Fool Me Once (First Wives #1)

Avery tipped the last of the second bottle of white wine into her glass. It was empty. She reached for the red, shook the half an inch in the bottom of the bottle. “Should we open another one?”

Lori looked up at a clock on the wall. “I have to get some sleep. I have an early flight in the morning.”

“But I just got here,” Danny said.

“And if you had called, I would have told you to wait a few days.”

“You know I hate phones.”

Lori glanced at Reed. “He doesn’t have a cell phone.”

“How is that possible?” Avery asked.

“He makes collect calls.”

“As in he calls an operator to make a call?” Reed knew there was doubt in his voice.

“He . . .” Danny said as he pointed to his chest. “Is sitting right here. And yes, it’s much cheaper than a cell phone.”

“For you!” Lori told him.

Danny worked her like a violin. “I’m worth it.”

Lori directed her unamused glare toward Reed. “See what I have to deal with?”

Yeah, he saw it. Danny was a couch surfer, and this month he was landing on Lori’s. Something he guessed had happened before. The question was if Danny took full advantage or not. He seemed like a decent enough guy.

Avery was certainly charmed.

“I hate to be the buzzkill—”

“Since when?” Danny asked his sister.

Lori glared. “But I gotta get some sleep.”

“You’re going to see Trina, right?” Avery asked as she stood and grabbed some of the empty boxes of Chinese food they’d ordered.

“Yeah. The estate attorney is meeting us at two tomorrow.”

“Sounds boring,” Danny said.

Not to Reed. He was quite interested in what Lori and Avery were muttering about. He picked up their plates and followed them into the kitchen.

“I’m worried about her,” Avery told Lori. “She said something about someone spying on her.”

Reed stacked the dishes by the sink. “Why would someone be spying on Trina?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Her bodyguard people found bugs in her house when she arrived home from Spain,” Avery told him.

Lori smiled but didn’t add anything.

“Trina didn’t seem like a woman who holds secrets.”

Avery blinked a few times, glanced at Lori, and said, “I was thinking about going to her place for a while. I think she can use a friend.”

Lori released a breath she seemed to be holding. “That’s a great idea. I’d love to know that she has someone close that she can talk to.”

Avery glanced toward the dining room table, where Danny was collecting empty wineglasses. “He’s a bad idea . . . isn’t he?” she whispered to Lori.

“He’s my brother!”

“Okay, okay . . . when are you flying home?”

“Saturday morning.”

“I’ll fly out Friday. Can you water my plants while I’m gone?”

Lori narrowed her eyes. “Do you have plants?”

Avery laughed. “No.”

Lori nudged her. “I’ll let you know if the building catches fire.”

“Perfect.”

Lori turned her attention to Reed.

He nodded toward the living room.

She followed.

He placed a hand on her waist and pulled her close until he could circle her with his arms. “You take care of everyone, don’t you?”

“You noticed.”

There was a tension in her frame, in her eyes. “Who takes care of you?” he whispered.

Her strangled smile fell. “I’m good.”

“Everyone needs someone to look out for them once in a while.”

“I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”

Laughter from the kitchen had them both looking back.

“Sorry about tonight,” she told him.

“You know . . . for a strong, independent woman, you sure do apologize a lot for things you can’t control.”

“I do?”

“Yes. You do.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Call me when you land in New York.”

“Why?”

Yeah, why had he told her to do that? Then it dawned on him. “I want to know you arrived safely.”

For the first time since they’d met, doubt crossed her face.

“Okay?” he asked.

“The chance of a plane dropping from the sky is less likely than me biting it in the car on the way to the airport.”

God, she was adorable when she went all lawyer on him.

“Then text me when you get to the airport, and then call when you land in New York.”

She blinked several times. “Fine. I’ll do that.”

“Did that hurt?” he asked.

Lori started to shake her head before she turned that shake into a nod. “Yes.”

“Good.”





Chapter Seventeen




Lori stepped away from her priority seat on the commercial airline slightly frazzled. The hour delay on her flight gave her very little time to commute into Manhattan for her two o’clock meeting with Mr. Crockett and Trina. Thankfully, she didn’t need to stick around the airport for luggage since she only had a carry-on.

“I’m late,” she told the driver she’d hired to pick her up from the airport. The second he closed the door and settled behind the wheel, she said, “I’ll pay for your speeding ticket.”

He glanced at her from the rearview mirror and sped off.

Gotta love New York. Hand gestures and horns, the drivers took a “hold no prisoner” approach to driving in order to get where they wanted. How any of the cars there survived was a mystery.

Lori fingered through the files on Alice Petrov and her estimated wealth that she’d obtained before Trina married Fedor. During her flight, she’d spent the first hour reading before lingering jet lag knocked her out. When she woke, she had barely an hour to refresh her memory about the Petrov players. Who was going to be happy with Alice’s decision to leave her estate to Trina, and who was going to fight?

Up until the last months of Alice’s life, she was an active member on the board of the oil company her family had founded. She was the eldest of three girls, all of whom were given equal shares of the company upon their father’s death.

Lori placed a hand against the seat to keep from toppling over when the driver cut off a horn-blaring car.

She turned the page of her document, skimmed the next page of Alice’s bio, the part where she took a philanthropic role in many organizations: Women’s Health United, Women for Women, Empowering Girls, Battered but Not Broken, Federation of the United . . . and finally, Girl Scouts.

A corner of Lori’s brain started to itch. Something, or some chain of events, must have prompted this path of philanthropy.

Her body lurched forward as her driver pulled to an abrupt stop before the high-rise on Forty-Second.

She looked at her watch.

One fifty.

“You’re good.” She pulled a hundred-dollar bill from her wallet, added that to predetermined fare.

He handed her his card. “Anytime you’re in the city.”

“I’ll keep you in mind.”

He jumped out, but she was already one foot out the door before he could open it for her.

Cars honked behind his double-parked effort, not that he seemed to care.

Before she reached the doors of the building, her phone rang.

She answered without looking at who called. “I’m on my way in right now.”

“Hey.”

The voice threw her. She was expecting Trina on the other end.

“You didn’t call me when you landed.”

She damn near tripped as she hustled through the glass doors. “Reed?”