Madelynne Lancaster adjusted the designer purse on her arm, almost arranging it as if she could so easily order all the things in her life that had gone askew. At least she’d gotten to keep the bag in the divorce.
Disgust made her upper lip curl, though it wasn’t for the woman in front of her. Julia Harper. Once, Julia Brunner, as that had been Alan’s last name. She wondered why Julia had given up the name she’d fought so hard to get.
Maddy had often thought about what her life would be like had she managed to hold onto Alan, and it had never ended up like this. She blinked, and the past twenty-five years vanished into dust—the kind that made her throat stiffen and narrow until she began to cough.
“Hello, Julia,” she said at the tail end of the noise, almost like she was trying to disgu
