Gently he led her out of Marissa's bedroom. He stopped at the hall bathroom but didn't let go of her. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know. I guess I just kind of got the wind knocked out of me."

"I can imagine," he said. "It's hard to believe he didn't think to let you know."

"Not really." The admission was painful but it was true. Zachary had stopped thinking about her feelings long before he left her. "But thanks for giving me a minute to regroup."

"I can do better than a minute," he said as gently as he'd led her into the hall. "Go ahead and wash up and then help yourself to a cold drink or a gla.s.s of wine. I'll go back into the purple palace of princessdom and supervise that last wall."

"Thank you." She smiled but even she could feel how tremulous it was.

"No thanks required," he said. Then he turned and left to do exactly what he'd promised.

IT WAS LATE OCTOBER AND THE BREEZE HAD stiffened, gathering the strength it would need to pluck the rest of the faded and curling leaves from the trees. Claire had killed several hours strolling through the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and all over her favorite parts of Piedmont Park. Now she was seated at a picnic table with the now dog-eared journal open in front of her. For the last twenty minutes she had poured out every random observation, thought, and feeling from Edward Parker's impeccable manners and possible taste in women to Samantha Davis's solemn looks and guarded comments.

She nibbled on the end of the pen then began to describe Brooke Mackenzie's careful tiptoe through the lobby or parking garage; her sometimes Lucy-like attempts to avoid seeing her pompous ex-husband and his girlfriend, who not to be uncharitable, Claire thought was getting kind of chunky.

Claire reread what she'd just written and smiled grimly. Now was so easy to write. A romance set in seventeenth-century Scotland, not so much.

The pen slowed and she thought about the rush of relief she'd felt after she'd admitted her inability to write to Samantha and Brooke. But that relief had been short-lived and hadn't come close to squashing her terror of running out of time and money before the book was complete.

Please, G.o.d, let me figure out this book. It was her heartfelt prayer at bedtime and her first thought each morning. Claire ran a finger over the lined paper that she'd covered with her scribblings. If it were possible to make a living writing journal entries, she'd be a multimillionaire by now.

Her cell phone rang and she glanced down at the screen. It was the second call from her agent in as many days. Twice as many calls as she'd received from her in the previous year.

Claire listened to the ring, and only began to breathe normally when the ringing stopped. No doubt Stephanie was even now leaving another voicemail that Claire wouldn't be able to bring herself to delete. But also couldn't imagine listening to.

She felt like a thirst-crazed woman who'd crawled through hot desert sands from heartbreaking mirage to mirage only to lack the strength to swallow a sip of water when she finally reached the oasis. The phone rang again. Hailey's number jarred her back from the disturbing desert images. The fact that she considered not answering shocked her to the core.

"Hi, Mom." In the face of her own misery, the happiness in her daughter's voice was equally shocking.

"Where are you headed?" Claire asked, hearing the sounds of wind and movement.

"Brit Lit. How about you?"

"I'm at the park. Writing in the journal my lovely daughter gave me."

"Cool," Hailey said. "I've been writing in mine, too. I might need a new one for Christmas."

"Ditto."

They covered Hailey's cla.s.ses, which were great, the library job, which remained lame, and Will, the boy from her writing cla.s.s, who had apparently just attained "boyfriend" status.

"So how about you, Mom? How's the book coming?"

Claire looked out over the bare-branched trees and remembered the hours they'd spent discussing Claire's glorious year of writing. Hailey had won scholarships and insisted on a work-study program so that she could help Claire have her year. Claire would cut out her tongue before she told her daughter that the opportunity of opportunities had knocked and she didn't even have the strength to open the door.

"Everything's going great," Claire lied. "I'm still roughing things out, trying to get my characters squared away."

"That's so cool. My friends up here can't believe that my mother is a full-time published writer."

"Yeah, it's . . . unbelievable all right. So, when do you get out in November?" Claire asked eager to change the subject. "We'll need to make arrangements for your plane ticket."

Claire breathed a small sigh of relief when Hailey pulled up her phone calendar and began to scroll through the next month. And an even larger one when Hailey reached the English building and had to hang up.

Claire gathered up her journal and tucked it into her backpack. As she walked down Peachtree toward the Alexander, she cursed herself for her weakness. It had left her stranded in no-man's-land teetering between truth and lies, fact and fiction.

In all the years it had been just the two of them, she'd only ever lied to Hailey in order to protect her. If Claire didn't figure out how to take advantage of her opportunities and get to work soon, she'd find herself sliding down that slippery slope where lies would be necessary. And the only thing those lies would protect Hailey from would be finding out that her mother was a chickenhearted fraud.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

LATE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON BROOKE PAUSED just inside the front door of the Alexander. She'd looped Darcy's leash around her wrist so that she could hold Ava and Natalie's hands on the way back from the park. Now, in the shadow of the enormous potted palm that anch.o.r.ed the s.p.a.ce between the entrance and the concierge desk, she peered out from behind the tree trunk to determine if the coast was clear just as she'd done each day since the Barbie and Ken pregnancy bombsh.e.l.l had been dropped. She breathed a little easier when she noted that it was James at the desk. Unlike Isabel, with whom they'd have to stop and chat while the actress practiced her British accent, James only smiled at Brooke and the girls and tipped two fingers to his forehead in a friendly salute as they pa.s.sed.

Like a Secret Service agent on the alert for danger, Brooke did a continuous scan of the lobby as they moved. A couple sat near the fountain. An elderly gentleman she didn't know read a newspaper in a distant club chair. Relieved to see no sign of Zachary or Sarah, she proceeded at a quick but steady pace. Careful not to give the impression of scurrying, Brooke stayed close to the potted palms that lined the lobby much as small animals in a forest might keep close to potential camouflage just in case a larger predator, and his pregnant girlfriend, appeared.

They were only two potted palms away from the elevators when footsteps came up behind them. Brooke kept walking, the girls' hands tight in hers, but just as they pa.s.sed the next to last palm of potential refuge Darcy stopped suddenly. Her tail began to wag.

"No, Darcy," Brooke hissed. The carpeted hallway that led to the elevators beckoned just ahead. The old man looked up from his newspaper. She tugged lightly on the leash, but Darcy had gone stiff-legged and didn't budge.

"Wait!" Zachary's voice and the sound of two sets of footsteps came up behind them.

Brooke froze. She would have paid large sums of money for an invisibility cloak. Even more for the ability to time travel; a solid fifteen minutes from now would work.

"It's me!" Zach shouted as if this would be an inducement to turn around rather than race for the elevator with her hands over her ears.

The old man was watching her with interest as if he suspected she might make a break for it and didn't want to miss it if she did. But the girls had already dropped her hands, shouted, "Daddy!" and whirled around. Darcy gave a euphoric woof. Her tail went into overdrive. In her frantic effort to reach Zachary, she wrapped the leash around Brooke's legs.

Trapped, Brooke teetered precariously. Desperate to remain upright, she dropped the leash temporarily so that it could unravel. Somehow she managed to turn without wiping out. Having to face Ken and Barbie was bad enough. She could not do it from the marble floor.

Zach was dressed in gray slacks and an open-necked dress shirt. He accepted the whimpering adoration of his daughters and his former dog as his due. Sarah was perfectly groomed as always in a pair of simple black slacks and a tunic top. Aside from the pooch of a stomach she remained lithe and trim, unlike Brooke who had simply swelled to two or three times her normal size with each of her pregnancies. Even four or five months pregnant Sarah Grant was glowingly beautiful and knew it.

Zach's expression made it clear he saw nothing remotely awkward about this encounter. Like Jennifer Aniston had said of Brad Pitt, the man seemed to be missing a sensitivity chip. Sarah knew exactly how uncomfortable it was for Brooke and delighted in it.

"I wanted to talk to you about Thanksgiving," Zach said. "I need to take the girls a few days earlier than I'd planned."

Sarah slipped her hand into his. Zach gave it a gentle squeeze.

Brooke looked away from their hands and tightened her own on Darcy's leash. "Why?"

"Because I'm taking the girls up to Boston to have Thanksgiving with my parents."

Sarah squeezed his hand back. Her eyes remained on Brooke.

"I want them to meet Sarah." He raised Sarah's hand to his lips. The diamond ring that glittered on her finger was so bright that if Brooke hadn't looked away she might have been blinded. Once Sarah was certain Brooke had seen the trophy that proclaimed her the winner she turned her eyes up to Zach's. He looked down at her with what could only be love shining in his eyes. Brooke couldn't remember the last time he'd looked at her that way. Or if he ever had.

Zach looked down at his watch, not letting go of Sarah's hand. "We're ordering pizza tonight, munchkins," he said to the girls as if he might actually be looking forward to it. Instead of sniffing in disapproval as he had when Brooke had opted to order in or pick up takeout instead of cooking. "I'll be down to pick you up in twenty minutes."

Bile rose in Brooke's throat. She'd begun to believe Zachary no longer had the capacity to hurt her, but she'd been wrong.

She swallowed. A hand fluttered up to clutch her throat in an attempt to hold back her gorge as Zachary and Sarah rounded the corner that led to the elevators. Struggling for control, Brooke looked up in panic and saw Claire Walker headed toward them with purposeful strides. Claire quickly unwrapped Darcy's leash, handed it to Natalie and escorted Brooke over to the nearby potted palm. There she blocked Brooke from view as Brooke bent and emptied the contents of her stomach into the hard-packed dirt.

"Oh, G.o.d," Brooke moaned. "Please tell me I didn't just throw up on a poor defenseless palm tree."

"Don't worry. I'm sure it's biodegradable," Claire said.

"Do you think we need to let James know so someone can clean it up?" Brooke cut a look toward the old man and was relieved to see the club chair empty. She flushed with embarra.s.sment and hoped he'd left before she heaved all over communal property.

"Don't worry about it," Claire said. "I'll walk you all upstairs. Then I can escort the girls up to their father's so he doesn't have to come down to get them."

Brooke closed her eyes on the tears that threatened; a wave of grat.i.tude washed through her. She took Darcy's leash back and brought the dog to heel.

"Come on, chicks," Claire said brightly to Natalie and Ava. "Let's take your Mommy upstairs and get her some ginger ale for her tummy. Then I can walk you up to your dad." She turned them all around and got them headed for the elevators. "Do you know what sound a baby chick makes?" she asked gaily.

"Cheep! cheep!" Natalie and Ava tucked their fists into their armpits to make wings then flapped their elbows up and down. "They go cheep, cheep!"

By the time they got to the apartment Brooke's stomach had settled though the embarra.s.sment remained. The girls' overnight bags were already out and Claire waited while Natalie and Ava raced around their rooms stuffing them with their pajamas and clothes for school tomorrow.

"Are you okay, Mommy?" Natalie asked as Brooke kissed each of the girls good-bye.

"I am, sweetie," she said in her most rea.s.suring tone. "I'm going to have some ginger ale right now and I'll be good as new when I pick you up from school tomorrow."

"I'll expect you up at my place in fifteen minutes," Claire whispered in Brooke's ear as she leaned in to hug her good-bye. "I'll call Samantha to see if she's around. We can order something in ourselves. If you have a bottle of anything, bring it."

"Oh, no, I don't think that's a good idea," Brooke said, wanting nothing more than to forget the whole humiliating encounter had taken place.

"You're not going to sit here rerunning that little scene in your head," Claire said.

"I can't believe I threw up in the lobby!"

"Stop worrying about the potted palm," Claire said. "It was looking a little droopy. I'm pretty sure it needed fertilizing."

Brooke's laugh was shaky.

"Come on, chickadees," Claire said gaily as she led the girls out the door. "Let me hear those cheeps." In the doorway she turned and looked at Brooke then motioned upstairs with her thumb. "If I don't see you in fifteen minutes, I'm coming back down for you. If you come under your own steam, you'll save me the extra trip."

BY THE TIME SAMANTHA REACHED CLAIRE'S apartment Claire and Brooke were settled on the sofa, an open bottle of wine on the c.o.c.ktail table between them. Three winegla.s.ses stood ready.

Samantha had offered to have them up at her place, where she'd done little but pace and think and think and pace, but she was actually glad to be in Claire's studio apartment. The small s.p.a.ce was warm and cozy. Maybe this was why people downsized-to create a s.p.a.ce too small to leave room for doubts? "Are you okay?" she asked Brooke as she settled on the chair opposite the couch.

"Yes," Brooke replied. "I guess I just wasn't ready for the sight of Sarah's stomach. Or the diamond ring on her finger." She shook her head, still struggling with the reality.

"Sometimes no amount of forewarning prepares you for the really awful things," Samantha said. "No matter how carefully you tiptoe or how gingerly you tread. Sometimes s.h.i.t just happens."

Brooke looked up with damp eyes. Her nod was weary. "Zachary never looked at me like he looks at her. That's what made me sick."

"Do you think he looks at her that way because she's pregnant?" Samantha was embarra.s.sed by the wistful note in her voice. How long had she told herself things would have been different/clearer/better if only she'd been able to have a baby?

Brooke shook her head. "Especially not when I was pregnant. For one thing I looked like the Goodyear blimp both times. For another he always blamed me for getting pregnant when he was in the middle of his residency and we couldn't afford it."

"As if you got that way all by yourself," Claire huffed. "What an a.s.shole!" She winced. "Oops. Sorry. Should I have asked permission to call him that?" She filled Brooke's winegla.s.s.

Brooke snorted. "Thanks for asking. But I'm guessing his a.s.sholiness is pretty obvious to almost everyone?" She looked between them.

Samantha wasn't entirely certain what Brooke wanted to hear.

"Sorry," Brooke said quickly. "I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that." She raised her gla.s.s. "To his royal a.s.sholiness!" She forced a jovial tone, but tears had begun to squeeze out of the corners of her eyes. They slipped down her cheeks. "It's just that . . . I can't bear that he never looked at me that way. And now I know for sure he never will." Brooke sniffed and finished her gla.s.s in one long gulp. "I mean, I knew that when he left me. And I knew it even more when he divorced me. But I don't know." She swiped at her cheeks and eyes with the back of one hand. "I guess there was just some part of me that refused to believe I was that unlovable."

Claire slid an arm around Brooke's shoulders. "You are not unlovable. And you've already got Bruce Dalton wanting to take you out. Which is more than I can say after sixteen years of being single."

"Bruce Dalton is looking for someone to mother his daughter. I happen to be Private Butler's mother in residence, that's all."

"You're underrating yourself," Samantha said. "Just because Zachary, I mean, His a.s.sholiness, didn't understand your value, that doesn't mean you're not worth a great deal."

"That's right," Claire said pouring them each another drink. "You're great. And you throw up more neatly than anyone I've ever met."

The tension in Brooke's shoulders loosened. Samantha laughed as Claire filled her in.

"Seriously, it's a talent," Claire said. "When you live in a s.p.a.ce this size you appreciate someone who can be economical with their movements."

There was more laughter, but Brooke didn't join in. "It's easy for both of you to joke. You're the one who chose to end her marriage," Brooke said to Claire. She turned to Samantha, her brown eyes still filled with hurt and pain. "And you've been married to Mr. Gorgeous and Wonderful practically forever. And he apparently still worships the ground you walk on."

The observation hung in the air between them. Instinct, and years of practice, told Samantha to simply acknowledge her good fortune, knock on wood so as not to jinx that good fortune, and then turn the subject. No one felt sorry for poor little rich girls.

Except that she'd now spent close to two weeks without anything more than the most basic of communication from her husband-impersonal texts like Heading for Phoenix. If you need anything, call Margaret at the office. And finally, yesterday, En route to Chicago for meetings with Andrew Martin. Not sure how long. She'd been forcing herself to keep her regular appointments, attend her regular committee meetings, and act as if all were well. But alone in the condo she'd done little but pace and worry, neither of which had warded off the fear that her marriage was as over as Claire's and Brooke's.

She thought about her mother-in-law's warning. What if her insecurity drove Jonathan into the arms of a Sarah, who would know that Jonathan loved her and chose her and who might have no trouble at all getting pregnant? This thought made her sick to her stomach and in possible need of a potted palm of her own.

"Well, that just goes to prove that how things look and how things are can be entirely different." Samantha hadn't fully realized she intended to speak until the words were out. But she was so tired of carrying the toxic mix of guilt, doubt, and fear everywhere with her. There wasn't a part of her life that wasn't colored by it.

"My husband married me out of pity," she said. "He was only twenty-seven and although our families had known each other forever, we'd never even been on a date when he proposed. Oh, and this was just after my father had embezzled a fortune from his family law firm before he and my mother died. But he married me anyway and helped me raise my brother and sister."

They stared at her, saying nothing. Their mouths gaped open in surprise.

"And he's stayed married to me all these years because that's the kind of man he is."

The phone buzzed from downstairs undoubtedly to announce the arrival of their pizza. n.o.body moved.