Page 90 of Madam, May I

The woman looked up at her.

“Any person entirely relying on someone else for money is foolish,” Desdemona said, reaching in her tote for the money. “Since I failed in teaching you that, little girl, I decided to look out for you.”

Desdemona removed five thousand dollars from the stack to keep as a finder’s fee and crossed the space between them to drop the rest atop the bagels in her bag. “That’s forty-five thousand I just convinced your great love to pay me for stealing you from my roster. I only did that to ensure your naïve behind has a nest egg tucked away for the day he decides he’s just as tired of you as he is of his wife,” she said, walking over to bend the rest of the dresses over her arm. “Or if you decide you’re ready to leave and want a little something to help you do it. Either way, never contact me again.”

Desdemona retrieved her tote and headed to the front door.

Red reached out and grasped her wrist. “Thank you,” she stressed.

She nodded. “Going forward, be smarter,” she advised before taking her leave.

* * *

Desdemona pressed her fingers to her mouth and then touched her father’s side of the standing headstone. She clung to it, looking down at his name engraved in the marble. It had been years since her last visit to his gravesite. Her reasoning was twofold. Coming there brought home to her that his body looked nothing like it did when he lived. Then to top it off, seeing that the other side of the headstone was still empty meant his wife—Zena—was still alive somewhere in the world.

She hadn’t seen her since the night she ran away and was perfectly fine with keeping it that way. Dead or alive, Zena was of no consequence to her. On her twenty-first birthday, she had strolled into the office of Hervey Grantham and staked a claim to the balance of her father’s estate. She used it to expand her business and truly elevate from streetwalkers and call girls to her paramours once Number One gave her the co-sign and the wealthy consorts started calling.

She rarely thought of the woman who had made her life hell, and hated the reminder that she wasn’t skidding on her own path to literal hell yet.

To hell with her and her coordinates. I’m here for my daddy.

Of late, the painting on her mantelpiece didn’t suffice to feed her hunger for her parents, so a visit was warranted. It was her father she remembered most.

“I’m tired, Daddy,” she whispered, still stroking his headstone. “Not the ‘I’m tired and I’m ready to off myself and see you in heaven’ level of tired, but just ready for a change. Newness. Other. You know?”

She gave the marble one last pat before walking along his grave to sit on the marble bench she had added to the foot of his grave years ago. Crossing her ankles, she tilted her head to the side. “I do wonder if you are proud of me, even though I know you wouldn’t be. You’re not. I’m sure you’re somewhere in heaven frowning, but no one is perfect. Not even you and Mama, but I love you both so much anyway, so I can only hope you both have the same grace for me.”

The spring winds blew her hair back from her face, and the scent of the graveyard’s gardens filled the air. She allowed herself a moment to enjoy both, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply.

“Is Loren right? Am I a part of the bigger problem?” she asked in a whisper, giving life to the seeds of doubt he had planted that last day they shared in her home.

“One begets the other.”

“Whatever,” she muttered.

I’m good to people. Even when they aren’t good to me. Even when life hasn’t been good to me, Daddy.

A beautiful multicolored butterfly fluttered up to her before landing on her knee. She smiled. It was the first she’d seen of the creatures since winter finally began to thaw.

A symbol of change.

She stroked the tattoo on her inner wrist when the insect rose and flapped away. Live with no regrets. Lately, she felt she had plenty.

Cha-ching. Cha-ching. Cha-ching.

She crossed her legs and reached for the phone from the side pocket of her Vuitton bag. Number thirty.

“Hello,” she said, forcing lightness into her tone. “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“Work has kept me busy, but now I need to unwind,” Jason Reedman said.

“Absolutely. The whole weekend, like always?” she asked, shifting her eyes up to the sky.

He chuckled. “Yes, the wife is away for the weekend, so it’s time to play,” he said, sounding amused.

She opened her mouth to say something cute and flirty, but the words would not come, and the aversion to his glee about cheating on his wife was new to her.

Is helping a husband cheat on his wife my fault, too? How, when he would just get to someone else? He chooses to cheat. He chooses to love the beauty of a woman with a stiff dick. I don’t make him or any of the others disrespect their vows.

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