Page 136

“Caren is going to lose her shit if you walk away from this project.”

“Then I’ll explain why.”

“There’s nothing to explain.”

“Great.”

I walked out of the bedroom and he followed. “Blair.”

I kept moving.

“Blair, hold the fuck up.”

I stopped at the top of the stairs and turned. “Do not follow me.”

“You’re really going to call my wife and make this into something?”

My blood went cold.

“I’ve already learned this lesson at a price you couldn’t afford.”

He stared at me in shock while I went downstairs and out the still-open front door.

I made it to my car before my hands started shaking. I threw my bag into the passenger seat and made myself breathe.

I pressed both palms against the steering wheel. “You’re fine.”

I wasn’t scared of Derek. I was scared of what situations like that did to me. I was scared of how quickly I stopped being thirty-something-year-old Blair with a thriving company and became the woman everybody had dragged across social media.

I was called a homewrecker, a mistress, a whore, and a marriage destroyer. There had been a time when married women stopped calling me. My inquiry forms dried up. My residential referrals disappeared. And women who had followed my work for years suddenly decided another designer was a better fit.

One woman had been honest enough to tell Janelle why.

My husband thinks she’s talented, but given everything, I’d rather not have her working inside our home.

That shit had stayed with me. It felt like I was a contaminant. It felt like if you let me near a couch and a husband at the same time, I would make it my mission to fuck. I laughed when Janelle told me. Then I went into my office and cried with the door locked.

Men weren’t much better. Some thought my reputation was an invitation. One prospective client had asked if my services included anything off the books. I stopped the consultation before he finished laughing.

For almost a year, I survived primarily on cheaper client projects, single women, and clients who didn’t give a fuck about gossip.

The married couples slowly came back and every time one trusted me inside their home, some part of me wanted to prove something. I wanted to prove that the woman they’d heard about wasn’t the only woman I knew how to be.

I needed to call Caren.

Years ago, I had known something about a woman’s marriage that she didn’t. I had helped keep it from her and I would never do that shit again.

I picked up my phone and she answered on the third ring.

“Blair! I’m so sorry about today. How’d everything—”

“Caren.”

Something in my voice stopped her. “What happened?”

I looked toward the house. Derek stood behind one of the front windows watching.

“I ended the walkthrough early.”