After she delivered that, she pulled her shades from her hair, perched them on her nose, and with steady, strong raps of her heels on the floor, she walked right out of the coffeehouse.
And with no other choice, Judge watched her do it.
It wouldn’t be until the next day when he’d find out what was behind Chloe gutting him with that speech.
And the person with this information would not be the person Judge would put money down on having said information.
It started with a call.
Not a text.
Which was already a stunner.
He’d known Rix years, and he didn’t know if the man had ever called him.
Texted him at five in the morning with, Get your ass out of bed, it’s trail time approximately a thousand times.
But not a call.
Rix also didn’t bother with preliminaries, like “Hey.”
He just said, “Did you see it?”
“See what?”
“That whole thing with Imogen Swan, Corey Szabo, and Duncan?”
It was evening, and Judge had just finished a bison burger topped with homemade pimento cheese, some roasted fingerling potatoes, sautéed green beans and was now on his deck with a podcast, the sunset, his dog Zeke, and beer number two.
“What whole thing with Imogen Swan, Corey Szabo, and Duncan?” he asked.
Though the fact Duncan was mentioned in that mix was mildly interesting, it also wasn’t because Judge wasn’t a big gossip guy.
He’d seen some of Imogen Swan’s movies, and practically every girlfriend he’d had had been superfans of hers. So he’d also seen most of the episodes of Rita’s Way, her big TV show from a few decades back that made her a household name.
And everyone knew who Corey Szabo was, because everyone loved to hate him due to the fact he was richer than 99.999 percent of the population, and from all accounts, was also a huge dick.
Further, Szabo was famously a friend of Swan’s and Swan’s husband, Tom Pierce, the only one of that crew Judge knew well because he was a big tennis fan, and he could make a case that Pierce was one of the best to ever play the game.
And Judge, like nearly most sentient beings on the planet, knew that not long ago, shocking everyone, sitting alone in his twenty-million-dollar home outside LA, Corey Szabo had eaten a bullet.
That had reverberated around the globe.
The man who had everything took his own life.
That didn’t only put the tech world, Wall Street, the gossip mill, and every computer engineer alive into a tailspin.
It put Imogen Swan fans in one too.
Because, not long before Szabo’s suicide, the impossible had happened.
America’s favorite couple, the solid-as-a-rock pair, proved they weren’t that at all when Imogen Swan and Tom Pierce got a divorce.
So even Judge couldn’t miss not only what Szabo had done, but also that everyone was on about how bad a year American’s Darling, Imogen Swan, was having.
And having to publicly go through a divorce and sustain a blow like losing a close friend to suicide, even Judge, who barely watched TV and might occasionally see a movie, felt bad for the woman.
Rix interrupted his thoughts by laying it out.
“Szabo’s ex got on some gossip show and spilled about how Duncan and Imogen were a big thing back in the day. She even used the words ‘star-crossed lovers,’” Rix told him. “Totally into each other. Totally meant for each other. But Szabo, who was both their best friend, they’d all grown up together, broke them up. Lied about sleeping with her so Duncan would break things off so Szabo could have her. It’s all over the store. It’s all over everywhere.”
This was a surprise, mostly because Judge had never met anyone famous (well, at least, not after he was old enough to form coherent thoughts, and he didn’t count his father or grandfather as famous, because they were, but they were just family to Judge), much less knew someone who was best friends with two people who were two of the most famous people in the world.
Of course, everyone knew Duncan Holloway, but Judge didn’t think of him as famous. He was just rich, and he was vocal about issues he held close to his heart. And in order to make a difference, he had to make the news, and he did.
But he was nowhere near Imogen Swan’s and Corey Szabo’s league.
“And some folks at the store did some googling, brother, and your girl in the shoe department…” Rix went on.
At that, Judge took his feet from the railing as he sat up.
“Yeah?” he prompted when Rix didn’t finish.
“Her name is Chloe Pierce. She’s Imogen Swan’s oldest daughter.”
Anything that’s meaningful in the world is absolutely not how I know that world to be.
Well…
Fuck.
Chapter 3
The Roses
Corey
Three years ago…
Corey sat in the section beside them, front row, where Imogen told him to sit.
It was not his preferred location.
It wasn’t because he couldn’t watch her without being noticed doing it from his seat.
He also wasn’t close to her. Couldn’t touch her knee or take her hand.
She didn’t need him, though, and the truth was, Corey would never have the seat he preferred.
This was because Genny had Tom, who as ever was right by her side.
Her son Matt was on her other side, her two men, looking after her.
On Matt’s opposite side, Sasha was practically draped on her brother. Boneless with grief.
And everyone said Chloe was the dramatic one.
Corey felt when they did, they didn’t pay enough attention to Sasha.
Though, Corey assuaged his irritation at this seating arrangement by settling into the fact Imogen had been firm about him sitting right at the front. A place of honor.
A member of the family.
Making this more so, before finding her own seat, she’d leaned in and murmured, “Take care of Chloe.”
Which brought to mind…
He looked to his right and saw Chloe sitting beside him.
Pure Chloe, she’d worn a dramatic black hat. A mournful number angled perfectly on her head with a wide brim that sloped theatrically down in a wide bell shape that covered her eyes. Though the black of the hat had an expensive sheen, the brim, also black, was transparent, making it reminiscent of a mourning veil.
There were two people in this world that could pull off that hat.
Chloe.
And Marilyn.
This thought took Corey’s attention to the front of the room, where there was a magnificent funeral spray of ivy, other greenery, blush-colored roses that were so pale, they were nearly cream, and more blush roses tipped with the most vibrant of pinks. All of this was interspersed with blooms that were a bold green peppered with small, fluffy white blooms along the stems. And in the midst of the spray, a massive pale pink satin bow with curling, trailing ends.
Beside it was a large picture of Marilyn Swan.
Imogen’s mother.
Chloe’s grandmother.
Corey’s godsend.
Genny had selected a photo of her mom of which Marilyn would approve.
Not a shot from weeks or months or even a few years ago, when, due to the magic wielded by a stylist, she still had her lustrous dark hair, but regardless of how hard she fought against it, she showed her age.