“How dare you speak about his art that way!” Beatrice snapped, her face flushing beneath her sun hat. “You are just jealous that you lack his creative soul!”
“I am a lot of things, Beatrice, but jealous of a man living in a rented basement is not one of them,” I replied smoothly.
“A basement? What are you babbling about?” Beatrice’s voice hitched, a sudden, sharp note of genuine panic piercing her arrogant facade.
“I am talking about the fact that Julian and I have been legally separated for three weeks,” I stated, the words landing like heavy steel beams dropping onto concrete. “I caught him sleeping with his twenty-two-year-old apprentice in my bed. Because of the infidelity clause in our ironclad prenuptial agreement, Julian walked away with absolutely nothing. No alimony. No studio. No allowance.”
The silence on the other end of the line was absolute. The soft lapping of the Maldivian waves against the stilts of the villa suddenly sounded incredibly loud.
“You’re lying,” Beatrice whispered, the color draining entirely from her face. Her friends physically recoiled from her, sensing the immense, catastrophic debt suddenly looming over the daybed. “Julian would have told me!”