Silence. They were freaking silent.
“You’re making the biggest mistake of your life, Ellery. What will you be if not David Chambers’ wife? A history teacher is a lowly profession, meant for mothers or spinsters. It’s not even a career. You’re nothing but a disappointment. Cat is everything you’re not.”
“You mean a liar and a thief? I know.”
“A daughter who cares about her family. You’re nothing without David. Go back to him now before it’s too late.”
That was the official moment my heart broke.
Because I can be so many things. I want to be so many things. And I’m not disappointed in myself. I’m proud. I left an awful marriage and a bad situation. Honestly, in leaving David, I feel like I can do anything with my life. This is my renaissance. The same idealistic way you ask an eight-year-old what they want to be when they grow up, and they reply with pop star or ballerina.
What limits do I have on myself now?
None. I can do this new job for a year or two or however long I want. I can save money, and I can move to freaking Paris or Brazil. It doesn’t matter. Because my life is open to me.
I get to call the shots. Not David.
And whatever bullshit my parents were spewing about Cat was just that. Bullshit. She and David were so equally matched, if they ever bred children, they’d be scarier and more vicious than anything any paranormal author could conjure.
I hung up on my parents. Two minutes later, David called, obviously my parents having clued him into my conversation with them.
This was the point in the night where he professed his love for me. Again. Told me just how sorry he was. How he’d never meant to hurt me and that he’d never treat me poorly again. Only, I’d heard the exact same speech before. Several times even. And while he was delivering it last night, I know for a fact that the golf channel was on. He was watching highlights of himself because that’s what he loved to do most.
Narcissism at its finest.
But it also meant he wasn’t all that broken up about losing me. He just didn’t want to deal with our divorce becoming public—something it hasn’t been yet because we kept it quiet—and him looking bad.
I discovered this was his main reason when he threatened to bash me to every news network and trashy magazine rag in the country and take me back to court to fight the money he gave me in the divorce. I told him to go for it. Fuck his money. I have a job. And I have a savings account from before David and I married—albeit small.
He can trash me if he really wants to be that petulant.
Add to that the encounter with Landon.
Landon. Not Luca. No. That I didn’t expect. Especially when it was the opposite of how he was when we met. Then again, he was looking to get laid, so obviously the man I met last night is the real Landon and the one who took me to bed in the hotel was an impostor.
That messed with me on a whole other level.
I Googled him last night. Both of them. All kinds of things came up about the Fritz family. Billionaires. Bachelor playboys. Boston royalty. Their faces were splashed everywhere—a gorgeous group of men too. But with it, I remember why he was familiar to me. I had met Luca Fritz at some charity event David went to in Baltimore. It was a passing hello and four years ago.
But it wasn’t Luca I slept with. It was Landon.
My new neighbor and all-around heartless asshole.
So yeah, I don’t want to get out of bed this morning. My face feels puffy, and I’m still reeling from my pity party that left me in miserable tears—I blame the chardonnay for that. But instead of wallowing over the fact that I’m alone in this world, divorced at the tender age of twenty-seven, living in a town I know nothing about, and have only one friend to my name, I pull my raggedy ass out of bed, get dressed, and head to the local garden center. There, I purchase myself a boatload of bulbs.
And it is with these beautiful bulbs that I now find myself digging through the dirt beds of my front lawn. Sure, I don’t own this home, but my landlady gave me the green light to plant, so that’s what I’m doing. Because I’m determined to still be living here in the spring when these suckers bloom. When all these beautiful multicolored tulips, crocuses, and daffodils sprout.
Wiping my forehead of the sweat it’s accrued, I sit back on my haunches and survey my work. I might have gone a bit overboard with the planting, but can a person go overboard with flowers? They’re pretty.
For the last hour and a half I’ve been toiling in the September sun, I’ve forced myself not to peer over at Landon’s house. It’s been a challenge, let me tell you. First of all, these houses are super close to each other. Like, the side of my house is less than thirty feet from the side of his.
It’s a problem.
At least for the way my mind likes to wander to our night in the hotel. He may have been ruder than sin last night, but unfortunately, when he looked at me, I still felt that spark. There was heat in his eyes, even before I disrobed.
It’s been so long since I felt anything that remotely resembled a spark or electricity or even freaking attraction. So. Long. I’ve been a starved woman left alone on a deserted island with no food or water to satiate me. So this whole not peeking next door to see if I can glimpse the hot neighbor who screws like a dirty demon and admittedly wants nothing to do with me?
It’s not going so well.
My eyes have a mind of their own. Like right now as I squint, trying like a crazy woman to peer in through his window for a chance to spot him. Hell, I don’t even know if he’s home right now.
Dammit, did he have to lie to me? Did he have to be so cold and unfeeling? I hate him for what he did and how he treated me after, and yet I’m intrigued by him. But any intrigue I feel is a ruse. It’s part of the lie he propagandized. I’ve had enough of men mistreating me. The last thing I need is to go looking for more in a man like Landon Fritz.
Dignity, Elle. Right. You don’t need men. They need you. Obviously. Of course.
I square my shoulders and resume my digging, only to gasp out a loud, startled shriek when someone asks, “What are you planting?” from directly behind me.
I twist around and peer up, shielding my eyes from the intrusive sun. My other dirt-covered hand goes to my chest to calm my racing heart. It takes me a second to focus until I realize I’m staring at a young girl with stormy blue eyes set atop round, rose-tinted cheeks and full, pale lips. Her chestnut brown hair is nearly down to her waist in soft mermaid waves, and she’s wearing a cropped green T-shirt that hits right at her waist, jeans, and a big, bright smile.
She’s beautiful in a very classic way.
Like a starlet from The Golden Age of Hollywood.
She also looks insanely familiar, though I’m positive I’ve never seen her before. “Hi,” I squeak. “You scared me.”
“I did. Sorry. Wasn’t exactly what I was going for. But I saw you digging, and I was curious. I’m Stella,” she introduces, extending her hand to me.
Very proper for a girl who cannot be older than twelve or thirteen. “So very nice to meet you, Stella. I’m Ellery, but you can call me Elle.”
I stand, staring helplessly down at my dirty gloved hands, and then hastily remove them so I can shake her tiny one. I study her a moment longer as we shake.
“I live there.” She points to Landon’s house. “You met my dad last night.”