“Gee, that’s great, I guess?” Brooke said, stepping onto a small elevator after Amber. “Although after that piece on ‘Page Six’ this morning, I’m not so sure. . . .”

“Oh, that silly little bit with those amateur photos? Puh-lease! Wait until you meet Isabel. The poor girl’s had her cellulite circled in a full-page bikini shot. Now, that sucks.”

Brooke cracked a smile. “Yeah, that definitely does suck. So, you, uh, saw the ‘Page Six’ piece?”

The elevator opened into a plushly carpeted hallway softly lit with tinted glass sconces, and they both stepped out. “Oh, sweetheart, everyone read it. We all agree that it was nothing, a blip. The crying shot of you with your friend will be a total sympathy evoker—women everywhere can relate to that—and that ridiculous suggestion that your husband was getting it on in the back of a limo on his way to a very public performance? Come on. Everyone knows that must have been his publicist or hair and makeup girl. I wouldn’t worry about it for a second.”

With that, Amber swung open the apartment door to reveal one massive open room that looked a whole lot like a . . . basketball court? There was what appeared to be a regulation-size basket at the far end, complete with a shiny hardwood floor, sidelines, and a free throw line. The wall nearest them looked painted for racquetball, or maybe squash, and a giant bin of various balls and rackets took up the street-facing side between two floor-to-ceiling windows. A sixty-inch flat-screen hung on the only remaining wall, and parked directly in front of it was a long green couch with two brown-haired, mesh-shorted teenage boys. They were eating pizza and playing a football video game Brooke should’ve been able to identify, and each looked more bored than the other.

“Come on,” Amber said, traversing the basketball court. “Everyone else is already upstairs.”

“Whose apartment is this again?”

“Oh, you know Diana Wolfe? Her husband, Ed, was a congressman—I can’t remember what district, but Manhattan somewhere—and he also headed up the Ethics Committee, of course.”

Brooke climbed the open staircase behind Amber. “Okay,” she murmured, although she knew exactly where this was going. You’d have needed to live in a cave for six weeks last summer to not know where this was going.

Amber stopped, turned toward Brooke, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Yeah, well, you remember good old Ed had a thing for prostitutes? Not even high-end escorts, mind you, but full-on street-walking hookers. Double whammy because Diana was running for city attorney general. Not pretty.”

“Welcome!” A woman in her early forties trilled from the top of the stairs. She wore an impeccably tailored mauve skirt suit, a truly gorgeous pair of black snakeskin heels, and the most elegant strand of chunky pearls Brooke had ever seen.

Amber reached the top of the stairs. “Brooke Alter, this is Diana Wolfe, the owner of this lovely home. Diana, this is Brooke Alter.”

“Th-thank you so much for having me,” Brooke stuttered, instantly intimidated by this older, extremely put-together woman.

Diana waved her off. “Please, it’s nothing so formal. Come in, help yourself to some nibbles. As Amber surely filled you in, my husband has—had—or rather, I don’t know whether he had or currently has since he’s no longer my husband, but old habits die hard, so—my husband has a penchant for prostitutes.”

Clearly Brooke was unable to disguise the shock, because Diana laughed. “Oh, darling, I’m not telling you anything the entire country doesn’t already know.” She leaned over and touched Brooke’s hair. “Actually, I’m not sure if everyone knew how much he loved redheads. Lord, I had no idea myself until I saw the undercover FBI videotapes. After the first twenty-five or so girls, you can really start to detect some patterns, and Ed definitely had a type.”

Diana laughed at her own joke and said, “Kenya’s in the living room. Isabel can’t make it because her babysitter canceled. Go say hello, I’ll be in in a minute.”

Amber led the way into the all-white living room and Brooke immediately recognized the statuesque African-American woman in stunning leather pants and a sumptuous fur vest as Kenya Dean, ex-wife of gorgeous leading man and lover of all underage girls Quincy Dean. Kenya immediately stood up and hugged Brooke.

“It’s so nice to meet you! Come, sit down,” she said, pulling Brooke next to her on the white leather sectional.

Brooke was about to say thank you when Amber poured Brooke a glass of wine and handed it to her. She took a long, grateful drink.

Diana walked into the room carrying a large platter of fresh seafood on ice: shrimp cocktails, all different size oysters, crab claws, lobster tails, and scallops, accompanied by little dishes of butter and cocktail sauce. She set it down in the middle of the coffee table and said, “No putting Brooke on the hot seat! Now, why don’t we go around the room and tell her a little bit about our experiences, so she can feel at home, okay? Amber, why don’t you start?”

Amber nibbled a large shrimp. “Everyone knows my story already. I married my high school sweetheart—who, by the way, was a huge dork back then—and the year after we got married, he won Idol. Let’s just say Tommy didn’t waste any time enjoying his newfound fame, and by the time he finished the Hollywood round, he’d slept with more girls than Simon has V-necks. That was really just a warm-up, though, because if I had to guess, I’d put his current numbers well into the triple digits.”

“I’m so sorry,” Brooke murmured, not really knowing what else to say.

“Oh, don’t be,” Amber said, reaching for another shrimp. “It took a while to realize, but I am so clearly better off without him.”

Diana and Kenya nodded.

Kenya refreshed her own wineglass and took a sip. “Yeah, I’d have to agree, although I don’t think I would’ve when I was still as early on as you,” she said, looking pointedly at Brooke.

“What do you mean?” Brooke asked.

“Well, just that after the first girl, I didn’t believe it would happen again—or even that he’d done anything wrong. I thought maybe he was being framed by some fame chaser. But then, as the accusations kept rolling in and then the arrests, and the girls were getting younger by the second, sixteen, fifteen years old . . . let’s just say it’s harder to deny.”