“What she needs is a rebound,” Ivy said to the tops of the zinnias. “Somebody to pound her into oblivion, but someone disposable. Someone who she won’t catch feelings for. Somebody to make her forget Brock the Cock ever existed.”

A lightbulb flashed over my head, and I blinked at its brightness.

“When in the world does she even have time to meet someone like that?” Tess asked. “She works eighty hours a week. I’m not even convinced she does such human things like eat and sleep.”

Ivy sighed. “I don’t know. She doesn’t believe in dating apps.”

Good, I thought to myself. Because I knew a guy who might fit the bill, someone who checked all the boxes.

Pound her into oblivion—check.

Make her forget Brock existed—check.

Disposable—check.

There was no danger of Lila Parker catching feelings for me. I couldn’t be convinced she didn’t actually hate me. But maybe I could help her move on.

She deserved to be appreciated by a man. She needed to know her ex was the anomaly, not the norm.

And if she was interested, I might just be the man to prove it to her.

9

A Good Smiting

LILA

I woke the next morning with a renewed optimism and Brock firmly in my rearview mirror, and for a full week, I maintained that attitude with the white-knuckled will of a Spartan.

Ivy and Dean had let me slide into the apartment that night without pressing me for details, and I offered none. I’d gone to sleep in the comfort of my own clothes and the scent of my soap on my skin, the only familiar things about my circumstance.

Truth was, I was glad for the company. It forced me to retain my civility and togetherness, to pretend I was fine. I found that the longer you pretended a thing, the sooner it became reality. And I wanted to be fine, to be over it. Pretending was useful that way. And as long as I kept myself busy, it’d soon be a speck on the horizon at my back.

For a whole week, that was exactly what I told myself, repeating it again as I stood on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the sweeping neo-Gothic church casting me its shade.

I saw the cavalcade of black Escalades the moment they turned onto Fifth, a string of them with opaque windows and drivers in suits, screeching to a halt in front of the church.

Doors opened almost simultaneously, and the retinue of the Femmes poured out. Camera crews first, then assistants, then bodyguards. Paparazzi materialized, flashes bursting. Five vehicles for five Femmes, who stepped onto the sidewalk nearly in blonde, leggy unison.