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CHAPTER1
Penelope
Not every girlloses a husband and gains a stalker in the same year. And if a girl is lucky enough to have them overlap, then she should tell someone. I’ve told no one, save the detective I hired, and my budget for a private investigator doesn’t stretch to the kind of steely-eyed professional I’d need to get to the bottom of the letters I’ve been receiving.
Sometimes I wonder if the PI I hired has trouble finding a parking spot.
A folded sheet of paper with laughably stereotypical magazine-sourced letters is in my hands. You dance for only me or else. I can’t trash it, but it’s not a treasured object I should save. I need to give it to my PI, but I can’t see how it’d help my case. There was nothing telling, and LA’s forensics unit had better things to do.
When I started finding these letters taped to the door of my studio and on my windshield, I thought they were a joke. Not a funny one, but maybe a former dance student who thought I corrected their pacing one too many times and needed to let off some steam. But they haven’t quit. Someone’s obsessed with me.
I let out a soft snort. It’s definitely not my husband.
Sighing, I stuff the letter that had been left on the driver’s seat of my car—my locked car—into the tote bag at my feet. I’m sitting at the antique vanity in the luxurious bedroom I hope to never see again. I have a meeting, and once my husband leaves for work, I’m going to be busy.
I dab some concealer from my friend London’s product line, Natural Glow, under my eyes. She’d be worried sick about me if she knew. I need to tell her. Someone has to know. The letters are growing more threatening, and I’m finding them in increasingly invasive places.
But I’ve had other things to worry about. As if having a stalker shouldn’t take the most space in my mind.
In the oval mirror, I can see my husband, Roman, come out of the bathroom, adjusting his cuff links. Sorrow hangs heavy on my heart, a change from the way it’s felt imprisoned. Five years ago, I hadn’t been old enough to drink in most states, but this older man won me over. He showered me with gifts, told me how he lost his wife years ago, and how he just wanted to love again.
I bought it all. The lure of unconditional love. Love where I didn’t have to prove myself. Love where I couldn’t disappoint my partner like I disappointed my parents. Love where I could just be.
I learned too late that my husband’s love came with conditions, and the only constant in our marriage was that I failed to meet the requirements, whatever they were.
He catches me watching him. I wish for a time when the man who’s supposed to be the love of my life catches me just like he does now, gets that wicked gleam in his eye, and we say to hell with being on time. We’d crash together in the middle of the bedroom, like two pressure systems converging to create a powerful storm of passion.
That doesn’t happen. Roman Hughes’s mouth twists in a mocking sneer.
“Darling, perhaps you should check with Ms. Vanderbeek about her concealer products.” Ms. Vanderbeek is London. Only, she’s London Dixon. She married and changed her last name, but Roman can’t be bothered with details, not when it comes to my life. London’s small potatoes in my husband’s eyes. She’s worth millions and her husband, Jacobi, built his company to be worth millions too. Which makes it odd that Roman wants nothing to do with them, since only one thing gets Roman’s attention. Money.
I used to think it was sex, but I’ve since learned differently. Sex is a basic urge he probably wishes he didn’t have. Money is his obsession.
“That makeup isn’t hiding how tired you’ve become, Penni,” he finishes.
Six months after I left college against my parents’ advice and married him, the first barb hit. Darling, is it your gaudy dance costume that’s making your stomach look bloated or is it the pizza you just ate? I should be numb by now.
An associate’s wife is a plastic surgeon. Perhaps I should get her card for you?
How fortuitous you dance so well. You’d have a hard time earning money without using your body.
Darling, I work for a living. You play and call it work.
Each one stings. Each one is a reminder that I made a grievous mistake and a prenup left me nothing.
I came from a lot of money. My mother was a child actress and as an adult has built a lucrative nutritious snack line. My father is a shipping magnate. Like my financier husband, Daddy built his business from the basement to an office in a downtown LA skyscraper. I went to a private school and was dressed in the best of the best. But from there, I was expected to earn my way, like my parents did.
Too bad they’d put me in dance lessons since I was old enough to walk instead of teaching me how to balance a checking account and do my own taxes.
I don’t want an empire. I want a life full of love and laughter. Lots of dancing. A few kids I can dote on in the way I never got as a kid.
Roman’s dark gaze meets mine in the mirror, daring me to respond. His once black hair has wings of gray that make him look more distinguished than he did five years ago. At nearly fifty, he has the physique of a virile man in his late twenties and the stamina of a bull. But Roman isn’t a fine wine. He hasn’t gotten better with age. He’s grown crueler. More selfish. His love hurts, and he’s too cunning to leave bruises. Words are his weapons.
“No response?” The arrogance in his tone increases. “I’m disappointed, but then, I so often am by you.”
Normally I bite my tongue, but a restless night has left my nerves frayed. A wife should be able to tell her husband about threatening letters, but I instinctively know Roman would use them to make me feel inferior. He’d laugh and comment that he finds it implausible that someone could be obsessed with anyone as mundane as me. There was a time when I wouldn’t have thought that about him. “I remember when loving you was easy.”
He cocks an arrogant eyebrow. “I remember when loving you wasn’t a chore.” Turning on an expensive heel, he strides out of the bedroom.
