The House in Amalfi Read Online Free PDF Page A

Alex Monroe, coming as they both had from modest suburbia and progressing only as far as an equally modest rental apartment. Lamour said Lake Shore Drive had taken her at least a year to get used to, but get used to it she had, along with many other luxuries, because she had married a man of substance. Well,
a rich man,
anyway, Jammy quickly amended that thought, because in her view Alex Monroe had no “substance” whatsoever.
    “Hi,” she called, heading into the long living room with its thirty-foot spread of floor-to-ceiling windows and the view over the lake, calm this evening with a rosy sunset pinking the gray.
    Lamour’s sleek apartment with its minimalist decor never failed to make Jammy rethink her own sprawling ranch-style home. “Why is it when I come here I always feel insecure about my own place?” she grumbled as they hugged. “Why do I immediately want to lose all the tchotchkes and change the flowered chintz to black leather?”
    A spark lit Lamour’s amber eyes as she grinned. “As long as it’s
Italian
leather.”
    “Back to Italy again, huh?” Jammy flung herself onto Lamour’s own tan leather sofa, Italian of course, groaning at its unresponsiveness to her rear end. “Does it have to be so hard?”
    “That’s what makes it look good.” Lamour knelt on the black rug in front of the oval glass coffee table centered with a bunch of perfect anemones in a perfect round glass vase. She poured martinis from a plain silver shaker into iced glasses, then added three olives to each.
    “This is getting to be a habit,” Jammy said, accepting the drink, but she sat up and took notice when Lamour suddenly said, “I’m just getting up my courage to tell you something.”
    “That you’re not coming to Italy,” Jammy finished the sentence for her. “I knew it! I just
knew
that’s what you’d say. And that’s why I have something I need to say to you.” Shoving back her bangs, she looked nervously at Lamour from under her lashes. “Well, actually I have something to tell you. Something I think you should know.”
    Lamour looked surprised. Then her face dropped, “Oh no, don’t tell me the college kid’s in trouble?”
    Jammy and Matt had married when she was only nineteen and they’d had a child by the time she was twenty. Now Jammy’s daughter had just started college. She had never lived away from home before and the sudden freedom was going to her head.
    “I almost wish it was about her.” Jammy avoided Lamour’s eyes and took a quick gulp of the martini.
    “Jeez, then this must
really
be serious.”
    “Oh, it is, Lam. And for the life of me I don’t know how to start.”
    Lamour uncurled herself from the floor and went to sit next to her best friend. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she said, patting her hand soothingly. “You can tell me
anything;
you know that.”
    “Trouble is,” Jammy said, “this is something I should have told you years ago, only I wanted to believe it wasn’t true. It’s about Alex.”
    Lamour looked puzzled. “What could there possibly be to say about Alex that I don’t already know?”
    Jammy seemed to inhale all the air in the apartment before she finally caught enough breath to say it. “Alex was unfaithful, Lamour. He was having an affair.”
    There was a stunned silence. Then Lamour snatched her hand away. “Are you
crazy? Why
are you saying this? Oh,
I
know, it’s to try and jolt me out of my grief, isn’t it? You think you can shock me out of it by telling me my dead husband was a two-timing bastard, right?”
    “Right on both counts. He
was
a two-timing bastard, and I
did
want to jolt you out of it and back into
your
life again.”
    Lamour was looking at her with such cold contempt, Jammy’s innards shriveled with foreboding.
    “How terrible of you, Jammy,” Lamour said. “How
terrible
to demean my husband’s memory; he was a good man, a wonderful husband. . . .”
    “He cheated on you, Lam. He was leaving you for another