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“Ok, fine! Yes, I was letting Danilo Coelho know about some of the problems that the girls were getting into, but the team needed a responsible person to keep an eye on everyone. I felt that it was my duty.” She looked almost heroic. “I was helping the team.”
“No, you were trying to stay relevant because you’re sorry that you aren’t part of the Wonderwomen anymore,” I told her. “Just like how you’re coming to our rehearsal tomorrow to watch us and criticize!”
“I’m coming tomorrow because I’m trying to get them to hire me. I need a job, Sissy!” She glanced around again, the heroism gone and total panic now on her gorgeous face.
I stared around the condo too and realized what the difference was. It looked empty. There was furniture missing from the dining room—no chairs surrounded the table. The bench that Bill had set up near the front door to store his gym bag and tennis shoes was gone, too. The TV wasn’t hanging on the wall. I hadn’t spent much time here, but from what I remembered, it had changed a lot.
“Aubin, what’s going on? Really, I need you to tell me in plain English.”
For a moment I thought that she would start spouting something incomprehensible, but then she blurted it out. “Billy left. He left me and he moved out.”
I blinked. “What? Bill left you?”
“We were having a lot of problems and we can’t solve them. They hired an interim head trainer for the Rustlers team in Oklahoma and he let them know that he’ll take the position full-time next season. For right now, he moved downtown, away from me.”
“Oh, Aubin. I’m so sorry.”
“Jess and I broke up our partnership, too.”
“But when I asked you, you said—”
“I thought I could fix it, but I couldn’t. The business had problems from the beginning and we couldn’t get it off the ground,” she went on. “Stuff kept going wrong with our product development and manufacturing and we were bleeding money.” She paused and drew in a breath. “Everything we took in from the investors is gone. Nothing was like I’d planned, not at all!” It wasn’t only that she was upset; I could see that she was also confused. This had never happened to her before. Failure was a new experience.
“Wait,” I said as her words fully penetrated my mind. “You spent all the money? But you got so much from everyone. From Dad, Aubin. His investment is gone?”
“It was my money, too. I have nothing. Less than nothing because I owe so much on my credit cards and for a business loan.” She took another breath, but it was shaky. “I’m in a lot of trouble.”
“Good Lord.” I rubbed my forehead, which ached. “Dad needs that. That was for him to retire.”
“Screw him!” she blurted out. “Why are you so worried about him? It wasn’t my fault that he got fired and—”
“He got fired? I would have heard if it was the Woodsmen, so the country club?” I gasped as I understood. “Was it because you asked him to get the names of the rich people there so they could invest in your company? Did he steal for you, Aubin?”
Color flamed in her cheeks. “Yeah, he got the list of the club’s membership, but not just for me. Some other woman offered him a ton of money for it.” She rolled her eyes. “He printed it out and made copies to give to me, too, but he left the original on the machine and someone found it. It didn’t take long to figure out who was using the computer, because he’d also logged in. The idiot.”
“So he got fired for you.”
“He’s fine!” she snapped. “He’s been screwing some woman there, one of the people on their board of directors! He’s moving in with her.”
My jaw dropped so far it was almost scraping the floor.
“He’s a whore, Sissy,” she said, shaking her head. “He always has been. Why do you think that mom left?”
“Because—because she was overwhelmed with having two kids! Because our old cottage—because he was drunk—”
“Because he was cheating on her,” Aubin hissed. “I knew it. I saw him, the bastard.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What was the point? You were so pathetic with how you needed him, how you needed anybody. That was why you ended up with Ward, right? Because you were willing to take anything.”
“That’s not true.” It wasn’t, right? I put my pinkies in the corners of my eyes. “If you think so poorly of me, then why did you want me in your wedding?”
“Dad told me he’d give me the cottage. I was going to sell it and invest the proceeds in my company, but he reneged. The bastard,” she told me angrily.
Oh. I wanted to cry even more but I knew it would only ruin my eye makeup.
“You gave up your future to stay here with your awful boyfriend and to suck up to Dad, trying to make him love you. I guess it worked,” she told me. “Congratulations.”
