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occasions as well. The saddest thing was, she remembered hearing that with all three men, Heather might as well have had a tag in her ear. They were men who would have settled for anybody—they just couldn’t stand to be alone—and yet they still passed on Heather.
    “But enough about me,” Heather said with a wicked grin. Clearly, she didn’t see her situation as so pathetic and proudly felt that if getting over highly successful ex-fiancés were an Olympic sport, she would have had a host of gold medals to go with those diamond rings. She fancied herself a regular Hall of Famer.
    “Don’t you just look amazing, and after all you’ve been through!” she gushed, turning the conversation back to Amanda.
    Amanda thought she detected a trace of envy embedded in the compliment. They stood for a moment in awkward silence.
    Finally, Heather sighed. “I’ve really got to go—I have a doctor’s appointment in ten minutes. I’ve got the keys on my desk. I’ll be right back.” And with that, she went slinking back down the hallway, in a curve-hugging dress that looked better suited for dinner than office attire. But then again, Heather was always in audition mode for her next engagement ring. Amanda was about to ask her whether Ann had known all along that she wouldn’t be able to be at the office to meet her, but suddenly it didn’t matter. She just stood there and waited for Heather to come back and give her the keys.

Chapter 4
     
     
    T en minutes later, with the keys to her temporary new home in hand, Amanda pulled up to the sweeping circular drive in front of her parents’ house. She cut the motor and paused a moment to take in the magnificent, seven-bedroom house where she had grown up. She thought for a moment about the limousine that had taken her from the house to Hillside Park Presbyterian on the day of her wedding. She felt like something of a failure to be coming home now, after a failed marriage, to start her life over again.
    There was something inside of her that had always hoped the damage in her marriage, great as it was, could have somehow been repaired. Of course, Bill wasn’t interested in healing. It was going to be his way or the highway. He also knew he had enough money to find someone who was willing to live like that in exchange for his lifestyle—someone who would simply turn a blind eye to his bad behavior in exchange for his charity. And it wasn’t going to be Amanda, that was for sure. No way.
    Now, taking possession of the keys to her new place somehow made the whole thing more real. Gotta make the best of it, Amanda told herself. This is a much better place for the children anyway.
    And with that, she got out of her SUV and headed into the house. Parked next to the front door was a new black Mercedes Maybach with paper license plates—a car that cost at least three hundred thousand dollars. Amanda had always had a thing for black Mercedeses. She’d asked for one for her high school graduation gift and had fully expected to get one. When her parents presented her with an eighteen-carat gold Rolex, complete with diamond face and diamond bezel, she threw the watch at her father and stormed out of her graduation dinner. But Amanda was a different person back then, and after all, it was the 1980s.
    “Mom didn’t tell me she was buying a new car,” Amanda said to herself, admiring the vehicle. “Ooh, I love it!”
    Amanda headed inside, where she was immediately greeted by her two children, Will, twelve, and Sarah, nine. Will was his father, Bill, reincarnated as a sixth grader—the same shaggy blond hair, the same mischievous eyes, the same half smile that gave people the sense that father and son alike were somehow getting something over on an unsuspecting world—which, half the time, they were. The resemblance between father and son was so uncanny that Amanda frequently had to remind herself not to take out her anger and frustration over her husband’s bad behavior on her