“The Atlantic Monthly,” Donna helped him. “Very, very impressive.”

“Clare!” Sergio said, looking up and smiling. “That’s fantastic!”

Despite the fact that she knew Donna was struggling to digest all this, Clare couldn’t help the smile that cracked open across her face. She nodded. “Thank you,” she managed to say.

He threw his head back and let out a howl as he threw his arms wide. “We are the luckiest bitches in the whole world today!”

Behind him, Donna raised her glass and nodded, her eyes connecting with Clare’s. “To the luckiest bitches on the planet.”

Chapter 23

Eileen

It was the sound of the ocean crashing. Eileen knew it before she opened her eyes. Despite the raw throb of the hangover she was waking up to, this time there was no mistaking her sister’s guest bedroom for her own. She remembered where she was right away.

Her phone buzzed against the dresser on the other side of the room; that was what had pulled her from the depths of her booze-induced coma. Her swimming head reminding her that she, and Simon, drank way too much last night.

She also remembered…

A slick swell of guilt rose up inside her. “Oh my God,” she whispered as she forced her bloodshot eyes to open to the blinding glare of fresh morning light streaming through the open sliding glass door.

Her phone buzzed again. She knew it was someone from home. One of her kids, or Eric, and this knowing turned the sound into an accusation. The vibration erupting from her phone seemed both louder and harder against the wood.

Eileen turned her head, already knowing what she would see—or rather, who. There he was, still deep and far away in his own alcohol-soaked stupor. Simon, with his mouth slightly open and the faint rasp of his breath moving past the back of his throat, was still asleep on the pillow inches from her face. This close to him, in the intimacy of her sister’s guest bed, she stared at the smattering of dark brown hair on his naked chest. The breeze from the open door behind him picked up the scent of him, woodsy and unfamiliar—not Eric’s scent, not her own husband.