Page 72 of The Love Destroyers

“Fantastic,” I say flatly.

I adjust the mask on my forehead, watching as she scrolls through the comments.

Nicole opens the door a few minutes later, holding a tray with two cocktails and a plate of fried food.

“I was able to verify that the ice is made from the finest mountain spring water,” she says in a very serious tone. “Collected each morning from the Blue Ridge Mountains. And they tell me the cherries are one-hundred-percent naturally bright red.”

“What are those?” I ask, grabbing one of the fried things as she sets them down. The last thing I ate was a piece of dried toast at Cracker Barrel, and my stomach is rumbling.

“Frog legs in celebration of Leap Day,” Nicole says.

I set it down. “Could we get some dry toast?”

Ellie downs the first cocktail in two gulps.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Nicole shouts, pumping her elbow up and down. “Would you like another drink?”

She’s back seconds later with a second drink for Ellie, who sucks it down as fast as the first. I catch her glancing at the door, as if hoping Nicole will sweep in with more Midori, so I slide her the drink I had no intention of touching. She takes a sip and then starts talking mid-sentence as if picking up a conversation we put on pause hours ago. “It’s just…don’t cancel on me last minute, you know? Like, doesn’t Jeffrey understand howembarrassingthat was? I mean, you were expecting two people, right, and you got one.”

“The better one,” I comment, actually meaning it. Don’t get me wrong: she sucks, and she’s convinced herself she’s a saint who never asks for half of what she deserves. In comparison to Jeffrey, though…

My loathing for that man is growing with each passing minute. Mostly because of what he did with Emma, but being subjected to this conversation isn’t helping.

“Yes, thank you.Thank you,” she says. “I mean, he’s got everything a man could possibly want, right? A great career. Me. But he’ssocritical. In the beginning, it was all Ellie, your husband is a fool. And Ellie, let’s make something beautiful together.Iwon’t be ashamed to be on your socials with you. You can plaster me all over them. So I agreed to give it a go. And when he had this woman stalking him, I stood behind him.”

“He had a stalker?” I ask, trying to sound interested and not pissed on Emma’s behalf.

“That’s why he didn’t want to come to Asheville,” she says with an aggravated sigh. “It’s this woman who worked in his office. I guess she secretly had a thing for him. When she realized that he and I were seeing each other, she flipped out. I mean, I was there. She threw a cactus at his head, and he had a burr stuck in the middle of his forehead. I had to pluck it out with tweezers.”

Go, Emma, I think, hiding a smile.

“She called him a lot of ugly names, too, but I got it all on camera, and we were able to show it to the police officers. Jeffrey says it’s very hard for a man to get a restraining order against a woman, but we had the footage, of course, and she’d also sent him some strange text messages. Anyway, she lives near here, and he was worried she’d see my posts and live casts. That’s why he decided not to come. But who cares? I mean, it’s been months. She’s not going to track us down to throw more cactuses at us.” She shrugs carelessly. “And if she did, we’d just call the cops. Easy.”

I loosen my jaw with difficulty. “Sounds like Jeffrey’s a coward.”

“No, I wouldn’t call him a coward, exactly,” she says, her brows creasing. “He killed an enormous spider in my bedroom last week. But hedoeslike to get his way. Lately, he can’t stop complaining about my music, how messy my house is, and howmuch time I spend on social media, as if it’s not my literal job. You don’t see me calling him out for giving people shitty legal advice, do you?”

“Shitty legal advice, huh?”

Taking a sip of the drink, she says, “Yes, shitty advice. He had to pay off a few people to keep them quiet. They were going to sue him. Can you imagine howembarrassingthat would be? Getting sued by a client for giving them bad advice? And the money had to come from somewhere, you know. He wasn’t about to offer up his own savings to rescue the firm.”

“He must trust you a lot, to tell you something like that,” I say.

She laughs. “Hedidn’ttell me.” Her face gets a pinched look. “He thinks I’m stupid. So he talks to his clients in front of me as if I’m not there. But I’mnotstupid. I made recordings and collected the information. It’s always a good idea to have collectibles. I keep everything.” Grinning at me, she lifts her eyebrows, “No one gets to leave me unless I want to be left. Sometimes Jeffrey needs to be reminded of that. Like today.”

She meant collateral, I’m pretty sure, and my pulse picks up. Because this means she’s got the goods on the asshole. Making nice with this woman has just become priority number one.

I whistle through my teeth. “He must have been pretty pissed off.”

“Oh, he was, but he took off in a huff anyway, saying no one gets to control him.” Her mouth firms into a pissed-off line. “Especially an airhead with fake tits and a bad credit score.”

“He said that to you?” I ask, not having to fake my incredulity. “What a complete and total dick.”

“You’re right,” she says. “I’d called him an uptight boomer, but he is an uptight boomer. I have an 800 credit score, I'm a successful businesswoman, and my surgeon did a fantastic job. You know what? Fuck Jeffrey. My ex-husband was a coward too.He hated that my social media accounts were blowing up, and he didn’t understand why I went to Jeffrey for legal help. Fuck—”

The door starts to open, the murmuring from the adjoining room growing louder, and she shouts, “Fuck you.”

The door closes.

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