Page 60 of Our Little Secret

Leah clucked her tongue. “Look at the two of you, just paragons of effin’ virtue.”

“Give me a break,” Brooke said under her breath.

Neal, sizing up the situation and Leah’s mood, was already peeling off, backing out of the room, “I’ve got a little catch-up work to take care of, so I’ll be in the office. But dinner? Your night.”

“I know. I’ve got it covered.” She noticed the questions in his eyes. “I pulled the lasagna out of the freezer earlier.” She pointed to the foil-topped casserole dish on the counter next to the toaster oven. “I’ll put it in soon. It should be done in about an hour, maybe an hour and fifteen. That gives Marilee time to get ready for the dance.”

“So she’s going?” Neal asked.

“Of course she is.”

“With Nick?”

“No—well, not technically. We discussed this already. He’s going to meet her there.”

“And she agreed?”

“We came to an understanding.” She turned on the oven to preheat.

“Okay. Good.” He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. “I’ll be in the den.” With a flick of his wrist he twisted off the cap and, to Brooke’s utter annoyance, sent it sailing across the room.

“Really?”

“Old habits die hard.”

“You’re not in college anymore,” she reminded him but managed a smile.

“Right.” He picked up the cap from the floor and put it in the garbage under the sink before heading to his office located in the turret near the front door.

Leah watched him leave with the dog at his feet. “You two seem to be getting along,” she observed.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Brooke said, refusing to think about Gideon and her infidelity or Neal’s . . . though his had been different.

“Didn’t he move out a while back?”

So she did know. Of course. It wasn’t a secret that they’d separated, and Marilee and Leah communicated.

“We’ve had our ups and downs. Currently up,” she lied as the alert for the temperature gauge dinged. She slipped the lasagna inside the oven and set the timer. Her ankle was starting to ache a little, so she sat down across from her sister.

“Take a look at this.” Leah twirled her phone on the table so that Brooke could view the open social media app.

“What’s this?” Brooke asked.

“Not what, but who.” Leah cocked her head. “This is Isabelle Van Dyke’s page, and if you scroll through her photographs and look closely, you’ll see a familiar face.”

“Don’t tell me,” Brooke said, already guessing the obvious answer. “Sean.”

“Bingo! Give the little lady a prize.” Leah blinked against another spate of tears, but none fell. “If I go back on this page, I can figure out about when he entered the picture, so to speak, and on his page too. So it’s pretty easy to tell about when they became ‘friends.’”

Brooke hated herself for asking but did anyway. “How does he know her?”

“He used to work with her, I do know that, but”—she turned the phone around again and scrolled through the online info—“Izzy—that’s what she goes by,” Leah explained, pulling a face. “She left the company about the time he got the axe. He said he quit, but I heard from one of his coworkers that he was fired, and then within a month of the time she started at a new company, he began investing in it.”

Brooke thought of her own savings, which she’d placed in the start-up where she’d worked, how it was kind of a show of faith, how she’d believed in the business, and how it had cost her.

“So you think this . . . Isabelle, she got him to invest?”

“Pretty damned sure.” Leah took a swallow of wine. “The timing is right,” she said. “About the same time he showed up on her page he became less interested in me. In sex, I mean. And he’s always been horny. Or was.” She took another long swallow and drained her glass. She shoved her hair away from her face in frustration. “What is it with me and men?” she asked not just Brooke but herself and the universe as a whole.

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