A few years later, I’d sat across from Lexi in my attorney’s office. She had her hands folded on the conference room table, and I noticed an enormous emerald sparkling on her finger. Our negotiations had gotten contentious by that point, so I’d made a comment about her ridiculous spending and motioned to the ring. She’d flashed a wicked smile and said she’d had it for years—a gift from a man who actually appreciated her. I’d never seen the ring before, but Lexi had a shitload of jewelry, so again, I chalked it up to nothing and my ex just trying to get under my skin.

Rattling the ice cubes that had barely had a chance to melt in my glass, I decided to make a call. I didn’t give a fuck if it was 2:30 in the morning.

A groggy woman’s voice answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Do you have an emerald ring?”

“Hudson? Is that you?”

I heard a man’s voice grumble in the background, but couldn’t make out what he’d said.

“Yeah, it’s Hudson, Alana.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“Can you just tell me if you have an emerald ring?”

“I don’t understand…”

My voice boomed. “Just fucking answer the question. Do you or do you not have an emerald ring from your husband?”

“No, I don’t. But what’s going on, Hudson? Is everything okay?”

Alana must’ve covered the phone, because I heard muffled voices, and then a few seconds later, my supposed best friend came on the line. “Hudson? What the hell is going on?”

“Your wife doesn’t have a fucking emerald ring.”

“Are you drunk?”

I ignored him. Whether I was drunk or not didn’t change the facts. “You know who does have a fucking emerald ring?”

“What are you talking about?”

“My ex-wife. That’s who has the fucking emerald ring. The one you told me you went shopping to get for your new girlfriend when I came home from Boston early.”

The line went quiet for a moment. Eventually, Jack cleared his throat. “Where are you?”

“The bar down the block from your house. Get your scrawny ass down here, or I’ll be at your apartment in ten minutes.” Without waiting for a response, I hung up and tossed my phone on the bar. Then I held up my empty glass to the bartender. “I’ll take another.”

***

Jack said nothing as he settled himself on the stool next to me.

I couldn’t even look at him. My voice was eerily calm as I stared down into my glass. “How could you?”

He didn’t immediately respond. For a moment, I thought he was going to try to play dumb, or worse, deny it—but at least he gave me that much respect.

“I wish I had an answer to that question,” he said, “other than I’m a fucking piece of shit.”

I scoffed and brought my drink to my lips. “Probably the first honest thing I’ve heard out of your mouth in years.”

Jack raised his hand for the bartender and ordered a double scotch. We waited until his glass was filled to continue.

“How long?” I asked.

He sucked back half of his glass and set it down on the bar. “About a year.”

“Were you in love with her, at least?”

Jack shook his head. “No. It was just sex.”

“Great,” I sneered. “Twenty-five years of friendship for just sex. Lexi didn’t even give a good blowjob. She was all fucking teeth.”

Through my peripheral vision, I saw Jack hang his head. He shook it for a long time. “I think I wanted to win at something,” he said. “You were always smarter, stronger, taller, more popular, and got all the girls you could handle. After we were dating for a few weeks, Alana admitted that the night we met her in that bar, she and her friend had walked over to talk to us after she’d called dibs on you. Even my wife would’ve picked you over me if she’d had the choice.” He shook his head again. “We were drunk the first time it happened, if it’s any consolation.”

“It’s not.”

We sat side by side for a solid ten minutes without either of us saying another word. I finished off my fourth scotch while my loyal friend sucked back his double. I wasn’t a big drinker, so the alcohol had really hit me. My vision was blurry, and I felt the room starting to spin.

Taking a deep breath, I turned to face Jack for the first time. He did the same, meeting my eyes as he blew out a jagged exhale.

“Is she yours?” Just asking the question caused a physical ache in my chest, and my voice cracked when I spoke again. “Is my daughter yours?”

Jack swallowed. “Lexi was never sure. As far as I know, she still isn’t.”

I pulled out my billfold. Tossing two hundreds on the bar, I raised my hand to call the bartender. “Hundred for the drinks. The other hundred is to not help him up.”

The bartender looked confused, so as I stood and steadied myself, I pointed to the piece-of-shit man I’d called my best friend for more than two decades. “He was fucking my wife while I was married to her.”

The bartender’s brows shot up, and he looked between us.

“Turn around,” I muttered at my oldest friend.

Jack turned in his seat to face me. I had to close one of my eyes to only see one of him, but he never raised his hands as I hauled back and landed a punch square in the center of his face. It was the least he could’ve done—taken it like a man.

“You don’t tell my piece-of-shit ex-wife that I know,” I warned before turning toward the door. I never bothered to look back to see if the bartender helped him off the floor.

CHAPTER 32

Stella

Almost a week had passed, and I still hadn’t seen Hudson. Though I supposed he was more entitled to disappear than I’d been when I was avoiding him.

I suspected he’d told his sister something, as Olivia had never once mentioned his name. The last of the Signature Scent samples came in, the artwork we’d shot in California for the boxes had been approved, and today, Thursday, the warehouse had started shipping the orders that had come in from the Home Shopping Channel. It was a monumental day; the dream I’d had for years had come true. Yet I wanted nothing more than to go home and climb into bed.

But Fisher wouldn’t let the occasion go uncelebrated no matter how many times I told him I wasn’t in the mood. So I wound up meeting him for dinner after I left the warehouse. He was already seated in a booth when I arrived, an ice bucket set up next to the table.

I slid into the seat across from him.

“Alright, now I know things are bad. I just watched you come in. The hostess has a giant vase of flowers on her podium, and you didn’t even try to smell them.”

I attempted to smile. “It doesn’t feel like I should be smelling the flowers today.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Today is precisely the day you should be stopping to smell the flowers, my Stella Bella. You put your heart into this business, and today your first orders started shipping.” He lifted the bottle out of the ice bucket and filled an empty glass in front of me before filling his own. “I even sprung for the good stuff.”