“So this is all bullshit?” Sue asks with a tone that says she believes otherwise as she motions to the newspaper. Her voice is soft, but my nerves make it seem louder than it is here in this small coffee shop. I almost shush her before realizing she’s not speaking loudly at all.

“It doesn’t look like it’s …” I can’t finish my thought, my eyes drawn to the same picture I stared at for hours last night, plus the night before.

“Well, she’s all over him. There’s no denying that.”

“Women are always all over him.” My answer comes out flat. I’m nothing if not blunt and transparent. It’s one of the reasons my clients trust me.

“I used to like it … when they’d try to be all over him,” I admit to her but bite my tongue at the urge to voice the additional confession: I loved it. “How they’d fawn over him, desperate for Evan’s attention. But he only had eyes for me.”

“Why is this one any different then?” The paper hits the slick surface of the coffee table as she tosses it down and immediately digs into her large Chanel hobo bag. I know she believes exactly what Evan denied. It’s written all over her perfectly red, pursed lips. This is only an attempt to appease me.

It’s not the first, the second, or even the third time Evan’s had his name in the tabloids for less than angelic reasons. Suzette has her opinions, but she’s always refrained from voicing them when it comes to Evan.

His reputation and his livelihood depend on the fact that he’s gotten away with things that would send most people to jail for the night.

That was the case before I met him, anyway. Now he gets paid to make sure his clients meet the same fate.

Sue talks as she pulls out a tube of deep red lipstick and a compact mirror. “Do you think he really did it this time?” she asks as if the weight of our marriage doesn’t rest on my answer.

The reason this time is different is because I know there’s truth to it.

It’s because of how he reacts.

It’s how he looks at me as if he’s guilty.

“He says it’s not what it looks like,” I answer and roll my eyes as I do, trying to downplay the pain that coils in my chest. My throat goes tight, but I’m saved by the return of Maddie.