But after two weeks of living like this, I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I don’t handle stress well at all. It manifests very physically and I almost drove myself to the emergency room last night when I was convinced I was having a heart attack. I have to tell someone.

“Vonnie!” I look into the camera on her doorbell. “Let me in!”

“Damn, girl.” Vonnie pulls open her front door, looking glam as always, even at noon on a Thursday. “Is everything alright? Your texts were a little manic and you aren’t looking much better in person.”

She steps to the side as I bulldoze my way in. I’m so stressed that I can’t even focus enough to drink in the grandiose decorating I know she has put into this house.

“You’re a lawyer, right?” I ask instead of answering her question.

“Technically, I guess.” She narrows her eyes before pointing a blood-red nail at me. “Why? Are you in trouble? Do you need legal advice?”

“I am in so much trouble that I don’t even know what to do with myself.” I tell her the god’s honest truth.

“Oh shit. Come on, girl.” She walks past me and I follow her as she makes her way to the kitchen. “Sit.” She points at the stools lined up on her kitchen island and walks to the wine fridge a few feet away. “Champagne okay with you?”

“I’ll take any and all things alcohol. I officially have no standards.” In life and in drink preference.

She pops the cork with experienced precision and pours us each a glass before sitting on the stool next to me.

“Cheers.” She taps her glass against mine. “I know we usually do this at HERS, but this will have to do in a pinch.”

“I mean . . .” I take a look around at her beautiful kitchen, the pendant lights hanging above us, the two-toned cabinets with gold hardware, and the gorgeous tile backsplash beneath them is all immaculate. “This is hardly sloppy seconds.”

“Thank you.” She takes a small sip of her bubbly. “They’ve just been filming so much for Love the Player at HERS and I have too much shit going on in my life to even think about putting a damn mic on. Now that Aviana’s husband got traded, those producers are working double-time to create drama and I know better than to fall into that trap.”

I shudder at the thought of cameras catching anything that I’m about to admit to.

“That’s a good call, what I’m about to tell you isn’t something I’d want going around either.”

“I’m intrigued, go on.”

The stabbing chest pain that has been bothering me for the last week starts up again.