that, universe.”
Hannah fans herself dramatically. “I need a name. And a photo. And a prayer.”
Lorna clinks her glass against mine. “Oh honey. You better not mess this up.”
I snort. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“What type’s this dog, anyway?” Lorna asks, lazily scratching behind the puppy’s ears with the exact level of casual disdain only someone trying very hard not to fall in love with a dog would have.
She’s been cuddling the little fluffball all night, won’t admit it, of course, but the evidence is currently sleeping in her lap, belly up, like they’ve been soulmates since birth.
I smirk. “The mom’s a Pomeranian. Dad’s part German Shepherd. Don’t ask.”
Lorna blinks, clearly trying to do the genetic math. “Seriously?”
Before I can explain further, Hannah gasps so hard I think she might choke on her mocktail. “Wait, what?! She’s so tiny! How does that even work?”
I’m drunk on wine and feeling a little feral, so I just raise my glass and gesture at her. “You’re five-foot-two and your husband is a seven-foot Viking. How did that work?”
Lorna spits her wine back into her glass. “Oh my God.”
Hannah turns bright red, half laughing, half sputtering. “That is not the same!”
“It’s exactly the same,” I say, grinning like I’ve won a courtroom argument and a reality show in one swoop. “Love knows no physics. Or anatomy. Or self-preservation, apparently.”
“I hate you,” Hannah says, hiding her face behind a throw pillow, but she’s laughing too hard for it to stick .
“You love me,” I say sweetly, topping off my drink. “And now you understand how a Pomeranian gets knocked up by a German Shepherd. ”