Chapter 3

“I swear to God, Lewis, I'll ruin you.”

Althea's voice carried across the restaurant. At the nearest table, someone quietly set down a wineglass.

Yolanda stepped in front of him, putting herself between Althea and the ketchup smeared across his shirt.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” she snapped. “Keep your hands off my man.”

“Your man?”

Althea gave a short, incredulous laugh.

“He has a wife, sweetheart. She's standing right here. Sleeping with her husband doesn't make you his wife. It makes you the woman he's cheating with.”

Yolanda glanced at me, then back at Althea.

“He doesn't love her. How is that my fault?”

Behind her, Lewis's guards watched without moving. He had ordered them to stand down, and neither seemed willing to guess whether that order still held.

“Lewis wants me,” Yolanda continued. “She's the one clinging to a marriage that's already over.”

Her gaze settled on me.

“Have some dignity. You're embarrassing yourself.”

Althea moved before I could reach her.

She caught Yolanda by the hair and pulled her forward.

“You don't get to talk to her like that.”

Yolanda screamed, grabbing at Althea's wrist. Her heel slipped, and she went down beside a chair, dragging Althea with her. There was a sharp rip as the neckline of her blouse tore in the struggle.

“Lewis!”

She clutched the fabric closed with one hand, reaching for him with the other.

“Get this crazy bitch off me!”

Lewis seized Althea by the shoulder and shoved her away. She stumbled against our table, rattling the glasses.

“Enough, Althea.”

He hauled Yolanda to her feet and tucked her against his side.

“You couldn't keep your own husband faithful. What makes you think you're qualified to interfere in my marriage?”

Althea went white.

Her mouth parted, but nothing came out.

Lewis knew exactly where to hurt her. He'd sat across from her at our dinner table. He'd heard the things she'd trusted us enough to say.

I stepped between them and slapped him.

The sound carried through the sudden silence.

One of his men moved instinctively. Lewis stopped him with a sharp look.

“You have no right,” I said. “You don't get to use that against her.”

A red mark spread across his cheek.

He slowly turned his face back toward me. I knew what it meant for him to be struck in public, in a restaurant where the staff knew his name and the owner paid for his protection.

For once, I didn't care.

He stared at me, his jaw tight, and said nothing.

Yolanda wasn't nearly so restrained.

“You bitch.” Her voice shook with outrage. “You think being his wife means you can hit him? I would never treat him like that, and you just—”

I slapped her, too.

Her head turned. For a moment, she stayed perfectly still, one hand pressed to her torn blouse.

Then she touched her cheek.

“You hit me.”

“You've been insulting me while holding on to my husband. What response were you hoping for?”

She looked at Lewis, waiting for him to intervene.

I kept my eyes on her.

“You're standing in front of his wife, in a restaurant full of people who know we're married, and somehow you think I'm the one who should be ashamed.”

Her face flushed.

“If you want him, keep him,” I said. “But stop acting as though you've won something worth having.”

Yolanda's expression changed.

The tears were still there, but something mean and eager came into her eyes.

“You really think you're better than me?”

“Yolanda,” Lewis said.

She ignored him.

“I know what happened to you in high school.”

Everything around me seemed to recede.

The tables. The waiters. Althea's hand reaching for my arm.

Yolanda saw that she'd hurt me and kept going.

“You were assaulted. You got pregnant. Lewis had to scrape together the money for your abortion.”

My fingers went cold.

He'd told her.

The man who'd held my hand in that hospital had taken the worst thing that had ever happened to me and shared it with the woman in his bed.

“He stayed with you for over a month,” she said. “After everything he did, you ought to be grateful he even—”

“Shut up.”

My voice barely sounded like mine.

She lifted her chin.

“Why? It happened, didn't it?”

I grabbed her hair.

She cried out, both hands flying to mine. I could hear Althea saying my name, but all I could see was Yolanda's mouth forming those words.

“You don't get to talk about that.”

“Then stop pretending you're so much better than everyone else!”

I raised my hand.

Lewis caught my wrist.

His grip hurt. Before I could pull free, he flung my arm aside, forcing me back a step.

“Enough, Letitia. You've gone too far.”

I stared at him.

“I've gone too far?”

My eyes burned. I hated that he could still do this to me.

“She brought it up. She stood here and—”

“Was she wrong?”

I stopped breathing.

For a second, I thought I must have misheard him.

“What?”

Lewis adjusted his hold on Yolanda. She pressed closer, hiding her face against his shirt.

“Was she wrong?” he repeated. “You were assaulted. You had an abortion. Which part did she make up?”

I couldn't feel my hands.

He remembered the hospital. He remembered how long it had taken before I could bear to be touched, even by him.

Now he stood close enough to see me shaking and waited as though he'd asked a perfectly reasonable question.

My knees weakened. I caught the back of a chair.

Over his arm, Yolanda looked at me.

She was smiling.

A laugh escaped me. Small and breathless, with nothing behind it.

All those years, I'd thought there were parts of me Lewis would always protect. Even after the affairs. Even after I'd stopped loving him.

I looked at him until his expression shifted.

“You disgust me.”

Then I turned away.

I wanted Althea. My bag. The door.

Behind me, there was a quick movement.

Yolanda's hands struck my back.

I stumbled forward before I could catch myself. The edge of the table drove hard into my lower abdomen, knocking the air from my lungs.

Pain folded me over.

“Letty!”

Althea caught my arm as I sank, her chair crashing onto its side.

I pressed both hands against my stomach.

For one terrible second, I couldn't make a sound.

Then I felt warmth between my legs.

No.

I looked down, my breath coming in short, useless gasps.

Not the babies.

Althea crouched beside me. The anger vanished from her face, replaced by something that frightened me much more.

“Letty. Look at me.”

Lewis pulled away from Yolanda.

“Letitia?”

He started toward us.

Before he could take another step, Yolanda cried out behind him.