Fool Me Once (First Wives #1)

Lori felt five years past the epic days of her life. “It was memorable.”

A coffee cup made it under the stream of hot cappuccino. Just the smell helped her headache.

“I’m really divorced?” Avery asked on a sigh.

“Yep.”

“And my bank account has five million dollars in it?”

“Yep.”

Avery’s laugh started low and built. Lori smiled as she lifted the coffee cup for her first taste.

“Bernie’s a nice man, he just needs . . .”

“Someone closer to his age?”

“Yeah.”

Lori avoided conversations with her clients during their marriages unless something legal came up. And since most of the time she represented both parties in these “arranged marriages,” from prenup to divorce, it was best to stand clear.

Alliance, a successful marriage-for-hire service for the rich and famous who needed a spouse quickly and quietly, was Sam’s brainchild. The marriages were designed to be temporary, twelve to twenty-four months, including a six-month uncontested divorce grace period. Sam often fostered the relationship with the payees, mainly women, where Lori dealt with the payers, often men. Lori wasn’t an employee of Alliance per se, but she did financially benefit from every prenuptial agreement she wrote up, and again when the couple split.

Once the divorces were final, Lori often took on the role of transitioning the divorcées from “married to a rich man” to “cast-off wife.” And yes, Sam paid her for that service as well.

Even though her role with Alliance went beyond the professional scope of a divorce attorney, she didn’t mind. Her involvement kept her clients out of the papers and on the path to the happiness they sought when they entered into their counterfeit marriages.

The irony lay in how many times Alliance marriages actually worked out. Between Sam’s vetting of the couples involved, the extensive background checks, and the overall matching process, it wasn’t uncommon for the couples to have a physical attraction that sometimes grew deep roots filled with I love you and forever. Considering the divorce rate was 50 percent in the normal world of happily ever after, the fact that the fabricated marriages that Samantha Harrison’s company arranged had a 28 percent success rate was astounding.

And those success stories alone kept Lori in the mix.

As jaded as a divorce lawyer with one failed marriage under her personal belt was, she liked to believe happily ever after existed.

“Was it really that easy? Taking the job as Bernie’s wife paid me over nine grand a day.”

It was too early for math.

“Uhm . . .”

“Five million and the condo.”

Yeah . . . the condo had cost Bernie close to two million after renovations. Every client was different.

Every client had a price for a year or two of their personal freedom.

Not to mention the gifts Bernie had bestowed upon his wife during their marriage. All a facade.

Even now, Bernie was happily hooking up with a woman slightly older than Avery with the real possibility of that happily ever after in his future. It seemed having a trophy wife broke down some of his personal demons that prevented him from seeking out relationships.

There were pitfalls for Avery, however . . . things she’d discarded when she’d signed contracts that she would now face. Dating after being labeled a gold digger would be challenging. Not to mention the opportunistic men out there who would try to hook up with her to get a piece of her bank account. Avoiding the lottery curse and blowing the five million she gave up a portion of her life for was also something Lori and Sam both tried to help their clients avoid. Hence the reason Lori was standing in Avery’s condo and not hers at nine in the morning with puke dripping off the walls. Avery already trusted and respected her, but now that the marriage and divorce were over, Lori hoped their relationship could develop into a friendship so Avery would seek her advice during what could be a challenging transitional year.

“Water?” Lori offered.

Avery shook her head.

Lori leaned against the kitchen counter.

“You need to ease your life out of purgatory just a little bit longer,” Lori warned. “Give the papers someone new to follow.”

Avery laughed with half-open eyes.

“Avery?” The younger woman caught Lori’s gaze. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

“Yeah, yeah . . . you told me people would call me a gold digger, a user. I know.”

Avery Grant had been ostracized by her parents’ crowd for not conforming to the plaid skirt wearing teen or the perfectly polished Stepford wife type as an adult. Her wealthy, Ivy League–educated family didn’t know what to do with her wild, unorthodox personality. Her parents sent her to one boarding school after another, never letting Avery develop any lasting friendships. Avery continued the pattern by floating in and out of three colleges before graduating with a liberal arts degree after five years. Avery said she was bulletproof after her unsettled childhood.

“It’s more than being called a name,” Lori said.

“You’ve told me this before, Lori. I’m good.”

Lori’s phone rang like an exclamation point.

She followed the ringtone until she found her cell plugged in by the kitchen sink.

It was Sam.

“Good morning.”

“You left before all the fun.” Detective Dan had earned his three hundred bucks.

“Are you sitting down?”

Sam’s abrupt tone shook the remaining cobwebs from Lori’s head. “No.”

“Sit.”

Lori took the seat opposite Avery. “I’m sitting.” And her heart was beating too fast.

“They have art.”

They and art were never a good combination. “Last night?”

“Yeah. A picture of Avery letting Detective Dan take a Jell-O shot off her belly is making the rounds.” Sam rambled off the tabloid that had managed to obtain pictures from the previous night’s party.

“That’s not good.”

Sam sighed.

Avery opened both eyes as she took in half the conversation.

Lori faked a smile. The reaction was preprogramed in her head in an effort to keep control of her emotions when she felt her blood pressure rising.

“That’s not all.”

“I’m listening.”

“Fedor Petrov squeezed the trigger of his .45 millimeter point-blank to his head last night.”

Lori’s stomach protested. She swallowed. Hard. “God, no.”

“I wish I was joking.”

“Where is Trina?” Petrov was their payer, and Trina was the temporary wife halfway through her two-year contract.

“Secluded in Petrov’s estate in the Hamptons.”

“This is bad.” Lori closed her eyes and envisioned Trina the last time she saw her. She was packing up her apartment after her brief fake honeymoon and moving back east. “How did you find out?”

“Trina called, hysterical.”

“My God, is she okay?”

“No. I’m not sure it’s possible for her to be okay right now. My plane leaves in two hours.”

“I’ll be ready.”





Chapter Two