Lorelei doubted she did, doubted she could possibly guess how repulsive she found this revelation. She said nothing, just turned to stare out the window.
“Lorelei, please don’t judge me so fast,” Reagan said. “As a stay-at-home mom, you probably don’t come into contact with temptation very often. But when you’re out in the workforce, like me, you spend a lot of time with your coworkers and...and sometimes you begin to have feelings you shouldn’t. It wasn’t as if I planned on this happening. It wasn’t as if I’ve ever done anything even remotely like it before. I’m telling you...it came out of nowhere.”
“I don’t care what your excuse is,” she said. “That’s a line you don’t cross.”
Reagan’s face turned bright red. Lorelei was overreacting, and she knew it. This wasn’t her husband they were talking about. But it hit so close to home, and she’d put so much hope into her sisters being people she could admire—and count on—that she was bitterly disappointed.
Reagan had already proven herself unreliable in one of the most important ways.
“Thanks for your understanding,” Reagan said tightly.
Lorelei rubbed her temples. “I’m sorry. What you do is none of my business. But so you know, I’m not unsophisticated. I have a degree in marketing. I was a digital marketing manager for a great company and made decent money. It’s just that...when Mark and I discussed having children, we felt it would be best for me to be at home instead of shuttling our kids to and from day care every day.”
“Why is it always the woman who makes that sacrifice?” Reagan grumbled. “Why couldn’t he have been the one to stay at home?”
“It’s not always the woman. More and more men are doing it and—”
“A small fraction.”
Lorelei ignored the interruption. “And by the time we paid for day care, I wouldn’t have earned enough to warrant being away from our child, let alone been able to support us if Mark had stayed home.” Letting go of her career had been difficult. But she’d felt it was the right thing to do, the practical thing.
Or had she, once again, compromised when she shouldn’t have? Given up her job to keep Mark happy?
Now that she was possibly staring down a divorce, she felt it might’ve been smarter to push back.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see what you think of that decision when Lucy’s out of the house and on her own.”
“What did you say?” Lorelei asked.
Reagan sent her a scowl. “What will you have then?”
“Hopefully, I’ll have a happy, well-adjusted child. Mark was making more than I was, so...”
“So?” Reagan challenged when she let her words trail off.
“It made sense,” Lorelei insisted. She hated that she hadn’t finished her sentence to begin with, that Reagan had to call her out. It revealed that she was concerned she’d made a mistake—one that might cost her dearly in the long run.
But Reagan was so caught up in attempting to justify her own actions, she didn’t capitalize on Lorelei’s uncertainty. “I’ve been trying really hard to cut it off with Drew,” she said. “But it’s not as easy as you think. He’s one of the senior partners at the agency. I’ll lose him and my job, and I’ve worked my ass off for ten years to get where I am at Edison & Curry. It’s so competitive in advertising.”
“If he’s vindictive enough to fire you because you won’t sleep with him—especially when he’s already married—he’s an asshole, and you need to get away from him as soon as possible, no matter what it costs,” Lorelei blurted out.
Lucy gasped. “Mommy, did you say asshole?”
Lorelei squeezed her forehead. “No, I said... I said...”
“She said, ‘He’s on the last hole.’”
Small point for Reagan for jumping in to help, even though Lucy wouldn’t understand the golf reference. Lorelei was about to mouth a polite thank you but what Reagan said next quelled the impulse.
“Your saintly mother would never use such language.”
“What’s saintly?” Lucy asked.
Reagan had spoken in a sulky mumble, but that hadn’t stopped Lorelei’s bright daughter from picking up on every word.
When no one answered, Lucy seemed to catch on that it hadn’t been meant as a compliment. “Mommy, are you and Aunt Reagan having a fight?”
Lorelei held the strap of her seat belt away from her body so she could glance back to reassure her daughter. “No, honey. We’re just...tired. We all had a long flight today, right? Aren’t you tired?”
“No,” Lucy said immediately.
Drawing a deep breath, Lorelei faced forward. “Well, I am.”
“Now you regret coming,” Reagan said. “I can tell.”
“I don’t regret it,” Lorelei lied, but she was hoping Serenity wouldn’t be the terrible disappointment Reagan was turning out to be. She’d committed to staying for an entire week, and it wouldn’t be easy to leave sooner, not unless she was willing to spend a lot of extra money on two last-minute plane tickets.
Actually, that wasn’t even an option. There was hardly any money in the bank account she shared with Mark, and her credit card was maxed out from their recent kitchen remodel. He’d started paying the bills from a separate account, and she thought she could guess why. He was trying to protect his assets in the event that she left him.
If that happened, until the court divided their property and ordered him to pay child support, which could be months away, she’d be left with little or nothing.
Just in case the worst did happen, she’d have to be very careful when it came to expenses.
Which meant she and Lucy were stuck in Tahoe until her return flight.
3
reagan
REAGAN MENTALLY KICKED herself as she continued to fight through the storm and the traffic to reach the cabin. What had she been thinking? She’d known better than to announce she was the other woman in a romantic triangle. That was the quickest way to destroy her credibility as a decent person, the quickest way to be shunned. Poor Lorelei hadn’t even had a chance to get to know her first.
Good job making sure your half sister never has any respect for you, she told herself. But she was lugging around so much guilt even she didn’t feel she deserved respect. And holding back that information would make her feel dishonest on top of everything else. She wasn’t a liar, wasn’t one to pretend she had any claim on the man she was seeing if she didn’t, especially to people she was hoping to have a lifelong relationship with. What was the point of coming here to meet her sisters if she was only hiding who she really was?