Chapter One
“Ithink my husband is having an affair.”
My best friend, Whitney, slides into our usual table at La Madeleine—a French café in Tigertail Beach Village tucked between designer boutiques and art galleries. It’s all curated charm and soft lighting, meant to feel like a slice of Paris dropped into Marco Island. For us, it’s also the backdrop to all of our juiciest secrets and revelations.
“Bloody Mary, please.”
Shock hums through me. “Come again?”
“Here—take this, just in case anything happens to me.” She drops a stack of black journals onto the white tablecloth between us.
“Anything like what?” I pick one up, flipping through it. Every page is filled with Whitney’s tight, looping handwriting.
“You know… death, divorce, an accident that leaves me comatose. The usual.” The waiter sets her drink down. She smiles, takes a long sip, then adds, “I found something.”
Whitney finding something isn’t unusual. Skeptical doesn’t even begin to cover it. After everything she’s been through, who wouldn’t be?
“What did you find this time?”
She sighs, fingers brushing the pearls at her throat before she catches herself and laces her hands together instead. “My credit card expired, so I logged into our phone account to update it. That’s when I saw it—hundreds of messages between his number and another one. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, but they go back months. So I did some digging.”
“This isn’t going to end well,” I say.
“It never does.” She gives a soft, humorless laugh. “Anyway, I found out everything about her. Chrissy Thatcher. Pensacola. I even found her LinkedIn.” She rolls her ocean-blue eyes. “Can you believe how easy it is to know everything about someone you’ve never met?”
I don’t answer.
“Twenty-two. Barista. Probably making twelve bucks an hour while my husband wines and dines her at the best restaurants in Naples.” Her voice wavers—just slightly—but I see it. The crack in the façade. Her brows pull tight, her teeth pressing into her lower lip. “It’s been going on for months. The further back I scroll, the worse it gets.”
“Did you save it? For evidence?”
“Evidence?” The word trembles.
“For a divorce.”
She shakes her head.
My instinct is to reach across the table, take her hand, offer comfort. But Whitney and I aren’t built like that. We don’t do soft. We don’t do fragile. We met in college because we both existed just outside the polished illusion our families insisted on maintaining. We’re outspoken, abrasive, maybe even cynical—but always funny. Laughter is how we survive things.
Whitney and I aren’t comforting.
We’re dangerous.
We buy houses next to each other in Tigertail BeachEstates. Stand beside each other at our weddings. Our husbands call us the Dangerous Duo, half-joking, half-not.
When we’re together, something always happens.
“God, can you imagine what Veronica would say if I told her Phillip and I were getting divorced?” Whitney says. “She’d write me out of the will before I finished the sentence.”
Her mother.
We’ve always done this—first names instead of titles. It makes sense for me. I’m adopted. But Whitney is born and bred royalty around here. Her mother sits on the board of every major charity from Naples to Palm Beach, and her father… well, no one really knows what he does, but he brings in enough money that no one asks.
“You don’t need her money,” I say with a shrug.
“Well, I’d still like to avoid pissing her off if I can.” Whitney swirls her Bloody Mary. The pickle spear sinks deeper into the red. “Divorce isn’t lucrative—that’s what she’d say. You know my parents’ only priority is protecting their bank account. A divorced daughter brings shame on the whole family.”
“Veronica could use a little humility.”
