Capital Wives Read Free

fat.”
    Bethany diced an onion, pepper and several mushrooms.“You’re not fat, Paige. What you need to do is tone your body. You can come with me when I work out with my trainer.”
    â€œI’ll think about it,” Paige mumbled. She wasn’t about to give Bethany the satisfaction of agreeing with her. She would never have her stepmother’s tall, willowy body, but knew she would look better without the additional twenty pounds she’d put on after her mother told her she was going to marry the man who’d once been her landscaper before he’d become her lover. What had frightened Paige was that the man had made sexual innuendos to his employer’s daughter the year she turned twelve. At first she’d believed she’d imagined his intent, but the one time he walked into her bedroom while she was getting dressed confirmed her suspicions that he was a predator. There was no way she was going to live with her mother, even if she still blamed Bethany for breaking up her parents’ marriage.
    â€œAre you certain you don’t want an omelet?” Bethany asked, breaking into Paige’s musing.
    â€œIs it fattening?”
    Bethany smiled. “No. I doubt if it’s more than fifty calories. And that includes cooking it with a nonstick butter-flavored cooking spray.”
    â€œOkay. I’ll have one.”
    Not wanting to believe she’d scaled a small hurdle, Bethany cut up enough vegetables for two omelets. She squeezed oranges for juice and toasted two slices of all-grain bread. She wasn’t certain if Paige would eat the bread, but she decided to offer it to her anyway. She’d been where Paige was now—yoyo dieting that had compromised her health when she experienced horrific headaches and fainting spells. A nutritionist taught her what to eat to lose and then maintain her weight, while a personal trainer put her through an exercise regimenthat toned and reconfigured her body until she looked as if she’d been nipped and tucked—even after two children.
    Bethany was aware that she was a trophy wife, and she planned to look the part for as long as she could. The wives of Damon’s associates had not accepted her, but she wasn’t going to give the jealous women the satisfaction of knowing how much their rejection had affected her. The few times she’d found herself in their presence she’d made certain to look her best. The saying was that revenge was best served cold, but for Bethany it was looking hot. So hot that their husbands couldn’t stop staring at her. And if she had been the bitch everyone thought she was, then she would have slept with each of the men, then reported back to their wives on their performances—or lack thereof.
    Bethany and Paige ate without talking, only the sound of music coming from a stereo unit on the counter breaking the uncomfortable silence. There was so much she wanted to talk about with Paige, but she decided to enjoy their unexpected and no doubt temporary truce. She was only twenty years older than the girl and had wanted to relate to her not as a mother but as an older sister.
    Bethany had never been on good terms with her two sisters because they’d always resented her ambition to escape the predictable existence if she’d remained in the tiny town where everyone knew one another. Alice and Mary-Beth stayed, married local boys and continued the cycle of working for the mill or in the newly constructed Walmart. Her younger brother did get out when he joined the Marines as a reservist, but after two tours in Iraq had moved to Alaska where he’d married and fathered three children in five years. It had been more than four years since Bethany had gotten a letter from him. Her letters to him had been returned with a stamp indicating addressee unknown.
    Her parents had stopped talking to her when she told them she couldn’t send them any more money, so that left just her and