“Exactly.”
He gave a harsh laugh. “Marnie forced all my fiancées to cheat?”
“She’s your assistant. She has access to everything. Your email. Your bank accounts. She could hire actors and pay them directly. She could even arrange for pictures to be sent to you as evidence.”
“Because she’s wildly in love with me.” His tone dripped sarcasm.
She glared at him. “Don’t you think it’s a strange coincidence that you happened to come out on the terrace the exact moment Sergei grabbed me?”
For a moment, Rodrigo looked at her blankly. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Stop it.”
“It’s the only explanation!”
“Marnie McAdam had been loyal to me for years. I won’t let you insult her.” His voice was low, savage. “Not to assuage your own guilt.”
“But—”
“Not another word. I mean it.”
His body was vibrating with repressed fury. He didn’t believe her.
With an angry breath, Lola turned away, looking out at the moonswept night as they drove past a charming commercial street. The palm trees were decked with white lights, the elegant restaurants and boutiques draped in artificial snow. It all felt so fake. Her heart hurt.
Living in the high desert as a child, there’d been no palm trees, just sagebrush and scrubby Joshua trees, and dirt yards instead of manicured green lawns. But at least that had been real. She would have preferred that, she thought with a lump in her throat, to this.
“Please, Rodrigo,” she whispered, trying one last time. “Think about it. She had to have arranged it—”
Pulling the Ferrari abruptly to the curb, Rodrigo turned to her, his black eyes hard. “Get out.”
“What?” She breathed in shock. She looked at his taut shoulders, his cold features. Shivering, she looked out at the trendy neighborhood, at the sleek, expensive apartment buildings on one side, and the luxury car dealership on the other. “You can’t mean it.”
“You lied to me.” His dark eyes were like ice. Like an enemy staring at her over the barrel of a gun. “I want you out of my life. For good.”
“You’re not seriously going to leave me here?”
His low, hateful voice cut through her. “Get. Out.”
With her heart bleeding inside her, Lola clung to her pride. It was all she had left. Slowly, she opened the car door. Gripping her pink-crystal clutch, she turned back to him, hating the begging in her voice but unable to stop herself. “Please, Rodrigo, please, if you’ll only listen—”
But he didn’t even look at her. The open door slipped out of her hands as he pressed hard on the gas, driving away from her without another word, or another look.
Lola watched the car drive away from her, leaving her abandoned on a corner of Santa Monica Boulevard, the old Route 66. She couldn’t believe he’d left. Despair filled her as she clutched her pink stole over her shoulders, shivering in the cooling air. Fighting tears, she reached into her bag for her phone.
Then she saw it. The gold wedding band she’d planned to give him tonight. With the inscr
iption I love you now and always.
Her eyes widened, and she fell to pieces. A sob racked through her, and she covered her face with her hands.
Her husband was gone. Everything was gone.
No. Not everything.
Lola looked up from her hands with an intake of breath.
Her baby.
Fighting down emotion, she wiped her eyes hard. Finding her phone, she dialed with shaking hands. She waited as the line rang and rang. When the other person finally picked up, she nearly cried with relief.