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me.”
    “I’ll be fine,” Laine said as she leaned against the doorframe of the bedroom. “See you at six.” She still didn’t turn around.
    When she heard the click as the door closed, she set her Louis Vuitton canvas handbag at the doorway of the bedroom and headed back into the living room. She scanned the inviting tones of the cream sectional; the dark wood coffee table; and the coral accents of sofa pillows, lampshades, and floor-to-ceiling draperies. The colors were similar to the tones the architect had chosen throughout The Cove and were all woven together in a large area rug that rested beneath them as their anchor and in the abstract, hand-painted artwork that hung on the large wall separating the master bedroom and living room. She walked around the sofa and pulled open the large sliding door. The music of the surf, the smell of salt, and the rush of warm air burst through as if they had been toddlers waiting to get inside.
    She walked onto the balcony that wrapped around her suite and leaned against the iron railing. As she began to relax, her phone rang. Tension flared. When she reached the phone, Mitchell’s picture stared back. She hesitated. It just made it harder. The more he called, the harder he made it. That’s why she had fired him. She had to eliminate all contact. But he wouldn’t quit contacting her. Her ruby and diamond ring, which was now the only ring she wore, flashed from her right hand as she hit Accept.
    “Hey,” she said, turning back toward the open doors and walking out onto the veranda.
    “Desk okay?” he asked.
    “Mitchell, you shouldn’t have called them. Really. I can move my desk.”
    “But I know how you like it.”
    She sat in one of two cushioned teak chairs on the balcony, slipped her feet from her shoes, and placed them on the teak ottoman, her French pedicure greeting the sun. “I know you do, Mitchell. But I’ve got a lot of work to do this week, and really, I’ve just got to get all of this behind me. You do too. Please, I need you to leave me alone. You’ve got everything you need. I’ve taken care of you financially. Please . . .”
    “You know this has never been about money. I just need to know you’re taken care of, Laine. No one knows how to do that like I do. Sorry if this call disrupted your week.” She could hear his hurt. “I won’t call you again while you’re there.”
    “I mean not ever again , Mitchell. Not just not again this week.”
    “You really want that? You really want me to never call you again?”
    She heard the shift in his tone. But she steeled her voice. “Yes, Mitchell. I’m asking you to never call me again.”
    There was a long pause on the other end. She could picture him sitting there behind his desk, baby blue tie that matched the color of his eyes knotted loosely around his pressed, button-down white Oxford with his sleeves rolled up just below the elbows. One hand would be pushing his blondish-brown hair out of his eyes, hair highlighted by the sun from the weekends he spent out on their boat. His boat now.
    “Okay, Laine. The next call will have to be made by you. But no matter what has happened to us, despite what brought us to this divorce, please know that I do and always will love you.”
    Laine felt the tears fall down her face. She leaned her head in her hands and waited until she could respond without revealing to him the fact that she was crying. “I know. Thank you. Good-bye.” She removed the phone from her ear and hit the End button. It was finally over. Eighteen years of marriage. Twenty years of friendship. Six months of being legally divorced and it was finally over. And she was glad. At least that’s what she spent the next four hours telling herself.

3
     

    Saturday afternoon . . .
    The alarms of slot machines dispensing clanging coins into metal containers matched the echoing in Riley’s head as she walked through the fifty-thousand-square-foot casino that linked the two Royal