Meryl Sawyer - Kiss of death

“Don’t worry. I won’t,” Whitney said to appease her.

Whitney watched Trish speed away. She couldn’t help being shocked at the change in the woman since yesterday. Evidently, Trish had suffered through a very rough divorce. She understood how unreasonable ex-husbands could be.

Get a restraining order?

She reluctantly admitted to herself that Trish had struck a nervous chord. Today Whitney had seen a side of Ryan that he hadn’t revealed in nine years of marriage. Ryan had been cold and verbally abusive at times, but he’d never been rough with her.

Was he cracking up?

Surely not. Ryan was just stressed out, she assured herself as she hooked Brandy to his leash and opened the door for Lexi. Her ex’s switch to cosmetic surgery had meant leaving his old partners and finding a new practice. Cosmetic surgeons needed to maintain a certain image. Sophisticated offices and the latest in equipment attracted the kind of clientele who gladly parted with stratospheric sums of money in order to appear more youthful. That consumed cash at a rapid rate.

Most people believed doctors made boodles of money, but that was no longer as true as it once had been. Malpractice insurance and the cost of equipment had eroded doctors’ earning power. Ryan had compounded his problems by making several bad investments, like the property with the toxic chemicals in the soil.

Well, he’d gotten what he deserved, she assured herself. During the last year of their marriage, Ryan had behaved unforgivably. Always moody and temperamental, he’d become more so. She’d asked him dozens and dozens of times if she could do anything to help. He’d denied anything was wrong, claiming it was just the pressure of his first year in practice. His long hours became longer and more erratic, his fuse shorter. Still, Whitney hadn’t suspected anything until she’d discovered the receipt from LaValencia, an expensive hotel in La Jolla.

He could have leveled with her and said he’d fallen for another woman, but he hadn’t. Even when she confronted him, Ryan continued to deny it until she’d told him that she’d called the hotel and found out he’d registered with his “wife.” When she’d had him dead to rights, Ryan had walked out the door “to find himself.”

She was halfway down the street, with Brandy and Lexi on their leashes and Da Vinci snuggled into his custom-built sling harnessed to her chest, when her cell phone rang. She switched the leashes to one hand and grabbed the phone clipped to her waist.

“I hope you’ve had time to come to your senses.”

She was tempted to hang up on Ryan, but that wouldn’t deliver the message she really wanted to send. She’d had all she was ever going to take from this man.

“Well, Ryan,” she replied in the sweetest tone she could manage. “You were unforgivably physical with me and I have a witness. I’m filing a police report and if you come near me again, I’ll get a restraining order. You may recall that I have a friend who works for the Tribune. I’ll make sure this appears in the paper. Should do worlds of good for your business, don’t you think?”

There was nothing but dead air on the other end of the phone. No doubt Ryan was in shock. She’d never talked back to him like this when they’d been married. He’d presumed she was going to do just what he wanted.

“You wouldn’t.” He didn’t sound as sure of himself as he usually did.

“I mean every word,” she bluffed. “Just mail me what you want signed. As soon as Rick and Miranda return, I’ll have him look over the documents. If he approves, I will, and I’ll get them back to you immediately.”

He grunted something that might have been “okay” and hung up. Whitney knew he was pissed. She told herself she was being prudent to wait until a lawyer could look over the papers, but a small part of her conceded she wanted to make things difficult for Ryan. What he’d done still hurt more than she cared to admit and she deserved a bit of revenge.

She’d first bumped into Ryan Fordham while rushing to a class at UCLA. He appeared to be another surfer being forced by his parents to study, but the opposite proved to be true. Ryan was brilliant-a fact not lost on the man-and he was attending college on an academic scholarship, studying premed.

He didn’t have time or money to date but he carved out a place for Whitney. Before she knew it, she’d moved in with him. When she’d been accepted to UC Davis to study veterinary medicine, she’d been faced with a choice. It was much harder to get into vet school than medical school. Still, she’d allowed Ryan to persuade her to put her plans on hold until he received his medical degree.

They’d married just after graduation. Ryan’s mother and Miranda, Whitney’s only living relative, accompanied them to the Santa Monica courthouse, where they were wed. For reasons Whitney still didn’t understand, Ryan hadn’t liked Miranda.

True, her cousin could be a bit of a wild child at times, but who could blame her? Miranda had been orphaned at fifteen when her parents died in a car crash. She’d appeared at their door with a social worker the day before the funeral. While the older woman met with Whitney’s mother, a single parent, Whitney had consoled Miranda.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” her cousin had whispered, tears in her eyes.

Now it was Whitney who had nowhere to go-thanks to Ryan Fordham. She honestly didn’t know what she would have done without Miranda. Her cousin had taken her in without asking any questions.

Ryan could rot in hell until she had someone look over the papers. It wasn’t much, but she had to admit it gave her satisfaction to see him squirm.

A SHLEY F ORDHAM HEARD THEopening bars of “Proud Mary” and knew she had a call on her cell phone. Whenever she heard the song, she fondly remembered her father. She could see him smiling, his slight overbite making him appear happier than he really was.

“Just a minute,” she told Preston Block, her personal trainer. “I’m expecting a call from Ryan.” She yanked her phone off the waistband of her yoga pants.

“It’s me, babe.” Ryan sounded discouraged.

“Did Whitney sign?”

A long beat of silence. “No. She wants to show the papers to an attorney.”

“Why? She signed them after arbitration.”

“Whitney’s just being difficult to get back at me,” Ryan said wearily.

Ashley caught Preston’s eye and smiled even though she wanted to scream. Why couldn’t Ryan have convinced the bitch to sign? How hard could it be?

Ashley tried for a teary voice. “We’ll lose the house.”

She had her heart set on a spectacular home with a dock for a yacht in Coronado Keys, just south of Ryan’s offices in downtown San Diego. In order to buy it, they needed to sell the monstrosity of a house Ryan and Whitney had owned.

“It’s not just the house,” Ryan replied, his voice charged with anger. “It’s…everything.”

Ashley used an encouraging tone. “You’ll think of something. You always do.”

He told her he loved her and they hung up. She loved him, too, and had from the first day she’d met him. She knew Ryan was under a lot of pressure right now. The expense of buying in to a new practice. Skyrocketing malpractice insurance. The house she wanted. She would do anything to help him.

Preston was still watching her, and she hoped her frustration and anger didn’t show on her face. No sense in getting frown lines over this. Too much was at stake. If Ryan couldn’t handle his ex, she would. Ryan didn’t have to know a thing. Like many men she’d encountered since childhood, Ryan needed to believe he was in charge.

“A problem?” Preston asked.