The Mirror - Page 177

“You didn’t tell me about any of this.”

“I wasn’t going to text you about his bullshit,” Sonya began, then stopped. “You’re mad. It barely shows, but you’re mad. I wasn’t holding something back, I swear. I just didn’t want to get into that stupidity in a text.”

“Then let’s hear it now.”

“All right, yes, he should’ve been gone, so he did lie in wait. Our escort was surprised and embarrassed when he came strutting down the hall.”

“He looked like a mannequin.” Cleo peeked into a take-out box. “Lobster rolls, perfect.”

“Fries, too. Better put them in the oven on warm,” Owen warned, “if this is going to take a while.”

“It won’t. It didn’t.”

“Going in anyway, and my mannequin comparison wasn’t a compliment. Fake man covered in designer smug.”

“That’s true. He lied about why he was still there. The escort told us later. He was just trying to get under my skin, claimed he’d been chatting with Miranda Ryder—she’s top dog—and had the account sewn up. He claimed she’d confirmed it. That I only got the offer to present because of Burt—Burt Springer—and he made that sound salacious.”

“Another good word,” Trey said.

“I’m full of them today.” Because that insinuation still stuck, she gulped wine to swallow it down again. “Burt’s another sweet man—a man old enough to be my father. A family man. It turns out Cleo illustrated his granddaughter’s favorite book. He reads to his four-year-old granddaughter. That’s the kind of man Burt is.”

“That’s something you didn’t mention to Burt Springer,” Trey assumed.

“No. Would you have?”

“No.”

“He called her a bitch.”

“Well, shit.” Owen looked at Trey.

“Cleo.”

“Well, Son, he did.”

“He said, after I told him to fuck off—in classier words—that he didn’t realize I’d had so much bitch in me, and he was glad he’d dumped me. Which he didn’t, and which, at this point, doesn’t matter. I handled it, okay?”

“And then some” was Cleo’s opinion.

“He wanted to make me nervous, undermine my confidence, and he did just the opposite. He revved me up.”

“And she crushed it. Outside of college presentations and run-throughs like we did here, I’ve never actually seen my girl in action. Crushed. It.”

To emphasize, Cleo clinked her glass to Sonya’s.

“I want to hear about it. But if he contacts you or gets in your way again, I want to know about it. And not,” Trey added, “two days later.”

“There really wasn’t anything you could have done,” Sonya began.

“You’d have known you had someone pissed off for you.”

Owen just held up two fingers, so Cleo held up three.

“No, make that four,” she said. “Winter. But in Sonya’s defense, she did her Taylor Swift and—Clover, bring it.”

“Shake It Off” rocked out.

“And I did.” Sonya rocked her hips and shoulders to prove it.