Free The Real Mrs. Price by J. D. Mason

time. Where did he tell you he was going?”
    â€œWhere’d he tell her he was going?” she asked, looking at Roman but jutting her chin in Lucy’s direction. “Eddie was gone a lot, but he was home enough. Enough to where I didn’t suspect that he was married to somebody else.” She looked back at Lucy. “What’d he tell you?”
    It felt strange to be angry at this woman, to feel jealousy over the fact that she’d slept with the man that Lucy had loved and married, but ultimately with the man that Lucy hardly knew. Those kinds of emotions were misplaced here, and in that part of Lucy’s mind that was logical, she knew it. Ed was a lying, cheating, murderous bastard who’d soiled everyone he’d come in contact with. It was the irrational side that rose to the surface.
    â€œHe told me that he was away on businesses, at conferences, visiting clients,” Lucy said defensively. “He didn’t tell me that he was in Texas fucking you.”
    â€œLucy!” Roman said sternly. “Don’t do this!”
    â€œI guess he didn’t want to feed your insecurities,” Marlowe retorted. “I didn’t ask him to marry me. He asked me. He chased me like I was the only woman left in the world, and he did it knowing full well that he had you at home waiting for him, so don’t sit here and try and make me the villain.”
    â€œNo, Ed’s the villain,” Roman stated. “You both need to remember that. Neither one of you would be here now if it weren’t for him.”
    â€œThis bitch is acting as if I’m the one who’s done something wrong, Roman.”
    â€œNo, this bitch resents you coming into my damn house, staring down your nose at me like I’m so fucking desperate that I’d have married a man who I knew was already married. I’m not that gotdamned needy.”
    â€œAren’t you? You barely knew him, Marlowe. You don’t marry a man that you know for three months. If he wants to marry you after three months, I guarantee that something’s wrong with him, something’s wrong with you if you say yes, and in fucking Vegas of all places? Really?”
    Roman stood up. “Let’s go, Lucy,” he demanded, glaring at her.
    â€œYou’d better listen to him, Lucy,” Marlowe said threateningly. She stood up, too.
    â€œDid you kill my husband?” Lucy blurted out.
    Mixed emotions came so hard and so fast that Lucy couldn’t make sense of any of them. Ed was a monster. He’d threatened to come after Lucy if she ever told the police her suspicions about Chuck Harris. Marlowe was a monster, too, in her own way. And after meeting her here, Lucy wouldn’t be surprised at all if Marlowe had admitted it.
    â€œWhat the hell makes you think I’d tell you if I did?” Marlowe shouted.
    â€œYou don’t have to tell me,” Lucy spat. “The police will find out soon enough and arrest you, Marlowe.”
    Marlowe’s steely gaze bored into Lucy. “What’d you really come here for? To find Eddie or to see what it is about me that made him lose his damn mind?”
    Tears stung Lucy’s eyes. “Is he dead, Marlowe?” she asked, standing up.
    â€œI don’t know, Lucy,” Marlowe shot back. “Is he?”
    â€œLucy,” Roman grumbled under his breath, grabbing her by the elbow. “Let’s go.”
    He tugged on her firmly, leading her to the front door, making it clear that the two of them were leaving together.
    They climbed into the car and sat parked in front of the house for several minutes. “That was a catastrophe and a monumental waste of time,” he said irritably. “Is that what this was about, Lucy?” he asked, turning to her. “Is that why you wanted me to arrange this meeting, so that you could go head-to-head against this woman over a man who has unofficially fucked up just about every life