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  Helena gulped. “Of course. I’m…sorry for your loss.”

  The woman stepped closer. Chanel No. 5 nearly choked her as Dustin’s mother put a scrawny hand on her wrist. “We must have lunch. Once all of this…unpleasantness is over. I do want to get to know you. Better.”

  Helena gaped at her. Virginia’s face was open, guileless. She let herself relax a centimeter. “Um, sure. I mean, next week is sort of…”

  “Next Thursday. At the club. Eleven thirty? Great. See you then.” She pressed papery lips to Helena’s cheek and glided away, already greeting more people, leaving Helena to stare after her, amazed, furious and flabbergasted by the way the woman had arranged it, just like that. She took a breath and looked around for Dustin, dreading the moment she’d find him with Valerie still dangling off one arm. Something about this whole thing felt off to her, and not only because the obvious segregation in the room between the “brewery” people and everyone else. She bit her lip. Then settled back into her seat, surrounded by Prufrock Brewing staff. Awkward tension suffused the room.

  She looked up and saw him, just as she figured, with the thin, form of his ex-fiancée still attached to him like a parasite. Helena gulped, and looked down. A hand settled on her shoulder. Dustin’s ancient secretary, Mrs. Richardson, leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Don’t let them upset you, dear. He loves you. Nothing will change that.” The woman’s papery skin was cold.

  Helena nodded, mute, as she watched the continuous parade of the Midwest’s rich and famous give their condolences to Dustin, his mother, and the woman who, if one did not know better, could be his wife, judging by the way she stood so close, her hand firmly stuck in his elbow.

  “I should go,” she muttered, suddenly feeling peevish, nearly blind with jealousy.

  “No, you should not.” Mrs. Richardson kept a firm hand on her arm. “I’ve been with this family for nearly twenty five years, young lady. And I will not allow you to let her,” she leveled an arthritic finger at the tableau near the casket, “make you feel bad or out of place, or anything. Other than the woman her son loves.” She patted Helena’s cheek. “Buck up now, honey. That is your man. Start acting like it.”

  But she sat, glued to her seat it seemed. And endured the rest of the gruesome “visitation” hours watching Dustin laugh and lean into Valerie’s slim shoulder nearly one time too many for her taste. By the time the room had cleared she had worked herself into a near frenzy of fury. But something else too. Resignation, regret and the hint of a future unhappiness tinged the edges of her raw emotions. She wandered out of the large chapel, heard his deep, gravelly, so-loved voice laughing and chatting.

  “Honey.” He looked up when he saw her in the doorway of a room full of dainty desserts, coffee and tea. He held what looked like a double bourbon in one hand. “Where have you been?” He took a sip. She bit her lip.

  Valerie’s high-pitched laughter made her blink and turn. The woman held out a hand to Helena. “Hello. I’m Valerie. And you must be…”

  The woman left just enough empty air after her last words to let Helena know her name and her very position with Dustin was forgettable. Anger made her face flush. “I must be going.”

  Dustin held out the empty glass. Valerie took it from him, her eyes full of sympathy. “Another?” she asked, her scrawny hand on Dustin’s dark-suited arm.

  “Uh, sure.” He stared at Helena. “Where are you going? I told you we had the dinner—”

  She cut him off. “And I told you, I wasn’t going to that. Besides—” She gestured to the refreshed drink the now simpering Valerie held out. “You’re pretty well covered I’d say.”

  He didn’t try to stop her, and she knew it was childish. But she’d be damned if she stand there another minute like a stupid peasant watching the nobility and observing that bitch hover around her man.

  Your man, Helena. Don’t walk away from him. He needs you.

  She threw her expensive Mercedes sedan into reverse and backed out so fast she nearly ended up in the front room of the sedate, expensive funeral home. No. He doesn’t. And now that his father is gone all your bets are off. Best get used to it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dustin’s mouth felt like the Mojave Desert and his gut did sickening flips as he contemplated his new reality, sitting in the office he’d inherited. His father had left everything tidy and clear. He, the only son, would be named CEO of Prufrock Brands. He now owned and operated a multi-billion-dollar food supply business. He had two giant warehouses, leased a fleet of semi trucks, managed payroll, insurance and pension plans for nearly three thousand people, supervised logistics delivery of restaurant-grade food and paper products to something like eight thousand locations in seven states, had two personal assistants and a giant office, a potentially pregnant girlfriend who’d more or less stopped talking to him. He groaned and sat up on the couch of his new office and grappled with this destiny.

  It had only taken a week for his mother to insert herself into his life as if he’d never left his boyhood home. She called, dropped by the office and generally took over in ways he was still trying to sort through and cope with and he still hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep. Or a real conversation with Helena. Forget about getting laid. He groaned and flopped back, the huge window reflecting a perfect West Michigan summer’s day, as if mocking how utterly miserable he felt.

  He glanced down at a text message, hoping it was Helena. It was Valerie. She’d been invaluable this last week, being on-hand with his mother when he couldn’t and generally buffering the woman a little for him. His feelings about her were straightforward. He considered her a friend and nothing more. But she could handle Virginia Prufrock’s bursts of emotion and bouts of depression better than anyone it seemed.

  I’m in your building. Brought lunch.

  He smiled when she appeared within seconds, a bag of delicious-smelling food in one hand her phone in the other.

  “Thanks.” He rose and stretched, his chest still tight at the memory of Helena’s gaunt face, and her continued silent treatment this morning. He was batting a thousand with her no doubt. And it was making him nuts.

  “You look terrible,” she said as she set out the sandwiches and drinks. “I know you miss working at the brewery.” She sat, crossed her elegant legs and gave him a searching look.

  Dustin suddenly wanted nothing more than to talk to someone who would talk back. He hadn’t had time to really connect with Erik in the last two weeks, although he knew Helena had filled him in on what happened. At that moment, nothing seemed more perfect than dumping it all on a woman he’d known for years, who was one of his oldest friends.

  After nearly forty minutes of telling her pretty much everything, including Helena’s stubbornness about marriage and her potential pregnancy and even Erik—since she’d known about their relationship—he felt a hundred times better. She remained quietly sympathetic, offering a few comments, mostly just listening. Finally she stood and cleared away their mess. When she came around the desk and stood near him, he shivered a little, realizing he probably had said too much. But she put a hand on his shoulder, leaned down and brushed his cheek with a kiss, grabbed her purse and started for the door.

  He sat, a little dumbstruck by the whole scene. Visions of Helena, her bright blue eyes and smart mouth that likely would have a few things to say about his whiney diatribe, passed through his brain. Valerie turned, her thin frame encased in designer names from head to toe. “I’m here for you, Dustin, whenever you need an ear. I’d like to be more for you again. But I understand.”

  He nodded, wondering what had just happened. Then Assistant Number One stuck her head in the door, reminding him of his next meeting and his brain clouded over once again with dread as the crushing weight of responsibility nearly choked him. After an hour spent with a consultant, the human resources director and his father’s trusted attorney, he felt even worse. He groped for his phone, needing to hear Helena’s voice, even if she were still pissed at him f
or whatever reason. His pockets were empty. “Excuse me a second, gentlemen.” He stood and took deep breaths to calm his nerves as he walked back to his office. The damn thing was nowhere to be found. “Jill!” he barked at Assistant Number Two.

  She looked up from her computer screen. “Yes?”

  He ground his teeth. “Have you seen my phone?”

  *

  Helena stared at the woman across the elegant, cloth-draped table and let the humming in her ears that signaled major angry meltdown deafen her for a few more seconds. She sipped her iced tea, patted her lips with the crisp white napkin and let the sounds of a busy country club restaurant ebb and flow around her. Virginia mirrored her, all the while keeping her evil smile fixed in place as if she had not just told Helena to get out of her son’s life in exchange for an obscene amount of money. An envelope now sat on the table between them, an embossed and heavy reminder of just how shitty her life had become.

  The horrible woman’s words kept coming, assaulting her in spite of her effort to not care. “I understand.” She patted Helena’s hand before Helena could move it off the table. The feel of her ice-cold skin broke Helena’s silence.

  “No, actually I don’t think you do.” She felt her face flush, and recognized the familiar onrushing fury. She let it loose, keeping her voice low. “Your son is the one who wanted to marry me. He asked me five or six times and I always say no. And I just figured out why.” She stood, a little dizzy.

  Dustin’s mother merely looked at her, as if a scene was exactly what she expected from his down-market girlfriend. “Dear. Please sit. You need to know all of it. This must be a shock after at the…time you have spent together. But poor Dustin couldn’t bring himself to tell you himself. Bless his heart. He and Valerie are back together.”

  Helena took the envelope and tore it in half before sticking it in the gooey remains of her overcooked pasta. “I thank you, Virginia, truly. For finally letting me see the light.” She kept a smile on her face at the cost of actual physical pain since what she wanted to do was dump the woman’s expensive wine on her head. “If you are so fucking evil that you would punish your son, make him truly unhappy just to further your own agenda, well, that’s a family I want no part of. Because he will hate you for this.” She stepped closer and leaned down to the woman’s powdery-smelling ear. “I just feel sorry for you. I won’t waste a good hate on someone as pitiful as you.”

  Her chest constricted as she made her way out of the over-cooled room and out into the parking lot. “Shit, shit…” She dropped her keys to the pavement, then cracked the back of her head on the side mirror, bringing tears to her eyes. But on the way home, she shed no tears. She had nothing left. Her life was over. She pulled over before she had an accident and hit Dustin’s speed dial. If she could just hear his voice, she’d know this whole thing was bullshit. He’d laugh, make some stupid joke out of it and they’d be fine. She knew she’d been distant but the whole thing on top of the pregnancy scare had made her a jittery mess. And she hadn’t really allowed him his own frustrations, hadn’t listened when he needed it. But she’d fix all that now.

  She smiled, picturing him, his broad back, deep green eyes and beloved face. This was all just Virginia’s manipulations and he’d set her straight.

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice answered.

  Helena gripped the steering wheel. “Jill? It’s Helena. Is Dustin around?”

  “Oh, this isn’t Jill. It’s Valerie.”

  Helena stared down the tunnel suddenly in front of her, and threw the phone out the window.

  *

  By the time she eased the car into the underground parking garage of Dustin’s building, Helena had calmed. She was so calm, it alarmed her. She turned the key, listening to the expensive German-made motor fade. Her grip on the soft leather steering wheel tightened. But her heart didn’t pound, tears didn’t threaten, her breathing was completely serene. But her knuckles were starting to hurt. She glared at her hands, then back out the windshield at the blank, dull gray concrete wall.

  Sucking in a huge breath, hoping to force her hands to release, she got a lungful of expensive car interior. She looked on the seat next to her, noted the small, tasteful Coach bag. The interior light caught the metal on the understated, elegant Patek Phillipe watch. Her Ray-Bans slid off her hair down to her nose. A bright light seemed to pierce her eyeballs, making her wince. All of this—the cars, jewelry, accessories, condo, vacations, every ounce of food and drink she’d consumed for the last five years—was his. Not hers. And now, what did she have? How had she allowed herself to get to this point? This completely dependent on a guy—a guy who said he loved her. But was apparently just another cheating asshole mama’s boy.

  A film seemed to cover her eyes. She glanced down, confused by the fact that her linen pants legs were damp. She touched them, honestly not even realizing that she must have been crying for the last ten minutes or so. She was that numb.

  Helena Turner, her inner, better self intoned, This is all a huge misunderstanding. A giant one, to be sure. But Dustin loves you. Why would you think otherwise? You are being overly dramatic. Just tell him what his mother did, laugh, then accept his proposal. Tell him you will marry him. It’s what you want, and your endless need to play poor little poor girl is getting old, even to me.

  She frowned. Put a hand to her forehead to shut the stupid, logical bitch up.

  Now, now, it kept talking. You know I’m right. That Valerie must have his phone because…

  Helena let out a primal scream, beat her fists against the steering wheel. “Well?” she cried out to the empty car interior. “Well? What is your answer to that? Why would Valerie be answering his goddamn phone? Huh? Well?”

  The voice shut up. So she climbed out of the car, rode the elevator to the top floor, used her key in the lock, marveling at the everydayness of this moment. She stood in the foyer, noted the expensive, tasteful furnishings. The sight of her threadbare white robe draped over the leather couch—where he’d tossed it the night before in his haste to get at her body—glowed like a beacon of inappropriate, out-of-place tackiness.

  She saw red. Then moved forward toward the closet where she’d stashed a couple of broken-down boxes from a few years ago. Those plus three of the oh-so-expensive pieces of luggage he’d bought for their last vacation would do quite nicely. She threw them up on the huge bed, yanked her clothes off their hangers and out of drawers. She held back tears. Would not cry. Would not give him the satisfaction. A drop of blood hit her hand. She licked her lip. She’d been biting on it so hard she’d made herself bleed. Jesus.

  She sat on the edge of the bed. Her knees shook, her hands trembled. But she would. Not. Cry.

  She heard him then. His keys hit the bowl where he kept them, his footfalls echoed as he walked into the kitchen. She heard him open a beer. But she was absolutely frozen in place. Her heart chose that moment to speed up so fast her chest hurt. He knew she was here. They parked side by side so he would have seen her car. He must be figuring out how to break it to her. That he and that…that…skinny cunt of a debutante were indeed back together.

  No, Helena. Go to him. Let him explain. Tell him exactly what happened today. Give him a chance to make it…

  “Shut up,” she growled to herself.

  “Honey?” She heard him making his way down the hall, the Turkish rug muffling his steps. She stared at the floor, trying to figure out what to say that did not involve screaming, cursing or thrown objects. “Hey, what’s all…” His voice faded.

  She looked at him, slumped in the doorway. He seemed to float in his suit. He’d lost weight. Couldn’t manage to eat from stress he claimed. Tears tried to overwhelm her but she bit them back, set her jaw.

  “This is me. Leaving.”

  “I gathered as much.” He kept his voice light. His usual method of dealing with hysteria on her part involved keeping it calm, cool and collected. The bastard could pull it off in pretty much every circumstance.

 
“Well, if you will excuse me.”

  Tell him, Helena. Tell him…

  “No. I won’t.” He grabbed her arm.

  She yanked out of his grasp. “Spare me. I get it. I said ‘no’ one time too many so you simply turned to the junior varsity squad and plucked out a new player.”

  He stared at her. His eyes flashed with anger. “Are you drunk?”

  “Fuck you, no. I’m not.”

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  She sighed, slumped against the wall opposite their—no, scratch that, his—bedroom. She had to get out. Get away from him. This was too much. “Look, Dustin, I get it. Valerie is a better fit for you all around. I’m too volatile. Too emotional. Too…down market. You guys should be together.”

  Dustin’s jaw dropped, then he threw his head back and laughed so hard she feared for his sanity. Finally, he stopped, leveled his gaze at her. “What happened, Helena? I know you went to lunch with my mother. What in the hell did she say to you?”

  “Why does it matter?” Her brain was buzzing now. The voice demanded that she tell him. Let him explain. But she just could not. And his next words sealed that deal for her.

  “Because frankly, if after all the time we’ve had together. All the conversations about her master manipulating and the times I stayed away from them for your sake can’t convince you that I love you no matter what she says. Well—” He ran a hand down his haggard face. Her heart clenched. “Maybe you should go.” His eyes hardened, which made her react in kind. “I am sick and tired of trying to reassure you. To make you believe that you are beautiful, talented and deserving of everything that our life together has meant. You’ve resisted me so hard for so long…I’m fucking exhausted by it.”