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Only Irene would call Helena’s naturally low and somewhat gravelly voice “enchanting.” Most never commented on it at all, unless it was to make a smoking joke. Delia doesn’t say anything. Delia, with her higher-pitched, louder, and more outgoing attitude toward life. Helena kinda liked the balance they found over the past three months. How often was it that the younger one in a relationship was the “grumpy and jaded” one?

I’m only that way because of people like Irene.

“You didn’t come to visit me in my room the last time I was around,” Irene said with her put-on pout. “I’m disappointed. Perhaps this time will be different?”

“Why are you in town?”

“Work, dear Helena. You must remember that I work sometimes. And your current haunt is one of my biggest places for meetings that can’t be done online. I’m meeting some of the companies I invest in. I need to blow off steam. Come on, for old time’s sake?”

“Whose number are you calling from?”

“Why, mine. I had to get a new one. The old one was blowing up with too much spam.”

Yeah, right. “I’m seeing someone else now,” Helena said. “She wouldn’t be happy if she knew I met with you. It’s probably for the best we stay going our separate ways.”

“Excuse me…” Irene grunted in consternation. “Are you saying you don’t fondly remember the fun we used to always have?”

“I’m having fun now too.”

“With Delia Benoist? Yes, I know whose arm you’ve been on these past few months. Helena, come on, she doesn’t have half of what I do.” Irene did a grand job of keeping her tone under control, but Helena still heard the tell-tale signs of a woman with a short temper about to lose it. “She’s not even in charge of her own business like Josh and I are. We have family money and our own. We can get you into places you like without reservation. Can Delia Benoist open the same doors we can? Don’t even lie to me by trying to say she’s as good in bed as…”

Helena hung up and turned off her phone. She didn’t need to deal with that.

“Everything good?” Tara asked from the cabana. “That didn’t sound like a productive conversation.”

They heard? Great. That meant Helena had to get out of the pool, dry off, and lumber toward the cabana. These two would want an explanation.

“That was Irene.” She wrapped the towel around her body, wet hair dripping against her back. “Calling me from an unknown number, because she thinks I can’t see the game she plays.”

“Oh.” Tara made room for Helena in the cabana. “What a bitch.”

At least that made her laugh. Now, would Helena feel comfortable enough telling two women barely her “friends” about some of the worst she had seen in this world?

A little. Enough for them to get the gist that not everything was sunshine for the girl from Olympia.

Eustace Benoist was a man who knew what he wanted, something Delia had happily inherited without meaning to. And when his birthday rolled around the first weekend of June, he knew what he wanted.

A party in his honor. His youngest daughter conveniently nearby and available to visit.

What timing, Lemon. Delia’s sister was attending her best friend’s bachelorette party in Cancun. Since she wasn’t the daddy’s girl, however, Eustace let his oldest off the hook. It was Delia who had to be present for her father’s gathering in the presidential hotel suite he rented.

Most of the details were very Eustace Benoist, from the savory finger foods to the dark blue décor hanging on the walls, over tables, and on his own body. Such coordination, however, could only be the brainchild of his wife Emma, who was the belle of the ball as she glided from room to room greeting guests and ensuring everyone stayed refreshed. Her dress was a lighter shade of blue than her husband’s favorite color, and Delia did not miss that detail… much like she didn’t miss the way her father loved to slather her with paternal affection when surrounded.

“Craig! Lucas!” He waved down two of his old buddies that Delia didn’t recognize. “Come see how big my baby girl is! Don’t you remember when she was only this big? Now look at her! No more baby fat!”

She pretended that was a compliment. Knowing her father, it was.

“You know who else has recently lost her baby fat?” Another guy behind them whispered to someone else. “His wife.”

Odds were good Eustace had not heard that. He wouldn’t have been able to help himself, otherwise. “Deely-Wheel,” he said to his daughter, who was prompted to take him by the arm, “I swear you get more beautiful the older you get. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“Thank you, Daddy. You know how to raise a woman’s self-esteem.”

“I should hope so! I’ve spent forty years practicing it!”

On Mom? Certainly not, since Eustace had committed one of the worst crimes toward a first wife’s vanity. And my mother will probably never recover from it. Delia and Lemon would be picking up the pieces for the rest of their mother’s life.

He insisted on parading Delia past his friends, all of them either enjoying the retiree or trophy wife life. Because there were two kinds of people Eustace constantly surrounded himself with: men just like him, and women just like his wife.