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out with a soft chuckle, her heart warming at her friend’s indignation on her behalf. “Look, Lizzie, I don’t want what’s happened between me and Cortland to come between you and Rodney.”
    “But I want you at my wedding,” Lizzie said. “You...goodness, Asia, you know what you did for me.”
    Yes, she knew. She’d saved Lizzie’s career and reputation, cleaning up a scandal that would have ruined her.
    “I’ll be at the wedding,” Asia said. “I won’t allow Cortland or his new girlfriend to keep me away.”
    “He has a new girlfriend already!” Lizzie screeched.
    “Well, I wouldn’t call her new exactly. According to him, they’ve been seeing each other for six months.” Which meant Asia would need to get herself tested. She had no idea what nastiness Cortland had brought to their bed. “Now, if you want to tell Rodney that she isn’t allowed in his apartment, be my guest.”
    Lizzie went on a tear about sleazy women that lasted until the cab pulled up to Asia’s East 24th Street apartment building. The phone still to her ear, she paid the fare and gave Harmon a wave as she entered the lobby.
    Once in her apartment, Asia was finally able to get Lizzie off the phone. She emptied out the wine she’d been drinking earlier and poured another glass, filling it nearly to the rim. For a second she contemplated drinking the entire bottle, but she knew better. She could get a call at any moment on her work phone. A written reprimand for showing up drunk at some crisis would not look good in her personnel file.
    As she settled on the sofa with her full wineglass, the anger that had engulfed her began to abate, evolving into a contemplative numbness.
    She was a jilted woman. Cheated on. Wronged.
    “If I wanted to do something really outrageous I could use this as a defense.”
    She shook her head, a sad laugh bubbling up from her throat. She had no desire to be the star in an episode of Snapped .
    Asia tucked her legs underneath her and stared at the spot where Cortland’s 60-inch flat-screen television was once mounted. She’d never liked that enormous television. It had been much too big for an apartment this size. She would find a nice piece of artwork to hang in its place, maybe the painting of Burgundy’s Chateau de Rully she had been eyeing in the SoHo gallery she frequented.
    She would also get another chair and new towels for the bathroom, because, yes, the asshole had taken the towels he’d bought. He’d also taken the wines he’d brought back from Tuscany, where he’d gone by himself when an embezzlement scandal had broken with one of Global Partners’ clients, preventing Asia from joining him on the trip that they had planned for months.
    A tremor of unease rippled across her skin as she tried to recall if Nina had been around the office during that time.
    Had Cortland taken her on their trip?
    Asia braced herself for another bout of anger at the thought of those two frolicking through the Tuscan countryside, but she couldn’t summon the rage the scenario warranted. What did that say about her if she couldn’t bring herself to care whether Cortland had taken another woman to Italy? How could she have been on the verge of marrying him?
    But she knew exactly how she’d allowed herself to settle for him. It was just as she’d told India. Cortland Robinson Stewart III had fit the part. He’d been the perfect guy—handsome, successful, and driven. It had been easy to convince herself that she should share her future with a guy like him.
    But she didn’t love him.
    Asia pulled in a swift, shaky breath with that admission.
    She’d been comfortable with him. She’d felt secure. But, no, what she felt for Cortland was not love. She never experienced the intense desire that seemed to radiate between Lizzie and Rodney when they were together. Asia had assured herself that she was okay with that. She didn’t need to feel those things. But, apparently, Cortland did. Perhaps that’s what