Southern Belle. Fiona Hood-Stewart

ambitious plans for his son-in-law, and her own dogged determination that the marriage shouldn’t fail, couldn’t fail.

      The panicked blast of a horn and the screeching of tires made her jerk up, aghast. She’d wandered into the street and hadn’t noticed.

      Sending the outraged driver of the enormous SUV an apologetic smile, she hurried to the opposite pavement. Shit. That was the second time in under an hour she’d lost all sense of reality. But the pang of—not pain—that was something you endured, something you went through for a worthy cause, and this certainly didn’t qualify—but the strange, angry torment she was experiencing, directed as much at her own obtuse need to go on believing in the dream she’d so carefully constructed as at Harlan, wasn’t allowing her to think straight. Perhaps she was being ridiculous and this happened to most marriages at some point. But deep inside she knew that, too, was a lie.

      By the time she took stock of her whereabouts, Elm realized she was opposite the Oglethorpe Club and Meredith’s office. Rollins, Hunter & Mills, attorneys at law, practiced in the magnificent mansion standing on the corner. She crossed the road, carefully this time, and rang the buzzer at the ornate wrought-iron gate, feeling as though someone had pressed the button on a stopwatch and put her life on hold.

      2

      The buzzer buzzed.

      Elm pushed the gate open and walked up the shallow steps to the law office’s imposing front door.

      As soon as she stepped inside, she was plunged into the high-powered, hectic world of Savannah’s most prominent law firm, of successful attorneys barking sharp orders to Mylanta-popping paralegals in high heels and T.J. Maxx power suits. She stood for a moment and studied the pleasant face of the pregnant receptionist sitting unfazed in a bright pink smock behind a large antique desk as wide as she, trilling out the firm’s well-established name every few seconds, juggling calls, while anxious, six-hundred-dollar-an-hour clients were put on hold, waiting impatiently to be connected.

      “Mrs. MacBride?” Ally, Meredith’s rake-thin secretary, halted her sprint down the hallway and stopped, surprise evident on her pallid face. “Were we expecting you?” she asked, an anxious frown appearing as she mentally reviewed the day’s agenda.

      “No. I don’t have an appointment,” Elm replied. And for the first time in memory she did not apologize or add if it’s not convenient I’ll return another time, or don’t bother Meredith if she’s in an important meeting. Right now—to use Meredith’s language, rather than her own—she didn’t give a flying fuck how busy her friend was, she needed to speak with her. Now.

      “Right.” Ally, immediately businesslike, took charge. “If you’ll wait here just one second, Mrs. MacBride, I’ll check if she can see you right away. Why don’t you take a seat?” She indicated the group of studded leather sofas and armchairs strategically placed in the inner alcove, overshadowed by a gigantic Christmas tree, that looked out over the secluded garden and served as a waiting room.

      “Thanks. But I’ll just wait here.” Elm smiled politely in the poised manner that was a part of her nature, and stayed put.

      “Sure. I’ll—” Ally smiled nervously, indicated Meredith’s door, and after the briefest of knocks disappeared.

      “Elm!” A booming baritone echoed behind her and a large palm clapped her on the shoulder. “What are you doing here, young lady?” Ross Rollins, senior partner, ex-state supreme court judge, and intimate friend of her father, Senator George Hathaway, shook her hand with delight. “Well, if this isn’t a wonderful surprise. Best get one of those gals in there to find us some coffee.” He gestured to the hall at large.

      “Actually, I just popped in to see Meredith.”

      “Sure. Now, tell me, Elm—” Ross slipped a broad arm about her slim shoulders “—how’s that handsome husband of yours doing, eh? Getting ready to win another term, I’ll bet. A little bird whispered to me that he has some pretty ambitious aspirations this time round. Particularly now that Jeff Anderson’s gone,” he added, lowering his voice. “Sad he went so young, very sad indeed,” the older man muttered, donning a suitably concerned frown for the recently deceased house minority leader. “Still, might just be Harlan’s lucky break, mightn’t it?”

      She was saved from answering by Meredith, who appeared, beige-skirted and white-shirted, on the threshold of her own little empire.

      “Hey. This is a surprise.” Meredith pecked Elm on the cheek, registering her friend’s pale, set face. With a quick word she dismissed Ross, linking her arm with Elm’s and sweeping her toward the open office door. “What brought you in here?” she asked, mentally filing the municipal-trash case—it would just have to wait—her bright eyes studying Elm’s fixed smile and controlled posture.

      Something was obviously wrong, she reflected uneasily. In all the years they’d been friends—and that went back longer than she cared to remember—and not once since she’d begun practicing law, had Elm ever appeared unannounced. She invariably called first, making sure in that soft, elegant, well-mannered way of hers that it was convenient. “Come in. It’s good to see you.” She smiled more brightly than she felt.

      “Sorry not to have called,” Elm murmured, following Meredith into her large, square, high-ceilinged room, a maze of stacked legal files, cardboard boxes with their contents labeled in thick black marker, and piles of miscellaneous documents waiting to be filed and delivered to the document bank. The desk was the one orderly area in the entire room.

      “What’s wrong?” Meredith said as soon as the door closed. She pointed authoritatively at a new gray chair bought last week to replace the sagging green one that had finally collapsed. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

      Elm stared straight at her and remained standing. “Mer, did you know?”

      “Know what?” Meredith’s brows met in a dark ridge over the bridge of her straight, thin nose.

      “That Harlan was having an affair with Jennifer Ball?” Elm’s voice sounded almost casual, as though the discovery of her husband’s affair with one of Savannah’s most notorious divorcées was an everyday occurrence.

      “Oh, Jesus!” Meredith sank behind her desk and pushed her glasses back into position. The day she’d long been dreading had arrived. The shit had finally hit the fan.

      “Well? Did you?” Elm’s black shades stared blankly at her.

      “I—look…kind of, okay?” She let out a sigh and again gestured for Elm to take a seat.

      “And you never said a word.” Elm gripped the back of the chair.

      “Look, sit down and I’ll explain.” She’d always known that one day Elm would suffer a rude awakening from the daydream she’d been living for more than a decade. Just hadn’t expected it would happen today.

      “Why didn’t you tell me?” Elm asked tightly. She sat on the edge of the gray chair and removed her shades. “Why didn’t you warn me, Mer? And by the way,” she added, her tone bitter, “just who else knows that my husband is fucking Jennifer? Everyone except me, I suppose?”

      “Pretty much,” Meredith muttered, suddenly wary. Elm never used bad language.

      “I repeat, why didn’t you tell me?” Elm pinned her mercilessly, her eyes two huge chestnut pools of pain, anger and crushed pride.

      “Hell, Elm, how could I?” Meredith burst out, cringing inwardly. Should she have told her? Would it have been fairer?

      “You’re my friend,” Elm bit back, “the only friend I trust in this damn cesspool. But you didn’t see fit to warn me. I don’t understand.”

      “Hold it. It’s not quite that simple,” Meredith countered, leaning forward and reverting to the measured tone she used to announce a lost case to a client. “How could I tell you,” she queried deliberately,