Free On Lavender Lane by Joann Ross

the Amazon. Or bungee jumping off some bridge in New Zealand, are you?” Could this get any worse? “You’re talking about sex.”
    Oh, God, didn’t New York get earthquakes? Couldn’t the earth open up beneath the apartment and put an end to this conversation?
    “And I don’t?” she asked. “Satisfy you?”
    Yes. It could get worse. Much worse.
    He didn’t respond for a long second that seemed like a lifetime.
    “I love you,
Mad-eh-Leen
,” he said finally. He’d gone all French on her again, but this time, she realized, trying too soothe rather than seduce. “Your youth, your enthusiasm for life, your love of cooking. But you and I”—another shrug—“we don’t suit. Not for the long run.”
    “You don’t know anything about love.” Was that cold, flat tone coming out of her own mouth? Apparently it was, because it also matched the ice she could feel flowing over her broken heart. “And you never will.”
    She shook her head. “I’m leaving. I’ll be back for my things later.” She had to escape while she still had a shred of dignity left.
    “You stay. You’ve had a long and difficult day. I didn’t unpack. I’ll be the one to spend the night somewhere else.”
    That somewhere else being Katrin Von Küenberg’s bed.
    “I don’t give a damn where you spend the night. But here’s a little news flash for you, Maxime. I loathe this apartment.” Which had been—surprise, surprise—redecorated six months ago by the designer to the rich and Gotham-connected that Katrin had recommended. “You’ve no idea what a relief it’s going to be to never have to look at this furniture again.” Though she would, admittedly, miss the view.
    Jet brows lifted. “You should have said something.”
    “I did. When you let the designer bring in all this Fortress of Solitude glass and steel, I told you it lacked warmth. And was uncomfortable. But, just like everything else about our life together, you refused to listen.”
    She stiffened her spine. Then her resolve. “Good-bye,Maxime. My lawyer will contact you to work out the details.”
    She didn’t have a lawyer—yet—but, fortunately, one of the things that made Pepper such a good agent was that she knew everyone.
    “Fine. You should tell that lawyer I’m prepared to give you enough funds to start your own restaurant. As you’ve always dreamed of.”
    She’d been walking away, intending a grand exit, when his words stopped her dead in her tracks. She turned and stared, incredulous.
    “You’re offering to fund a restaurant for me?”
    “It only seems reasonable.”
    “Reasonable.”
    Oddly, now that they were back to that, she felt herself deflating again, like a soufflé too long out of the oven. For a fleeting moment, she allowed herself a fantasy of opening up a restaurant right across the street from Chez Maxime’s on Columbus Circle. Then beating the black-checked chef pants off her bastard, cheating, soon-to-be-ex husband.
    “I would rather be deep-fried in a vat of hydrogenated fat than take a single, solitary penny from you.” Her marriage might have dissolved before her eyes, but she still had her pride. “Especially since it would come from another woman. Thanks, but no, thanks.”
    It admittedly wasn’t the best exit line. Nowhere near, “We’ll always have Paris,” or “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” and maybe someday she’d wished she’d come up with something sharper. Wittier. But at this moment, at this horrible, very bad point in time, it was enough.
    She walked out the door, head held high, and took the elevator back down to the lobby, where she had the spiffy-uniformed doorman call her a taxi.
    “La Guardia,” she said when she climbed into the backseat of the yellow cab. “Departures.”

8
     
Denver, Colorado
One week earlier
     
    Stephanie Fletcher had always believed in fairy tales. In her fantasies, someday, if she only believed hard enough and made herself perfect and deserving enough, a