Read The Wives of Beverly Row 1: Lust Has a New Address for Free Online

weeknight but the place was busy. There were more than enough men for each of them to have her pick if she wanted. The décor was opulent and seemed to have been selected with the palace of Versailles in mind. Huge crystal chandeliers hung over the mahogany bar.
    The hostess brought them to a table and told them their waitress would be right with them.
    “Nice place,” Ariel said. “Do you three come here a lot.”
    “Not a lot,” Veronica said. “Just every once in a while when we feel we have some business to attend to.”
    “And is there business to attend to tonight?”
    “Oh no,” Veronica said, “We just wanted to get to know you a little better. Since you’re new to the neighborhood.”
    Trudy looked up. “I wanted to say I thought what you did the other day at Zola’s was very brave.”
    Ariel didn’t know what to say. She was a little embarrassed. “It was really nothing,” she said.
    “We all know what it was,” Trudy said, “and it was not nothing.”
    Ariel looked awkwardly at Zola.
    “But we also wanted to have a good time, right girls?” Zola said.
    With that, their waitress arrived. Veronica ordered a round of fancy, expensive cocktails that Ariel had never heard of.
    “So what brought you to Beverly Row?” Veronica said.
    “We’re all very curious,” Trudy said. “What’s your life story?”
    “Well, there’s not that much to tell, really,” Ariel said. “I got married to Gabe when I was eighteen. He was twenty-three. I was pregnant.”
    “With Becky?”
    “Yes, that was Becky.”
    “She looks like a dear.”
    “Oh, she is. I couldn’t ask for more from a daughter.”
    “And where’s Gabe now?”
    “He lives in Santa Monica. He has an art gallery there.”
    “Any place we’d have heard of?” Veronica said.
    “Monochrome?”
    “Oh, I know that place. That’s impressive. So your husband is a rich art dealer. How sexy?”
    “Ex-husband,” Ariel said, “and I suppose he is. But the funny thing is that he hid the money from me for our entire marriage. We lived in a little bungalow in Pomona and I never even imagined I’d be able to live somewhere like Beverly Row.”
    “Wow, hiding money like that is quite a feat,” Veronica said. “I’d kill Hank if he tried to hide so much as a dime from me.”
    “I know Jake hides money from me,” Zola says.
    “Well,” Ariel said, looking at all three women, “it’s surprising how easy it was for Gabe. I had no idea. If the IRS hadn’t audited him the year we split up, I’d never have suspected a thing. Turned out he’d been stashing money in secret accounts for years. He used to go on these buying trips overseas and I always felt bad sending him off the way I did, with just the bare minimum budget to do the business he needed to do. Then I found out he’d been living the highlife all along. He was having the time of his life in places like Cannes, Vienna, the Bahamas, Paris. At one point he even had an apartment in Manhattan that cost eight grand a month.”
    “And you knew nothing about it?”
    “Not a thing. And I hardly had two bits to rub together making ends meet in Pomona. I mean, we had enough to live, but we never had any extra money. I had to buy cheap groceries. I couldn’t always buy Becky the clothes she wanted. I lay awake at night and worried about bills. Gabe always said that was the price we paid for being in the art market and I just believed everything he told me. For sixteen years I lived like that. I was so shocked when the government sent me Gabe’s tax bill that I almost fainted. That was when I started to put all the pieces together. And then I got mad. Very mad. The first thing I did when I got my settlement check was buy the house on Beverly Row.”
    “It’s a beautiful house,” Trudy said. “I thought of buying it, myself.”
    “Trudy!” Veronica said. “You live two doors down.”
    “I like the pool better.”
    “You both have beautiful pools,” Zola said.
    Veronica cleared