1.
"Who is he?" His feet move of their own accord on his old doorstep as he desperately tries not to shove her out of the way to see the dining room table.
"It doesn't matter," she deadpans and before she can close the door he grabs her wrist and pulls her close. His mouth is against her ear because she won't look at him, and she smells as soft as she always has.
"I want to know everything about him, Juliet. If he's around David—"
"Good night," she tears her wrist away and turns from him, prominent sag to her shoulders and tears in her eyes and some kind of déjà vu tugs behind his navel.
Twenty minutes later he's at a bar and an hour after that he's back home and trashed and playing with the wedding ring that's been on his bedside table for two months. He needs a face. He needs a face, a name, a birthdate. He needs to know where they've kissed, where they've fucked, what the man has said to his son.
A pit of vicious black fire surges through his stomach, the jealousy even powerful enough to break through the alcohol. He won't be sleeping tonight.
2.
"Mrs. Stanhope, our patience has paid off. I have some good news." Juliet plasters the smile onto her face as she speaks to the woman sitting on the examination table. Her skin crawls and her throat dries out. "My tests are showing that you're pregnant."
Goodwin's wife is a closed book, always has been, but her smile is spunky and infectious and Juliet's fake expression suddenly feels authentic. This is her life, after all, and her purpose, and no matter who she's sleeping with, what kind of home she's wrecking, she loves her job.
"He told me four bullet holes'd be no match for you, Doc." She's smiling so hard, and Goodwin's arm is around her, and Juliet thinks she's going to be sick.
"I'll give you two a minute," she whispers.
3.
"Who is she?" The credit card bill clasped tightly in her tanned knuckles.
His heart jumps to his throat at the raw hurt in her eyes as the panic and premature grief settle in. "I ended it," he rasps, looking her straight in the eye. "The minute you got pregnant, I—"
"I don't care when you ended it, you son of a bitch. Do I know her?"
"No."
"It's the fucking fertility doctor, isn't it? The Barbie?"
He can't look at her anymore. She looks ready to pounce on him and kill him, and he knows she's inches from it.
"What am I supposed to do with your fucking baby, Goodwin?"
4.
He's already drunk, the guy sitting next to her.
She thinks of Goodwin and the baby and pounds down vodka shots with the most evil kind of vengeance she can imagine. One she will regret in the morning, for the rest of her life. She feels the guy watching her, glazed hazel eyes probably even sadder than hers.
"Who cheated on you, then?" she finally asks, because he won't take his goddamn eyes off of her.
He holds up his hand, points to his ring finger. "I'm divorced."
With a vaguely drunken laugh, she hits the bar again, grips the edge and sways a little. "Then who'd you cheat on?"
This time, he's the one who laughs. Moves his chair closer to hers. "Next one's on me…"
"Ana Lucia." She sticks out her hand, he takes it, and for some reason, she orders her first tequila and tonic ever.