Chapter Two
By the time Lori and Sam landed in the Hamptons, every newscaster, rag, and wannabe paparazzo had beat them there. Cameras blinded them as the car passed through the gate of the Petrov estate.
Thankfully, the media had no idea who Lori was, so she rushed in first. But when Sam stepped out of the car, cameras renewed their frenzy. Sam had already established herself as Trina’s friend, so her presence wouldn’t be questioned.
Lori found Trina sitting on a chaise in her bedroom with an empty bottle of wine at her side.
The dark skinned, ebony haired woman looked up when Lori entered the room.
She’d been crying. A broken shell of the woman Lori had last seen just six months before.
One look in Lori’s direction and Trina’s tears flowed again.
Lori folded Trina into her arms and listened as she sobbed.
Through hiccups, Trina spoke.
“I didn’t sign”—Lori patted Trina’s back—“up for this.”
“It’s okay . . . you’re going to be okay.”
Trina buried her face in Lori’s shoulder.
Lori looked up at the sound of Sam’s footsteps. She and Sam kept eye contact for several seconds of silence.
“I should have seen this coming,” Trina managed once Sam sat on the other side of her.
“Did Fedor say anything to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Then how could you have known this would happen?” Lori asked.
“I’m his wife.”
Lori glanced to the closed bedroom door. “In name only.”
“People are going to blame me for not seeing this coming.”
Lori couldn’t argue with that. “It’s not your fault.”
“Doesn’t matter. He’d been quiet this last month. Almost never away from the hospital. I thought the changes in him were about his mom. I asked him how he was doing, but he didn’t offer more than that he was holding up. He obviously wasn’t holding up,” she cried.
Fedor was a devoted son, his mother was his world. Suffering from cancer, Alice Petrov had been on her deathbed for the last few months, and Fedor knew it would bring her peace to see him married.
Cancer was stealing her lungs, and a stroke had left her in a wheelchair. In the past week, she’d had a second stroke and no longer recognized anyone. The doctors didn’t give her long to live.
Sam’s theory behind Fedor’s suicide was that he couldn’t cope with his mother’s impending death. And since she no longer recognized him, he wasn’t hurting her by exiting this life.
“Did you find a note, a suicide letter?” Lori asked.
“No, nothing.”
“We’re going to get you through this,” Sam told her.
Trina’s tears were drying up. “Two years and I’d have the means to be able to start my own company. That’s all I wanted.” Her eyes welled again. “I didn’t think anyone was going to die.”
While there were clauses in the prenuptial contracts for the unlikely event of one of the spouses dying during their marriage, in the history of Alliance, they’d never had to revisit the clause.
A knock on the door caught their attention. “Mrs. Petrov?”
Lori recognized one of the housekeepers. “Yes?”
“Your parents are here.”
Trina blinked a few times before she spoke. “Give me a minute.”
The housekeeper nodded and closed the door behind her.
“Do they know the truth about your marriage?” Sam asked.
Trina shook her head. “No. I’ve told no one.”
Lori attempted to put Trina at ease with a smile. “It needs to stay that way.”
“I know.”
“Do you want us to stay while you talk with your parents?”
Trina closed her eyes. “No. I need to talk to them on my own.”
“We’ll go, then.”
Trina’s eyes opened wide in protest.
“To one of the spare rooms,” Sam assured her.
“Okay. Don’t leave.”
Lori stood. “We won’t. We’re here for you, Trina. We’ll get you through this.”
Sam and Lori kept quiet until they were shown the rooms they were going to occupy. Once alone, they started to plan. “She looks awful,” Lori said straight out.
“She’s a sensitive soul.”
“Does she have any friends here?”
“Not close ones,” Sam told her.
Lori looked around the dark walls of the old estate. The black clouds outside didn’t help the somber mood inside. “We’ll have to get her away from here as soon as possible.”
“I think that’s a sound plan. Someplace warm and sunny . . . and far enough away that people won’t recognize her.”
“And where is that?” Lori wasn’t sure such a place existed.
“Europe, on the sea . . . I don’t know. Let’s help her get through the funeral, give her the support she needs to dig out of this mess, and remove her from this sadness.”
Lori leaned against the dresser. “I’ve never transitioned a client after a spouse’s suicide.”
Sam blew out a slow breath. “This is going to take more than one-on-one. She’s going to need more than you and I talking her through this.”
Lori thought of the client she’d left in LA. “Let’s include Avery . . . it’s hard not to smile around that woman.”
“I like that idea. Take them both—” Sam’s phone buzzed. She reached for it.
“You know who else would be helpful?”
Sam glanced at the screen on her phone, promptly dropped it onto the bed. “Who?”
“Shannon.” One of the highest profile divorces Lori had to date. If anyone could be a sympathetic shoulder, it was the former first lady of California. The one client that Lori had failed to help readjust after her marriage was over. Not that she’d stopped trying. “Maybe this would be helpful for all of them. An intimate group in the know about their marriages.”
“I like this idea, Lori.”
They both heard Trina sobbing from across the hall when someone opened a door.
Lori’s heart sank in her chest.
An angry male voice pulled Lori from the few hours of broken sleep she’d managed.
Trina was yelling, her voice wavering.
Lori jumped from the bed, grabbed the robe, and shoved her arms into it as she fled into the hall and down the stairs.
Before she reached the bottom step, she caught sight of Ruslan Petrov, Fedor’s father, shaking his fist in Trina’s face. Lori remembered the man from his pictures, big, unmoving . . . a man you didn’t want to find yourself alone with in a dark place.
“Your fault. My son was fine before you.”
Trina stepped away.
From behind Lori, someone barreled down the stairs, nearly knocking her over. Trina’s father, a man half the size of Ruslan, shoved his frame between the two of them.
“Get away from my daughter.”
Ruslan shoved his chest forward and said something in Russian that Lori didn’t understand. From the way he spat the words, she assumed the insult would have resulted in a thrown fist.
Trina winced.
Lori found herself inching forward.
“My son is dead.” Ruslan squared his shoulders, looked past Trina’s dad, and glared.
“My daughter did not pull the trigger.”
Ruslan looked at the crowd that had gathered behind Lori on the stairs, and then directly at Trina. “I will find his reason. And that person will pay.” He shook his meaty fist toward Trina.
As threats went, that was one for the courts.
“You need to leave.” Trina’s father pointed toward the door, which was flanked by two of Petrov’s suit-wearing bodyguards, who were easily the size of small buildings.
“This is my son’s house.”
Trina lifted her chin. “A house you’ve never stepped foot in.”
Ruslan glared.
“My husband was quiet about many things, but his distaste for you was something we spoke of often.”
“My son was destroyed by the women in his life.”
Lori sensed the tension rising again and took the remaining steps to Trina’s side.
“You’ve been asked to leave, Mr. Petrov. I suggest you do before we need to call the authorities to remove you.”
His round face grew red with anger.
He spewed more angry Russian words before he turned and stormed out the door.
A sigh of relief went through the houseguests.
Sam flanked Trina as the widow’s face turned white. “I’m going to call Neil. We need security.” Neil was the head of Sam’s personal security team, and if anyone could trump Ruslan in terms of size, it was him.
Lori nodded and looked around the room as Sam walked away. Studying Trina’s file on the airplane was coming in handy. “Mrs. Mendez?”
The sixtysomething woman focused on Lori. “Do I know you?”
Lori shook her head. “No. Why don’t you help your daughter get ready for the day?” Lori glanced at the wide-eyed housekeeper. “Cindy, right?”
The woman nodded.
“We need coffee. I need to know how many rooms are available for guests.” There was a funeral to plan, and someone needed to take control of the details.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lori turned to Trina, placed a palm to her face, and offered a calm smile. “Go shower. I’ll take care of everything.”
The adrenaline of Ruslan’s outrage passed through everyone like an angry ocean hitting the shore, and now Trina stood in silence, like a zombie, unsure of what direction to go. “Okay . . . okay.”
Flanked by her parents, Trina mounted the stairs.
Less than a week later, Fedor Petrov was laid to rest with over four hundred attending guests.
Two days after that, Alice Petrov took her last breath.