Chapter 15 Victoria
What?” Victoria stared at Liz, who was staring at Ace.
Liz remained rooted in place, slack-jawed, as a portentous hush settled over the terrace.
Victoria switched her attention from her best friend to her husband.
She observed, with an almost morbid fascination, as the blank expression on Ace’s face rearranged itself to include confusion, surprise, and the cosmic specter of possibility.
Ace’s brow furrowed, his mouth twisted in consideration, and he blinked once with disbelief, but then his eyes shone with something resembling stunned clarity.
And Victoria knew that nothing would ever be the same.
“Sage?” Ace finally said. There it was.
Victoria couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
Beside her, Liz gasped, her gulp echoing in the now-dead-silent air.
No one seemed to know what to do. Ace looked like he could have a stroke.
Liz’s face was ashen. And then she ran out as fast as she could manage with her pregnant frame.
Ace’s gaze shot to Victoria, his eyes connecting with hers, his face awash with shock.
“Umm…” Harper said. “What just happened?”
Victoria sat there, a vertiginous sense of confusion crashing over her.
She looked at her husband’s lips as if they still held the name he had uttered: Sage.
A single syllable that had just cratered their lives.
And though Victoria would love to believe there was a simple, silly explanation for what had just happened, her intuition told her otherwise.
Even if it didn’t, she could read the confirmation on Ace’s panic-stricken face.
Victoria abruptly stood. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she couldn’t stay there for one minute longer. She strode into the garden, beside herself with the shocking outlandishness of what had occurred.
“Victoria,” Ace called after her. He caught up and grabbed her lightly by the elbow. Victoria dramatically yanked her arm away. “Please don’t run away from me,” Ace begged.
“What the fuck, Ace?!”
“I know—I know,” Ace said.
“What?” Victoria hissed. “What do you know?”
“Sage—or Liz—” Ace began. Victoria shook her head.
“Stop. I don’t want to hear a word you have to say,” Victoria snapped.
Around them, birds chirped and a monarch butterfly floated delicately in the air.
It was absurd. Victoria fumed, so livid that she was trembling.
A gardener was headed their way, but upon hearing evidence of a domestic scuffle, he made a sharp turn and headed in another direction.
“I’m leaving. Do not follow me,” Victoria commanded.
Victoria walked away from Ace and didn’t look back.
She didn’t return to the terrace to confront the fallout of her spectacularly disastrous baby shower.
She didn’t care if she never saw her purse or her phone again.
Goodbye forever to the life she had known before.
That her iPhone and Bottega Veneta clutch were also on the pyre seemed a mere pittance; this was complete and utter destruction, a total loss.
Her legs carried her through the lobby to the restaurant, where Victoria beelined for the bar and claimed a tufted barstool at the mahogany counter.
The bartender, a once-attractive man in his fifties, tactfully slid over a glass of water and offered Victoria a polite smile without asking if she was okay or commenting on her ravaged countenance.
Victoria thought he probably had seen a lot worse, but actually, could any salacious dalliances or sensational scandals compare to this?
This, this unbelievable insanity, was straight out of the tawdry pages of the Daily Mail.
It was the stuff of a daytime soap. Victoria couldn’t believe it was her life.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked.
“I don’t have my wallet,” Victoria answered.
“On the house,” he said.
“That’s very kind…” Victoria hesitated and looked down at her stomach, which was the size of a regulation basketball. “European women drink during their pregnancies, right?”
“American too,” the bartender said. “From what I’ve seen, anyway.”
“One glass is fine,” Victoria said, more to herself than to the bartender. Her doctor had told her the same, though she hadn’t felt the urge until now. “I would love a glass of white wine.”
“Sancerre?” the bartender asked.
He was good at his job. Victoria nodded gratefully, and in short order, she had a crisp glass of chilled French white in her hand.
She tasted it. The tannins tingled on her tongue after she swallowed.
Victoria took another sip and stared at the multicolored array of bottles behind the bar, at the little jars of blue cheese–stuffed olives and cherries and other garnishes, at the tidy stack of thick, embossed napkins boasting the hotel’s name.
She sat there and nursed her glass of wine until the last spangles of afternoon light slid downwards and dusk crept in at the corners of the room.
The bartender gave her a bowl of nuts and she ate them even though she wasn’t hungry.
Victoria doubted she’d ever be hungry or feel normal again.
Finally, as smartly dressed people with dinner reservations and carefree expressions began filing in, Victoria recognized that she would have to determine her next move.
Staying there forever was unfortunately not a viable option.
She couldn’t collect her car from the valet without her ticket, which was in her abandoned purse, and she couldn’t order an Uber without her phone, which was also in said purse.
She should probably retrace her steps to the Wetherly Terrace or check with the front desk to see if anyone had turned in her bag, but both of those options required an amount of effort that Victoria couldn’t muster. “Hi,” came a subdued voice behind her.
Victoria turned and saw Harper, her assistant’s features muted with concern. She held up Victoria’s purse but maintained a tentative three-foot distance.
“Oh, Harper,” Victoria said. “Thank you.”
Harper outstretched her hand, with the purse, and Victoria gave her an appreciative smile laced with sorrow.
She felt fragile, and like all her nerves were raw, and frayed, and exposed.
She was lightheaded and out of sorts, tentative in her movements, as if the connective cord between her brain and her body had been compromised.
Feeling as though she were moving underwater, Victoria slowly opened her purse, pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, and left it on the bar top before she slid off her stool.
“It was on the house,” the bartender protested.
Victoria merely nodded to him in thanks and kept walking out of the restaurant, Harper by her side.
“Do you want to sit somewhere and talk?” Harper asked.
“I’m sure you have places to be,” Victoria said. “It’s Saturday night. You must have plans.”
“It’s super early!” Harper said. “Besides, it can wait. C’mon.
” Harper led Victoria through the lobby bar and over to an empty table, where they sat.
“When I found out my college boyfriend cheated on me with my little sister, I thought I was going to throw up and then I broke out in hives all over my body, which was so gross I wanted to die.”
“You have a little sister?” Victoria asked.
“In my sorority.”
“Right. That’s terrible. I’m sorry that happened to you, Harper.”
“I do have an older sister—a half sister—but she hates me.”
“I’m sure that isn’t true,” Victoria said, at the same time mentally retrieving some long-ago-filed-away information about her clients, Harper’s parents. They had gotten together after Harper’s father’s messy divorce from his first wife.
“It’s true,” Harper said. “I haven’t seen her in years. Our dad cheated on her mom with the nanny.”
“Oh,” Victoria said. She hadn’t been aware of that detail.
“And then he married her. And then they had me. The nanny was my mom.”
“Oh.”
“I know, right? They definitely don’t, like, advertise that, but you know what? They’ve been together a really long time and my parents actually seem to still really like each other.”
“That’s great.”
“I guess the point is, all families are messed up. And maybe that’s okay?”
Victoria gave her assistant a sad smile.
“You’ll figure this out,” Harper said.
Victoria wasn’t optimistic about that, but she was filled with appreciation for her wise little crop-top-sporting assistant. “You’re an amazing young woman, Harper. I mean that. I’m lucky to have you in my life.”
“Back at ya,” Harper said, grinning proudly.
“What ended up happening with the boyfriend who slept with your sorority sister?”
“I keyed his car and put Nair in her shampoo.”
“No!” Victoria laughed, something she didn’t think her body was capable of.
“Oh yeah,” Harper said nonchalantly. “And your enemies are my enemies, so if you need something, I’m your girl. We can put fire ants in Mark’s office.”
Victoria had nearly forgotten about how Mark seemed to be succeeding in his efforts to score a coup with Nash Winton, but only because this concern had been supplanted by much bigger issues.
Namely, her life imploding. Twenty more minutes in Harper’s company effectively lifted Victoria’s spirits to a degree, or at least proved sufficient distraction, but as she drove home, Victoria plunged back into a cycle of disbelief, rage, and despair on an endless loop.