Page 95 of Meet Me in Montreal

A big grin creased Vanessa’s face, so wide it hurt the corners of her mouth and strained her cheeks. “Great. What did you want to see him about? Wait, no, don’t answer that. What Santino does now is absolutely none of my business. But does your husband know you’re here right now?”

Antoinette blushed at the question. “He’s currently out of town on business, so I thought now would be a good time to come check in on Tino and see how he’s doing, that’s all. I haven’t stopped feeling badly about the last time I spoke to him, after everything he did for me. He was furious with me. I haven’t been able to reach him since. You know he was my best friend.” Antoinette put her hand to her throat, swallowing hard. “Would you happen to have anything to drink? Water. Please.”

This woman claiming Santino as her best friend caused a jagged hole to rip Vanessa’s already tattered heart into even tinier pieces.

“Oh, fuck, yeah, the social graces. Wait right here. Anything for Antoinette. I’ll even make sure it’s in one of thegoodglasses.” From the kitchen, she shouted to her guest whileshe poured some water. “He did say you went back with your husband. Was he cool with you and Santino’s ‘best buddies only’ trip or nah?”

Antoinette was flushing when Vanessa returned with her water and handed it to her. She took the glass and drank quickly, a drop spilling from her lips.

“Not happy at the time, no. But we worked it out once I convinced him I was telling the truth and Santino was just a friend who helped me. We never…” The color deepened in her cheeks, and she put the glass down half-finished on a table.

The water in the glass shimmered. It conjured images of Santino’s unfinished drinks in every room and Vanessa swallowed down her own onslaught of tears at the memory. Such a small thing. One of a thousand tiny knives cutting away at them, tearing through the fabric of them.

“Santino said that, too. He said you guys never did it, not in high school or after.”

The other woman nodded. “That was the truth. Not even close. I mean, he was one of the hottest guys in our neighborhood, but I really did think of him as my best friend. He wasn’t the one, and I knew it.”

For what it was worth, Vanessa did find it gratifying to finally hear confirmation of that from the only other person who would know. Despite that, she smirked.

“That’s unfortunate for you. Santino may look like an angel, but he fucks like a demon. You missed out. But he’s legally free now, in case you change your mind and leave that billionaire husband again.”

Vanessa served her another smile, but this one felt sharp. Her teeth were shards of glass about to cut her lips.

Antoinette coughed like she was about to choke on something. “You know what? I should go…”

Everything Vanessa had ever wanted to say to this woman was surging through her, that underwater volcano boiling, bubbling. About to blow. And blow it did.

“Go? Oh, please, not yet. You and I still need to chat about why you chose to keep calling your so-called best friend when he was my husband. Normal friends call during normal hours, sometimes once a day, maybe every few days. But you…you called all day, all night, every day whenever you needed a crutch. I asked him to ask you to stop, and you didn’t. Three am? When he was with me on vacation? Like, seriously?”

“He was helping me. I didn’t have anyone else to turn to,” Antoinette said, her voice rising.

“The things he did to help you could have landed him in federal prison. Prison! Did you care about him when he put himself on the line to help you, and thenyouturned around and went right back to your man? You got Santino involved in your bullshit for absolutely nothing. And you’re telling me you’re his friend? His best friend?”

Finally, after Vanessa’s tirade, a spark of defiance lit in Antoinette’s eyes. “I didn’t come here to get a lecture from you.”

“Oh, but you thought you were going to walk in here and we wouldn’t have words about that disrespect and disregard for anyone but yourself? Baby, if so, you made a big fucking mistake coming back here at all.”

Vanessa’s burst of anger made Antoinette’s face tighten. The sweet act was gone, and they stood locked in a standoff, looking each other in the eye.

“Okay, yes, if it were me and someone was calling my husband like that now and asking him to do something dangerous, I’d feel differently about it. And I’ll admit, we’d called ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend for so long that I was jealous when I realized he’d moved on and finally met someone. I’m not proud of myself for that.”

“Thanks for that, I guess,” Vanessa said flatly.

Antoinette served a look that was part pout, part smirk. “If it makes any difference to you, all Tino could talk about whenever we spoke was you. When he helped me get to Aruba, he talked about you. He left as soon as he could because he was worried about you and how upset you’d been. So, if that’s not enough to prove you were always the one he wanted, I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m sorry, okay? I’m truly —”

But Antoinette was cut off by another shrill laugh. Only it wasn’t Vanessa laughing.

It was Zoe, who’d appeared behind Vanessa. She must have gotten in through the sliding kitchen door to the patio. But how?

“Oh, don’t apologize to this bitch,” Zoe said in a breezy tone, walking into the room. She gleaned the question on Vanessa’s face because she said carelessly, “I know your security code. Mom writes all the codes and passwords down in one place, even though you’re not supposed to. Although I don’t know how much longer I get to call her mom, since you destroyed my marriage by bringing Bobby up to Montreal so he could cheat on me. Anyway, I made a third set of keys. I come here sometimes when you’re at work. This place is so calming.”

She sighed and touched the freedom candle on the mantle with a fingertip. Her hair was in a ponytail but disheveled, off-kilter, like her T-shirt and hole-filled yoga pants.

“You…you come into my house?” Vanessa asked, the words uttered breathlessly. Antoinette’s eyes shifted between them. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Sanity’s subjective.” Zoe shrugged. “Anyway, I like to come in here and imagine what it must be like to be you. You, with your cute little meditation pillow and your Tibetan singing bowls. These stupid rocks.”

Demonstrating her disdain for Vanessa’s treasured gems, she knocked a bowlful off the mantle with a casual swipe. It broke on the hearth and the rocks scattered.

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