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Her voice trails when she spots a young man in a three-piece suit wielding a tray of mimosas around the room. She waves him over, taking two champagne flutes and handing one to me.
“Champs always makes these Saturday exhibits a bit more tolerable,” she says with a wink and a smile, as if she’d completely forgotten we were talking about my dead wife a mere moment ago. “So what all have you been up to?”
She lifts her flute to her pillow-size lips, and in the process, a glimmering diamond on her left ring finger catches the light. The rock must be at least the size of a postage stamp. There’s no missing it—and I imagine that’s the whole point.
Stacey was always sidling up to the rich kids at college. When I rebuffed her, she moved on to the son of an oil magnate. When he tossed her aside, she set her sights on a guy whose mother was the heir to a media conglomerate. After that didn’t pan out, she cozied up to the troubled son of a Hollywood A-list couple.
I’d love to know who she suckered into giving her that gem so I can thank him for taking one for the team.
I scan the room again, searching for the Margaux doppelgänger.
“Are you still living in the city?” Stacey asks, taking a small sip of her drink and blinking her mile-long lashes. Tracing her fingertip along her exposed collarbone, she angles her body as if she’s positioning herself in front of a camera.
I could never be with someone who feels the need to shapeshift themselves into oblivion.
Confidence whispers; insecurity screams.
“I am,” I say, still looking for the Margaux lookalike. I finally spot her in front of the largest Palomar piece—a phantasmagoric wet dream of a painting of naked women riding winged horses through a blood-colored river.
“These paintings are so Pietro,” Stacey says, flicking her wrist. “So wild. My husband is obsessed. Have to say, I don’t really understand the appeal. I think they’re a little corny.” Placing her palm against my chest, she tucks herself in. “I hope I’m not offending you. Clearly you’re here for a reason.”
“Nah, you’re good.” I don’t meet her laser-pointed gaze. I focus on the other people in the room, desperate for someone to come save me from this woman lest I’m here all day.
“So you’re a fan?” she asks.
“What?” I ask before digesting her question. “Oh, yeah, no.”
“Then why are you even here?” She arches a brow, drinking me in.
I’m debating on whether to tell her the boring truth—that I’m killing a little bit of time while my daughters are out—before thinking better of it. She’s not entitled to an explanation. She could barely contain her excitement a few minutes ago at the fact that I’m a widower.
“Oh, let me introduce you to my husband.” Rising on her toes, Stacey flags down a silver-haired man easily twice her age. “Roger, this is an old friend of mine . . . Roman Bellisario.”
Roger’s face is shaped into a permanent scowl, but he extends his liver-spotted hand my way.
“Good to meet you, Ronan,” he says.
I don’t correct him, and neither does Stacey. I’m not entirely convinced she even noticed. She’s been too laser focused on me to pay much attention to anything else.
“Roger owns a hedge fund firm downtown,” she says.
Of course he does.
“Maybe you’ve heard of it?” she asks. “Willingham, Conway, and Draper.”
“Sounds familiar,” I lie out of politeness. There are a million financial firms in this city, and all of them sound the same.
“If you ever want a consult, I’m sure Roger could fit you in?” Stacey shrugs before giving her husband a nudge. “He’s not accepting clients anymore, but I know he’d do me a favor. Isn’t that right, babe?”
Calling a man old enough to be a grandfather “babe” sends a flash of burning bile up the back of my throat, but I swallow it down and refrain from any further judgment. It’s not my circus and definitely not my monkeys.
The honey-blonde woman moves away from the bloody river painting, disappearing behind a white partition. Everything from the way she walks to the way she tucks her hair behind her ear screams Margaux, but she’s yet to turn around so I can see her actual face.
“I’m sorry, will you excuse me for a moment?” I ask.
The light leaves Stacey’s emerald eyes, but she nods. “Don’t leave without giving me your number, though. Roger and I would love to have you over for dinner sometime. So much catching up to do!”
Roger glares at me from behind his squinty, hooded eyes, but I don’t take it personally.
In fact, I have no doubt this is a common occurrence.
A tiger is incapable of changing its stripes.
I’m halfway to the partition when my phone rings with a call from Theodora. It hasn’t even been an hour since she left with the girls.
