Book 5 - Page 118 (1/2)

Magdalene stepped into the ladies’ room and paused, a.s.sessing the situation. “Ireland. What’s wrong?”

I kept my mouth shut, since it wasn’t my story to share.

Ireland shook her head. “It’s nothing. I’m okay.”

“All right.” Magdalene looked at me. “I won’t pry, but you should know that I’d never share anything with your brothers if you told me not to.”

It took her a moment, and then Ireland spoke through her tears. “This guy I’ve been seeing for a couple months now … he’s out there with someone else. His old girlfriend.”

Personally, I suspected Rick had never broken up with that girlfriend to begin with and had been stringing Ireland along on the side, but then I was cynical about things like that.

“Oh.” Magdalene’s face softened in sympathy. “Men can be such a.s.sholes. Look, if you want to slip out without him noticing, I’ll order a car for you.” She snapped open her clutch and took out her smartphone. “On me. How’s that?”

“Hang on,” I interjected. I laid out my plan.

Magdalene’s brows rose. “Devious. Why get mad when you can get even?”

“I don’t know …” Ireland glanced at the mirror and cursed. She grabbed more tissues and worked on fixing her eye makeup. “I look like s.h.i.+t.”

“You look a million times better than that tramp out there,” I told her.

She gave a watery laugh. “I hate her, too. She’s such a b.i.t.c.h.”

“Bet she’s admired some of Cary’s Grey Isles ads,” Magdalene said. “I know I have.”

That did the trick. While Ireland wasn’t ready yet to completely write off Rick, she was certainly open to making his date envious.

The rest would come in time. Hopefully.

Then again, there were some lessons we women had to learn the hard way.

We made it back to our table just as a gentleman I a.s.sumed was Glen headed up the stairs onto the stage and crossed over to the lectern. I knelt by Cary, setting my hand on his arm.

He glanced down at me. “What’s up?”