Page 163 of Perfect Satisfaction

“Yes.”

“Friends.”

“Excluding Angie.”

“Dating?”

“No. She never dated. She only accepted an escort under duress when it was mandatory.”

“Joshua Basset?”

“Yes, JB was her escort.”

I grind my teeth. I wonder if Danielle hears it because she adds, “After that photo, we all felt one good thing happened to her.”

“What’s that?”

“She stopped waiting. She started to live in her own way. The way she’s doing it may not be how others had hoped, but she is living. I’m no longer concerned she’ll end up like her mother.”

“She said her mother died when Sula was in her teens.”

There’s a long pause. “Her mother’s maiden name was Robideaux. Meera Robideaux.”

Then there’s silence in my ear.

I reach over the side of my bed and yank out my laptop. Quickly, I type in Meera Robideaux.

A woman with Sula’s delicate features appears on my screen. As does article after article about her death.

Suicide.

Christ. Sula’s mother killed herself?

I read quickly.

On the surface, our story and her parents’ follow such a similar pattern, I’m surprised Sula gave me the small opening she did. Immediate unquenchable lust. Many would see Sula’s actions as following in her mother’s footsteps, except West Moore was a complete bastard. Significantly older than the graduate student he seduced, he didn’t marry her right away—too embroiled in a messy divorce from his second child’s mother. Despite all attempts, I can’t find that child’s name anywhere.

But along with the similarities are many differences. I wasn’t married. I honestly fell in love with my wife. I gave her my name because I wanted her to have it forever.

Reading the paparazzi coverage, West married Meera solely to give a name to his unborn child. It didn’t slow down his affairs one iota. Yet, he returned to Meera time and time again. Shortly after Sula was born, West divorced Meera, but that didn’t stop her from continuing to accept Sula’s father in her life, her bed.

Until she killed herself out due to depression, the tabloids of the day scream at me. Young Ursula was sent to live with her father. When he died, he showed how little he cared for the child when he cut her out of his will.

I want to hurl my computer across the bedroom. When the phone rings again, I answer, whispering, “Oh god, what did I do?”

There’s a sad sigh on the other end of the line. “Please be honest with me because if you’re not, if I lose her in my life, so do my husband and my children. Do you love her?”

“I’ve never stopped.”

I endure an inescapable moment of silence before Danielle says, “Tomorrow night, there’s a fashion show at the New York Public Library. It’s a black-tie affair benefiting the charity, Send Me an Angel.”

“I’ve never heard of it.” But my fingers are already tapping.

“They provide direct support for victims of rape on college campuses, it also works with those victims to press charges against their abusers.” In a wry tone, she adds, “We’re big supporters of that in this family.”

A note of awe enters my voice. “Sula’s on the board.”

“Sula is the heart of SMAA. She does everything for it. She took her mother’s inheritance and bought the building they work out of.”