Page 64 of Perfect Satisfaction

I tap my nails against my lips before giving her complete honesty. “Your brother did.”

Carys steeples her fingers together. “He got his head out of his ass about Angie.”

“He showed her what I couldn’t despite ten years of loving her—that she wasn’t wrong. That she deserved the best life had to offer.”

“Yet she settled for Ward,” Carys lightens the tension in the room.

“There’s no accounting for taste.” We exchange smiles. It’s me who breaks our silence. “He showed her it was okay to hope and dream, to have...”

“Wants.Moore You Want. God, so much of it makes sense. It was all right there the whole time.” Her frustration is evident.

I shrug. “We never tried to hide our relationship, Carys. Our dead asshole took care of that.”

“What do you mean?”

I briefly outline the terms of the estate as we know them and then how they changed radically in the last week. “For what it’s worth, JB offered to pay Arek off just to get him out of my life.”

“Why didn’t he try that before?”

“Because before he was just guessing at what Arek might ask for. Now, the lawyers laid a concrete number before him. He accepted it. JB made the offer with the stipulation all he has to do is let me go.”

“He won’t.”

“No. Why? Because I stood up for my best friend? Because I refused to stand for the fact my husband betrayed her?”

Carys opens and closes her mouth, face thoughtful. She taps the report again. “You were furious with your father?”

“It was simple humanity to offer Angie support. Again, other than my brothers, more men in my circle proved disappointing. Spilling my father’s business no-nos in as a littleon ditin the student newspaper was nothing. I heard so much more around the dining room table when I was forced for my monthly visits while my mother was still alive—and then later when she died.”

Carys chokes. “Business no-nos? The kind of gossip you printed could have taken down corporations or started SEC investigations.”

“I was aiming for my father and XMedia,” I drawl, latent fury in my voice.

“But if you targeted them specifically...”

I shrug. “Game over. The revenge I sought for my friend would have been worthless.”

Carys steeples her fingers, thoughtful. “You don’t focus on celebrities for the most part.”

I scoff. “That would have been cruel considering who my brother and sister-in-law are, wouldn’t it? Though I do have to get my digs in at Dani when she wears anything Emily Freeman. What a wench.”

“I take it now’s not the time to mention my wedding dress was an Amaryllis original?”

I close my eyes and visions of the gorgeous dresses my extended family sends down the runway float through my vision. I shake my head. “I’ll have Em make me a ball gown one day.”

“But not a wedding dress?”

Flatly, I declare, “I am never getting married again.”

“Hmm.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Back to my question about celebrities?”

“I had different priorities and besides, everyone was covering them. I wanted to stand out. There’s the occasional crossover—like Brendan, Dani, and Beckett Miller, but rarely.”

Carys clears her throat. “In all the columns where you’ve mentioned a celebrity, I think the most malicious thing you’ve ever claimed was Beckett slept in his pajamas.”