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Lilly hauled in a breath. “So the next time things went crazy in the apartment and they went at it, after my uncle stomped away in a rage and when I crawled out from the closet, I asked my aunt about it. While she was sweeping up the glass in the kitchen, I asked her why she didn’t divorce my uncle.”
“And what did she say?”
“‘This is how Durands love.’”
He went still. “That’s not love, Lilly.”
She waved a hand. “Of course it’s not. But it’s all I know. It’s all I ever saw outside of TV shows and storybooks until I was eighteen years old. So you see what that makes me?”
“I’m afraid to ask,” he muttered.
“It makes me worthless for a man like you, with the kind of life you were raised in and the kind of future that you’re expecting for yourself. You can’t mean something to me because I don’t know what to do with that. I’ll leave it at the park overnight or forget it on the bus, or worse, hold it too tight until it’s been worn to nothing and you won’t know how to tell me that I killed it by caring too much.”
“Oh, hell,” Alec said, as if he was fed up with the conversation. He started climbing out of the bed, but Lilly decided she was fed up too, and ran for the door, making her way into the hall with the sound of him calling her name ringing in her ears.
It was done. This time, truly O-V-E-R.
Lilly arrived back at her bungalow, red-faced and anxious. Stressed by the conversation with Alec, she’d gotten herself turned around again and had wandered the deserted grounds of the resort, disoriented and growing more tense with every passing minute. It was only by luck that she’d found the narrow track leading to the front door. When the key card clicked in the lock and it swung inward, she nearly fell inside, relieved. Reprieved.
Rubbing her hand over her chest to calm her thudding heart, she walked into the living area, only to encounter Audra, who stared at her in equal surprise.
The blonde had her hands curved around a steaming cup of in-room coffee and her gaze cut to the closed door of Lilly’s bedroom, then back to Lilly. “It’s so early. I thought you were still sleeping. That you’d gotten in late and had yet to wake up.”
She took in the other woman’s figure, nearly hidden by the too-large sweats. But Audra’s face gave away that she’d lost weight. There were shadows beneath her eyes and her lips were cracked and pale. “I’m the worst friend,” Lilly said, taking note again of the black coffee her friend was lifting to her mouth. “I need to feed you a real breakfast.”
Hustling to the coffee table by the sofa, she flipped through the hospitality binder to locate the room service menu. “Lattés, side orders of bacon and sausage. Look, they have ricotta pancakes!”
There was a thirty-minute guarantee on delivery, which gave Lilly enough time to shower and put on fresh clothes. She glanced at the garment bag hanging on the outside of her closet door as she entered her room and felt a fresh round of anxiety. Apparently the dress she’d bought at a State Street boutique the day before had been sent over. After making payment, the store had insisted on keeping the garment for the afternoon in order to repair an inch of fallen hem and to give it a fresh press.
The purchase had been Jojo’s idea. The other woman had persuaded Lilly that she must attend the dinner-dance serving as the final event in the Thatcher anniversary celebration week. The guests would not only include the family staying at the resort, but also a crowd of friends who were caravanning up from LA in stretch limousines. Rich people could never take no for an answer, Lilly thought now, recalling her weak protest followed by the inevitable capitulation. They expected everything and everyone to fall into line.
A warm shower washed away some of her resentment, and she walked back out to the living area, wearing a smile, a pair of yoga pants, and her favorite hoodie. The fragrance of delicious breakfast food was unmistakable. “I’m all dressed for overloading on carbs and fat,” she declared, pulling on the elastic waistband of her bottoms to prove there was extra space.
She headed straight for the room service cart and the domed platters sitting there. “Can I serve you?” she asked Audra. “And don’t worry, we have sliced melon and kiwis to counter all the bad stuff.”
