“And what makes him such a douche? He sounds like a stupid asshole, but not exactly a douchebag.”

“Let me count the ways,” Ivy said, ticking off points on her fingers. “He’s a poor little rich boy, obsessed with status. Constantly talks about himself. Tells bad jokes. Didn’t give my sister the orgasms she so clearly deserves. Wears too much cologne. Cheats on her with reality TV stars. His name belongs to a weatherman—Brock Bancroft,” she scoffed. “Should I go on?”

I chuckled, imagining some weatherman type with a booming voice and too many teeth. I couldn’t picture Lila with a man like that. She was too immaculate, too enterprising to settle for anything less than equal to her. Not that I knew her, I reminded myself once again. But the woman she chose to show the world was solid and unflinching. A woman who took no shit and accepted nothing less than the best.

How she’d ended up with some shitbag who didn’t even give her orgasms was beyond me, a nonsensical concept with no grounds in reality.

To have something end like that was brutal, unforgivable

Ivy continued on her teardown of Brock the Cock, as she lovingly called him. Lila’d moved in with Ivy for a little while, I learned as Ivy went on, and was sleeping in the nursery. Last night, she’d gone back to get her things, and it hadn’t gone well. Ivy didn’t know what had happened though, and Lila hadn’t clued her in. This was apparently Lila’s modus operandi—she gave nothing away, played it close to the vest.

Several pieces of the puzzle clicked into place as I turned the knowledge over in my mind. When we’d met at Skylight after her tumble into the black-eyed Susans, she’d looked like she hadn’t slept, and now I knew the who of it. Her ideas about love and liars, the fury with which she spoke about relationships, all made sense. And now, Lila Parker was single—and heartbroken, if Ivy was to be believed.

A familiar sense of protectiveness bloomed in my ribs, common when I came across someone being mistreated. Lila seemed indestructible, and to think that someone had found a way to hurt her felt obscene, sacrilegious. I wondered how she might ever mend her heart, knowing time would help, distance. But her job required her to be around the very object of their demise—Natasha Felix. I could only imagine how painful seeing her would be, and to have to bottle it all up in order to perform? It seemed too much burden to carry, though I had a feeling that Lila shouldered it with grace and determination.