Half Empty (First Wives #2)

“My condolences to your wife,” she yelled before running to the closest exit from the square.

He didn’t chase. Then again, he wouldn’t have to, since he knew where her hotel was.

For twenty minutes, she zigzagged through the never-ending maze of streets until she found a familiar path.

She wiped her lips with the back of her hand and cussed all the way back to the hotel.





Chapter Three



She lugged her overstuffed suitcase down two flights of stairs since the small hotel didn’t have an elevator.

“Mrs. Petrov . . . you’re leaving us?”

“I am. I’m going to need a water taxi to the airport.”

“You’re booked through the end of the week.”

She eyed the door. “Change of plans,” she said in English before switching to Italian.

The older man typed a few things into his computer before pulling up an invoice for her to sign. When she did, she once again caught Fedor’s ring out of the corner of her eye.

This is ridiculous.

“Shall I call for a taxi now?”

Her gaze fell on her suitcase, then the ring.

She held up a hand. “Hold off. I need to do something first.”

“Oh . . .”

“Watch my suitcase. I’ll be back.”

She didn’t run, but it was one of the fastest determined walks she’d done since her days as a flight attendant when she was late for work.

Luciano’s was only an hour into their day, and only one table was occupied.

“You’re early today,” Luciano greeted her, a kiss to each cheek.

“I’m not staying.”

Luciano looked disappointed.

“I’m actually on my way home.”

“You’re leaving Venezia?”

“I am.”

He kissed her cheek again. “It saddens my heart, even though I knew your time here wouldn’t last forever.”

“Thank you, Luciano. You’ve been one of the best parts about my visit.”

“Will you return?”

“I’m sure I will. This will be one of the first places I find when I do.” Trina looked over his shoulder. “Is Marco here?”

“Of course.”

Luciano yelled out his son’s name, and the younger man stepped out from the back of the restaurant, placing a long apron around his waist.

“Ms. Trina is leaving us,” Luciano announced.

“I wanted to say goodbye.”

“We will miss you,” Marco said.

Trina hugged Luciano first, and then turned to his son.

After she hugged the younger man, she pulled away and captured his hands in hers. “Follow the dream, Marco . . . and the money will come. If you love her, don’t let her go.”

He smiled.

She patted his hands, knew he felt that she’d slipped something in his, and squeezed.

“Ciao,” she said to both of them as she left the restaurant nearly as quickly as she’d run in.

Behind her, they called her name.

Trina started to run.

An hour later, as she sat in the airport lounge, she looked at her naked hand and released a long-suffering breath.



I’m at the airport. Trina texted Avery instead of calling.

It had taken two hours, but she’d managed to grab a standby seat en route to Paris. As Trina had planned, a storm was descending upon that part of France, and the chances of planes being grounded were actually quite high.

Having been a flight attendant for most of her young adult life, she knew which regions to avoid to minimize nasty weather and delays. Now she used that knowledge to do the exact opposite. London was known to have fog all times of the year, but summer storms were a much more likely issue in the southern regions.

If the rain over France didn’t delay her, she’d find her way to Florida, where a tropical depression would. No matter how you spun the wheel, she’d end up arriving in Texas after the weekend she was supposed to see her friends. She didn’t want to face them.

More importantly, she wanted to trudge through the anniversary of Fedor’s death by herself.

Their marriage had been on paper, something the First Wives would remind her of. But for some reason, Trina had grown to care for her late husband more since his passing than she had during their marriage. She’d stepped into his world as a hired bride. She was supposed to end their marriage after a year and a half and leave with five million dollars.

Only Fedor had eliminated the need for a divorce with the use of a gun.

His suicide had been in the papers for weeks.

Then, when his mother died of incurable cancer, the reason he’d wanted to marry in the first place, the papers had blown up.

Alice left her entire fortune to Trina, along with one-third say in the oil company she co-owned with her sisters, Diane and Andrea.

When all was said and done, Trina became one of the wealthiest women in the world, with well over $350 million in assets.

The fact that she was sitting between an overweight man and a teenage kid who smelled as if he’d been living in a hostel during his backpacking experience in Europe was quite ironic.

Avery would no doubt call her out on not chartering a private plane to reach her destination on time and in style.

Private jets were smaller and didn’t risk bad weather conditions like the larger commercial airlines did. Maybe she should consider chartering after all, she mused.

I tried, I did . . . but the only thing available was a small Lear, and they refused to fly.

Yup . . . the line would work and wouldn’t be a lie.

She’d even lose ten or twenty thousand on the booking just to stay away a few more days.

Trina spent two nights in Paris before the storm blew past and she inched her way toward Florida.

There again, she booked a hotel and glanced at flights without trying hard to find something to get her to her Texas ranch.

Her phone lit up as soon as she landed in Miami.

“Where the hell are you?” Avery was ticked.

“Miami. In baggage claim.” Trina watched the conveyer belt that unloaded luggage down two chutes at a painfully slow rate.

“Are you connecting in Miami?”

Trina was more than a little irritated that the call wasn’t losing its connection. “I tried booking, but there weren’t any flights. I’m going to find a private charter.”

“You know, if you’d actually planned on coming home for our club meeting, you wouldn’t be scrambling.”

She switched the phone to her other ear after catching sight of her bag sliding down the chute.

“I was on an open-ended vacation. I’m allowed to forget. Are you in Texas?”

“I am. Lori and Shannon will be here late tomorrow night.”

“Great. I should be right on their heels.”

Avery was silent.

“Are you still there?” Trina reached for her bag, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder.

Once she managed to grasp the handle of her suitcase, her purse slid off her shoulder, and her phone took a nosedive to the cement floor.

“Shoot.” She fumbled while tossing her bag over the side of the metal conveyor belt, nearly taking out the woman on her left. Trina bent down to retrieve her phone and cussed.

The image of a call in progress was distorted by the cracks that now spiderwebbed all over her screen. Trina put it back to her ear right as Avery called her a name.

“I dropped my phone.”

The woman Trina had nearly taken out now pushed around Trina to grab her luggage. Trina shuffled to the side, once again attempting to multitask.

“What are you doing?”

“I told you I’m in baggage claim.”

“You sound like a hot mess.”

“I am a hot mess. And now my phone is toast.”

“Okay, okay . . . call me when you have a plane booked so I can pick you up from the airport.”

With an irritated grunt, Trina turned the phone off completely and shoved it in her purse.

The humidity of Miami slapped her once she breached the doors. She scanned men in dark suits holding signs with last names, looking for hers.

Petrov stood out like a beacon.

“I’m Trina,” she told the driver she’d ordered with her service.

He was short, dark . . . and spoke with a thick Cuban accent. “Mrs. Petrov.”

“Trina’s fine, thank you.” No more Mrs. Anything, thank you very much.

With a nod, he took the handle of her rolling bag and led their way out of the airport.