True Love and Other Disasters Read Free

else that Virgil had left the Chinooks to her. She suspected Virgil had done it because Landon had never made any secret of the fact that he expected to inherit the team. Once he owned the Chinooks, Faith knew she’d be banned from the skybox. Which, really, would have been no hardship for her. She had no interest in hockey. Sure, she’d gone to some of the games with her husband, but she hadn’t really paid much attention to the action down on the ice. She’d spent her time up there tuning out the contentious Duffys and looking through binoculars for hideous outfits and idiot drunks in the seats below. On a good night at the Key Arena, she might spot an idiot drunk wearing a hideous outfit.
    Unlike Faith, Landon had more interest in the games and had been counting down the days until he could get his hands on the team. Owning a professional sports team was a sign of extreme wealth. A membership in an exclusive club that Landon had wanted badly. A membership his father had now denied him.
    Landon might have been Virgil’s only son, but they’d despised each other. Landon had never attempted to conceal his disapproval of Virgil’s life or his hatred for Virgil’s fifth wife, Faith.
    She moved down the long carpeting in the upstairs hall and into the bedroom suite she’d shared with Virgil. Several men from a moving company were packing her clothes into boxes while one of Landon’s lawyers hovered in the background, making sure Faith didn’t take anything that they didn’t feel belonged to her. She ignored the movers and brushed her hand across the back of Virgil’s worn leather chair. The seat was indented from years of use and Virgil’s reading glasses sat on the table on top of the book he’d been reading the night he’d died. Dickens, because Virgil had an affinity to David Copperfield.
    That night, five days ago, she’d been lounging in the chair next to her husband and watching a rerun of Top Chef . On the television, as Padma judged the best amuse-bouche , Virgil had sucked ina sharp breath. She’d looked over at him. “Are you okay?” she’d asked.
    “I’m not feeling well.” He’d set his glasses and book aside and raised a hand to his sternum. “I think I’ll go to bed.”
    Faith put down the remote, but before she could rise to help him, he slumped forward and gasped, his age-spotted hand falling to his lap.
    The rest of the night was a blur. She remembered yelling his name and cradling his head in her lap while she talked to the 911 operator. She couldn’t recall how he came to lie on the floor, only looking down into his face as his soul slipped from his body. She remembered crying and telling him not to die. She’d pleaded with him to hang on, but he hadn’t been able to.
    It had all happened so fast. By the time the paramedics had arrived, Virgil was gone. And instead of his family being grateful that he hadn’t died alone, they hated her even more for being there at the end.
    Faith walked into the bedroom and grabbed the Louis Vuitton suitcase she’d packed with a few changes of clothes and the jewelry Virgil had bought her throughout their five years of marriage.
    “I’ll need to search that,” Landon’s lawyer said as he stepped into the room.
    Faith had a few lawyers of her own. “You’ll need a warrant,” she said as she brushed past him, and he didn’t try to stop her. Faith had been around too many truly scary men to be intimidated by one of Landon’s bullies. On her way out of the sitting room, she grabbed her black Valentino coat. She slipped Virgil’s copy of David Copperfield into her Hermès bag and headed toward the front of the house. She could have left by the back entrance, the servants’ stairs, and save herself from running into Virgil’s family, but she wasn’t about to do that. She wasn’t about to sneak away like she’d done something wrong. At the top of the stairs, she shoved her arms through the sleeves of her coat and smiled as she remembered