Right then, Vivian breezed in. Like everyone else, she had to be exhausted from the frenetic pace. More exhausted, considering her pregnancy, but she never showed it. “Bring me the latest prints from Creative,” she said, and Allie scurried away.

“Confirm lunch with Stan,” Vivian added to Jules in a low voice.

Jules couldn’t quite speak, so she nodded and smiled brightly at Vivian as if nothing were wrong at all.

Without another word or look of acknowledgment, Vivian headed into her office.

Jules tried not to gag on her latest hot, miserable surge of jealousy. She’d never felt anything like it before. It was worse than the time she’d had acid reflux in middle school.

Love my new special project. Just love it to pieces.

How was it possible that Vivian already had a new guy just a few months after Robert had left her, in the middle of a divorce while pregnant? Was she that desperate to have someone else on her arm at parties? Apparently so. Shit.

There might be less to it than that. The bastard really was attractive. And Jules could tell from the way Vivian looked when she got in the car in the morning that she’d stopped throwing up and felt a lot better.

In fact, her research told her that after the first trimester, women often got their libidos back. Sometimes they got more than their fair share. Maybe Vivian didn’t want someone at her side in public—maybe she wanted something a lot less complicated.

It was so unfair. Stan Oppenheimer didn’t, couldn’t know, Vivian. He didn’t spend all day in her back pocket. But he got to have this?

And what was Vivian thinking? This was how she got in trouble every time: getting together with men who didn’t understand her and who became threatened by her success. Didn’t she know by now that it wouldn’t work?

So who would work? she asked herself with gritted teeth. You? Get real.

Jules wasn’t entitled to anything, and it didn’t matter who Vivian got her rocks off with. It would never be Jules, and that was fine. It was good. And it would be ridiculous to think things could ever be different.

Somehow telling herself that a hundred times in a row didn’t help.

That afternoon, as usual, Vivian returned from her little lunch date looking extremely pleased with herself. Probably nobody but Jules could see it, but Vivian was definitely…satisfied by something. Sated, even. She hadn’t looked this happy since the pizza.

Because she was a glutton for punishment, Jules waited until they were alone and stammered, “D-do you want me to make another reservation? Appointment? With him?” She might as well beat Vivian to the punch and start trying to numb herself right away.

Vivian frowned. “Did I ask you to?”

“No,” Jules croaked, wishing Stan Oppenheimer into the hottest part of hell.