by Shelly Ellis
Terrence waved his hand in a shooing motion. “I’m not talking about him. Fuck that redneck! I’m talking about you, Ev! Why’d you act so . . . so strange?”
“What do you mean? I wasn’t acting strange.”
“Yes, you were! You went robotic as hell! I know that look. That’s the look you get when you’re lying. You don’t know who shot Dante, do you?”
Evan paused. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Terrence the truth, to pull him aside into his nearby study, shut the door, and unload everything he knew and everything he secretly suspected. But he didn’t want to drag his little brother into this. He hadn’t even told Paulette that she was sharing a home with a murderer—even if Antonio had murdered in order to avenge her. He couldn’t place a burden this big on Terrence’s shoulders. With his recovery from his accident, Terrence had enough to deal with. No, Evan would carry this burden alone.
“Of course not,” he lied. “That detective is just beating bushes, seeing what scuttles out. I guess I’m the best lead he has, but he’s wasting his time. I didn’t do it and I don’t know who did.”
Terrence still didn’t look convinced.
“I swear,” Evan added halfheartedly as an afterthought.
“Okay, Ev,” Terrence murmured.
“It’ll be fine.” He clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. They’ll find whoever did it and this’ll all blow over. In the meantime, you focus on your recovery and on keeping C. J. happy so she doesn’t dump your ass.”
Evan knew by saying Terrence’s girlfriend’s name he had uttered the magic word. All talk of Dante, secrets, and murder was a forgotten memory. Terrence smiled.
“I would focus on her if she were here. She’s in North Carolina doing another meet-and-greet with her dad at his megachurch.”
“Again?”
Terrence nodded and rolled his eyes. “Don’t get me started! She’s down there so much I only get to see her on the weekends. It’s taking up so much of her time that she had to take a sabbatical from the newspaper.”
Evan laughed. “Well, that’s not such a bad thing. You know how I feel about her reporting.”
C. J. had been a hard-hitting investigative journalist before she and Terrence hooked up. While working at the Chesterton Times, C. J. had written several far from complimentary stories about Murdoch Bank and Murdoch Conglomerated, even going so far as following Evan around to get an interview for one of her pieces. He had no idea the day he threatened her with a restraining order that she would one day be Terrence’s lady.
Life is strange like that, I guess, Evan inwardly mused.
“Look, I’ll let you get to work,” Terrence said, walking toward the front door. “I know you. It’s Saturday, but you’ve probably got some conference call or meeting scheduled, right?”
Evan nodded. “I’ve got a call at three thirty, actually.”
Terrence grabbed the door handle. “I figured. Peace out!” He paused just after swinging open the front door. “And uh, thanks for going to that appointment with me. I won’t fake. I probably wouldn’t have gone through it without you being there.”
Evan shook his head. “It’s no big deal, Terry. You knew I would. All you had to do was ask.”
Because he would do anything for his family—including telling a little white lie about a murder.
Terrence nodded and waved before stepping into the afternoon sunshine and shutting the door behind him.
Chapter 2
Leila
“All right,” Paulette Murdoch said, adjusting her dark-tinted sunglasses and her glossy curls. She pulled to a stop in between the orange cones in front of the Chesterton Country Club and then turned to Leila. “Are we ready?”
Leila gnawed her pink lower lip as she gazed across the asphalt driveway to the country club’s glass doors. She felt queasy, and for once she was sure she wasn’t nauseated due to her pregnancy. She was finally past the first trimester—that annoying period when she was always rushing to the nearest restroom to puke or pee. She knew her queasiness today had more to do with nerves than anything else. She glanced at her future sister-in-law. “Maybe we could . . . uh . . . skip the whole committee meeting,” she whispered, rubbing at the fluttering in her stomach that was either nerves or the baby—or both. Leila watched as Paulette smiled.
“You’ll be fine, Lee. Really, don’t worry!”
Easy for you to say, Leila thought ruefully.
Paulette had grown up with or knew socially most of the women on Chesterton Country Club’s fund-raising committee. And she was one of the M&Ms, the Marvelous Murdochs. The Murdochs were one of, if not the, richest and most esteemed family in Chesterton. Even if people disliked Paulette, they knew it was better to keep those feelings to themselves or, at the very least, not say anything within earshot of her or her brothers.
But Leila hadn’t grown up that way. She had grown up poor and, after much hard work, moved up to middle class when she got older. And she wasn’t even a Murdoch—technically. She may have been engaged to and having a baby with one but she knew no one had a problem gossiping about her. She knew everyone in town saw her as Evan’s live-in mistress and suspected she would be met with open disdain from some of the women today.
So why am I even doing this?
She’d rather be hanging out with her eight-year-old daughter, Isabel, who had run away not too long ago, only to be found wandering around Dulles International Airport hoping to catch a flight across the country to see her father. Leila knew her time with Isabel was precious. She longed to redevelop the stable relationship with her daughter they had once had. Or, if she wasn’t with Isabel, Leila would rather be working on one of the elaborate invitations she handcrafted for her clients, poring over paper samples, ribbons, and typefaces. Hell, she’d rather be sitting on the couch in a T-shirt and a pair of Evan’s old gym shorts, stuffing her face with butter pecan gelato and watching a marathon of the television show Empire! But she was here instead, about to put herself through this ordeal because she wanted to be a true partner to Evan, and that meant being part of his world. Unfortunately, his world included hobnobbing with snooty, judgmental rich folks like the ones she’d meet today.
Leila watched as the valet walked toward the driver’s side door. Her grip on her leather handbag tightened as he swung the door open. Paulette climbed out of her Mercedes and Leila reluctantly opened her door and climbed out, too. The valet nodded and handed Paulette her ticket while Leila waited, adjusting the hem of her plum-colored maternity dress, which she had been forced to wear today because none of her other dresses fit anymore.
“Stop fussing with your clothes. You look amazing,” Paulette told her.
“I feel fat,” Leila said, still tugging at her dress. She then peered at her reflection in the gleaming car door. “I look fat!”
“You look pregnant, which is what you are. Come on!”
She then linked her arm through Leila’s. Leila grumbled.
“Lee, if I’m not nervous, you shouldn’t be,” Paulette whispered as they walked arm in arm out of the sweltering August sun that was baking the asphalt driveway to the shaded brick pathway leading to the entrance. “Remember, you weren’t the one who gave birth to a baby boy when no one knew you were even pregnant.” She sighed and patted her stomach and the scars from her emergency caesarian. “I’m sure they had a good ol’ time gossiping about that one.”
Paulette had given birth to her son, Nate, less than a month ago, after hiding her pregnancy from everyone—including her husband. She had done it because she didn’t know the paternity of the baby, whether it belonged to her husband, Antonio, or her blackmailing ex, Marques. As far as Leila could discern, Paulette still didn’t know for sure who the father was. But Antonio didn’t seem to mind.
“But you know what, Lee, after having Nate, it put all this stuff in perspective. I could have lost him in childbirth. Tony could have divorced me,” she confessed as they walked down a series of walnut-paneled corridors l
ined with gold award plaques and portraits showing the founders of Chesterton Country Club and their families. “But that stuff didn’t happen, and I’m forever grateful. Nate was released from the NICU last week, and Tony and I are stronger than ever! I thank God every day for sparing me, for sparing us. I’m a changed woman, Lee! I don’t care about my reputation and what people think about me anymore. I don’t have to prove myself to them—and neither do you!”
Leila absently nodded. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a portrait on the wall set off by itself and lit from below. It was of a man who looked very familiar. She looked again more closely. He was pale with hazel eyes and a black handlebar mustache. He leaned against a stone fireplace mantel with a wooden-and-ivory pipe in his hand. He bore a striking resemblance to Evan’s late father, George Murdoch. The name plaque read, “The Venerable Judge Thomas J. Murdoch, First Chair of the Chesterton Country Club, 1919–1923.”
Leila released a beleaguered breath as Paulette continued to speak. Of course Paulette didn’t have to prove herself to any of these women—her damn great-great-grandfather was the granddaddy of the whole place!
They climbed a carpeted staircase and entered a large, sun-filled banquet room where more than two dozen women stood around a long table laughing and chatting with one another. The combined smells of their expensive perfumes permeated the space, burning Leila’s nose and making her nauseated all over again.
Less than a year ago, Leila had been in this room serving as Evan’s assistant, meticulously checking every detail and making sure all the party guests were happy. This time she was one of the guests, and she didn’t know what to do with herself.
“Let me introduce you to everyone,” Paulette said, guiding Leila to where a group of women stood.
Meanwhile, Leila fought the urge to go running back out the door.
“Sonya, hi! How have you been?” Paulette called out, making one of the women turn—a slim, dark-skinned woman with a gray bob who was wearing a trim red suit.
“Paulette, sweetheart!” the woman gushed. “I haven’t seen you in ages!”
They leaned forward and kissed each other’s cheeks with a practiced air that was almost amusing, letting their lips hover milliliters away from their skin so that neither smeared lipstick on the other’s cheek.
“How have you been?” The woman took a step toward her and dropped her voice down to an exaggerated whisper. “I was so shocked when I heard you had a baby, honey! I didn’t even know you were pregnant!”
“Oh, I’m fine, just fine,” Paulette answered breezily, not missing a beat. “Enjoying new motherhood.” She then turned to Leila. “Let me introduce you to Leila Hawkins, Sonya. She’s my brother Evan’s fiancée, a long-time family friend, and she’s joining our committee.”
Sonya turned to Leila and slowly looked her up and down.
Leila could tell by the woman’s assessing gaze that she already knew who she was, but mercifully, she pretended that she didn’t know her for Paulette’s sake. She extended her hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Same here,” Leila said, shaking her hand stiffly.
And that’s how the introductions went for the rest of the afternoon. As she and Paulette made their way around the banquet room, some of the women seemed genuinely pleased to meet Leila, but most fixed her with a withering stare or a barely contained aloofness that let her know what they thought about her. She silently told herself to keep a far distance from those women.
“Okay, everyone,” Tilda, the committee chair, called out while standing at the head of the table. She was so willowy thin that her hips seemed to jut through the fabric of her off-white pencil skirt. “Grab a chair, ladies! Grab a chair! Enough socializing! We should finally get down to business.”
The women did as Tilda ordered. The cacophony of voices in the room finally quelled to a soft murmur as all of them took their leather-padded seats. Leila took the chair next to Paulette at the long oak table. As she sat down, the door to the banquet room was flung open. Leila glanced toward the doorway and blinked in surprise as she watched a tall blonde in a pale blue sundress and gray stilettos glide into the room. Leila’s throat tightened. Her body temperature shot up by about two degrees.
“What the hell is she doing here?” Paulette whispered, gaping.
They both watched in horror as Evan’s wife, Charisse, walked toward the gathering while whipping off her sunglasses. Charisse pulled out the chair directly across from Leila and Paulette and loudly dropped her ostrich-skin handbag onto the tabletop.
“I’m not late, am I?” she asked, sitting down.
“Of . . . of course not, Charisse,” Tilda replied nervously, glancing between her and Leila. “You’re . . . you’re right on time! The m-m-more the merrier!”
“Good,” Charisse said flatly before glaring at Leila.
Leila forced herself to stare right back at her.
The table fell silent, like everyone was witnessing two gunslingers in a Mexican standoff.
Paulette had told Leila that there was no chance Charisse would be here today.
“Charisse hasn’t been to any of the committee meetings in more than a year, and even then she only half-assed it when she was there,” Paulette had confessed a week ago. “Charisse was so hung over most of the time that I don’t think she even realized what the hell was going on.”
Knowing Charisse wouldn’t show up was the only reason Leila had agreed to come to the country club today. She didn’t want to cause any drama or give the town gossips more to gossip about, but it looked like she and Charisse would be doing just that.
“Well,” Tilda resumed, looking down at a sheet of paper in front of her. “I think we should . . . uh . . . address the first item on our agenda, namely the florist for the Thanksgiving—”
Charisse loudly cleared her throat and raised her hand. “Excuse me, Tilda. Before we start on the agenda, can I ask something?”
Tilda halted and began to tensely twirl the fountain pen in her hands. “Uh, s-sure, Charisse. What would . . . would you like to ask?”
“It was my understanding that committee membership was limited to members of the country club, their children, and their wives,” she said, putting an emphasis on the last word. “Have the rules for committee membership changed as of late?”
Leila gritted her teeth. She knew where Charisse was going with this.
“Well, uh . . . no. N-no, I don’t believe so,” Tilda answered.
“So can I ask,” Charisse continued, casually tossing her blond locks over her shoulder, “what Leila Hawkins is doing sitting at this table?”
The entire room fell eerily silent. Several eyes widened. One of the women hid a smile behind her hand.
“She’s here because I invited her,” Paulette answered tightly.
“You may have invited her,” Charisse said, puckering her collagen-injected lips, “but as Tilda just confirmed, Leila is not eligible for committee membership. She is neither a member nor the child of a member, and she certainly isn’t married to any member of the country club! She shouldn’t be here.”
“You are one petty bitch, Charisse,” Paulette snapped, making several around her do a quick intake of breath.
Even Leila stared at Paulette in amazement. Maybe there was something to Paulette’s assertion that she was a changed woman. She never would have said something like that a month ago.
Charisse released a caustic laugh. “Guilty as charged! But I’d rather be a petty bitch than a whore . . . which is what you have sitting beside you.”
This time, Leila shoved herself up from the table. Her nostrils flared. “Excuse me?”
She would put up with many things in the name of love—would go out of her way to show support for Evan—but she wouldn’t be openly disrespected by the likes of Charisse.
Charisse wanted to play the scorned woman, but she had conveniently forgotten that she had openly loathed her husband before they had separated and had been happy to have a marriage i
n name only. She forgot about that reckless affair she’d had with Evan’s half-brother, Dante, long before Evan and Leila’s affair had even started. Charisse and Dante had even continued their affair after Leila had broken things off with Evan when she refused to be the other woman in his life.
“Ladies! Ladies!” Tilda shouted, frantically banging her palm against the table as voices of discord rose around her. “This is a country club, not a night club! Please show some class, some decorum. Don’t . . . please don’t use language like that in here!”
“Allowing that woman in here shows no class, Tilda!” another shouted. “Charisse is right. Leila Hawkins shouldn’t be here!”
“Oh, you’re one to talk, Candy! We all know what you do behind closed doors,” someone countered, making Candy’s mouth drop open with outrage.
The shouts grew louder. Charisse sat in her chair, looking so smug that Leila wanted to slap the smile right off her face. She was seconds away from marching around the table and doing just that when a voice called out, “I motion that we open committee membership!”
Several of the women fell silent at the sound of that voice. Leila stared at the front of the table and realized that it was the pretty, petite woman sitting next to Tilda who had said those words. Leila recognized her as Lauren Gibbons-Weaver, the wife of Crisanto Weaver, the mayor of Chesterton.
“I think we should allow anyone to become a member who’s invited to join,” Lauren said. “It seems incredibly antiquated and cumbersome to place those kinds of restrictions on committee membership. It’s hard enough to get members to join and stay active as it is.”
“But what about tradition?” one of the older women squawked, making her double chin tremble. “We’ve had these bylaws in place for . . . for decades!”
“And some traditions are made to be broken,” Lauren said, shrugging her silk-clad shoulders. “As vice chair of the committee, I motion that we change the bylaws to open up membership. I say we deal with this right now and put it to a vote. Those for the change?” she asked, raising her small hand.