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“I got it from an unimpeachable source,” he told her loftily.
“Your gay community?” She arched a brow at him as she sipped the drink. He was right. She had needed to get out and away from her troubles.
“I would have you know that we always know what’s going on around us.” He nodded to an elegantly dressed blonde. “Laura Pettigrew, star of the not so popular sitcom. She is married to the producer and sleeping with her costar.”
“What else is new?” She snorted.
“She is going on sixty and the poor boy is only twenty-two.”
“Eew.”
“Precisely.’ He nodded. “Her husband is sleeping with her daughter.”
She frowned at him. “Incest?”
“No!” He laughed. “Laura’s daughter from her first marriage. She has been down the aisle five times already. Husband number five is in his forties. The daughter is in her twenties.”
“That is disgusting. How do you tolerate that revolving cesspool?”
“By having fun with it.” He grinned at her. “And staying pure.”
“Yeah right.”
She was asked to dance by a very attractive man with wavy dark hair and a thick mustache whom she recognized as an actor in a sitcom and was suitably flattered when he asked for her number.
“Sorry, married.”
She was on the dance floor three times with three different men. By the time she was back at the table, she was dizzy and out of breath.
“It seems like someone is having fun.”
“I am.’ She said glowingly. “Thanks for insisting that I come.”
“What are friends for?”
But the night and all of its magic ended when she received a terse text two nights later from Leo.
“I am staying the weekend at the club.”
That was it, nothing more. No …, ”how are you feeling? We need to talk,” nothing like that. She read the text three times and felt anger consuming her. Yes, dammit, she had hurt him, but she had a right to hear from him.
And she missed him so much, it was like an ache inside her. She had told Ingrid she was pregnant, and the woman had been so happy for her. She had not told her the part where it was likely she was going to be a single mom. That her ‘fake’ marriage was on the verge of imploding.
Deciding not to worry herself about something she had no control over, she put aside the anger and fear and asked Mrs. Elliot about Christmas decorations. If the woman thought it strange that she was by herself as a newlywed, she did not mention it and volunteered to help with the decorations.
Mr. Leo usually hires a company to get it done. He entertains here sometimes, you know.”
“I would like to do it myself,” Sherrian told her.
“He prefers real trees to the plastic ones.”
“So, we will get a real tree.” She called up the tree lot and had one delivered. The owner hemmed and hawed at first, but when she mentioned Leo’s name, his attitude changed.
Not only did he send over his best, but the men carted it upstairs and set it up where she wanted it – right near the recessed cabinet and away from the huge hearth.
She spent evenings when she was alone, decorating the tree. She had plans to cook Christmas dinner and invite Michael, Ingrid and Ben and of course her aunt. That is of course, if she was still living here.
She would continue as if everything was normal, until she had to face the music.