Regrets Only Read Online Free Page A

the assistant’s masculine twang sounded familiar. She had a sudden—and
belated—memory, crystal clear, that Yvette had mentioned her new assistant’s
name was Lisa. She’d been talking to Dylan Burke. For the first time. Holy
shit.
    “Mr.
Burke, I—” she stammered, gripping the phone in panic. Across the room, Chad’s
eyes went wide in shock as he put it together, too. “Please accept my apologies.
I—”
    But
it was too late. “Yvette,” she heard Dylan call to the murmuring room behind
him. She heard a static rustle as he presumably tossed the phone to her. Yvette
made a startled, squeaking noise as she fumbled it. From farther away, she
heard country music’s golden boy say, “It’s for you.”

Chapter 3
    “My
career is over. Over. Ooooover,” Suzanne said, staring into the bottom of an
empty martini glass. “That doesn’t even sound like a real word anymore. Over.
Over…”
    “Over
and out?” came a cheerily snide suggestion from across the table.
    “Shut
up, Rebecca,” Marci said. “Can’t you see she’s upset enough?”
    It
was the first time the four of them—Suzanne, Marci, Beth, and Rebecca—had been
out together in months. Marci had been holed up with some major copyediting
project for the last several weeks. Beth had been busy with her family: she was
president of her kids’ PTA or something, and her husband Ray was starting his
own car repair shop. Rebecca traveled constantly in her new job as a flight
attendant; what’s more, she had basically been on friend probation for the last
three or four years, since she had made a not terribly subtle attempt to become
the next Mrs. Jake Stillwell in Marci’s place.
    Though
she had done nothing overtly mean-spirited, Rebecca had flocked to Jake’s side
when he and Marci had broken their engagement for a time. This would not have
been so terrible except that she had very obviously relished the opportunity to
get close to him, despite the pain it caused Marci. As a result, she had lost
her position as a bridesmaid at their wedding and Marci had scarcely spoken to
her for the first year she and Jake were married.
    As
time went on, however, she had dogged the three of them with so many
invitations and solicitations of friendship that they had let her back in the
circle out of sheer exhaustion from the effort of keeping her out.
    Now,
Suzanne glared at her with one eye through the distortion of the martini glass.
“Is it me, Rebecca,” she slurred, “or has your head gotten really tiny since the
last time I saw you?”
     “Suze,
I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Marci said.
    “I
have not haved too much,” slurred Suzanne. “You’ve haved too much.”
    “I
haven’t had anything, actually,” corrected Marci.
    “See?
So I have to drink for both of us. That’s the tradition.”
    Rebecca
snorted. “The tradition? What tradition?”
    “The
‘I humiliated myself in front of a major superstar and can never go out in
public after tonight’ tradition,” Suzanne said. She followed this with a dreamy
contemplation of the ceiling at the bar. “I wonder if I’ll be happy living in
Fiji. Or is it Fuji?”
    “I
think Fuji’s a camera, hon,” Beth said, patting her hand. “Let’s get you
hydrated, okay?” She signaled to the waiter for water.
    “Did
he actually fire you?” Rebecca asked.
    “No,
but he will, obviously,” Suzanne said. “Actually he’ll probably have Yvette
fire me—I’ve never actually met him in person. God, I’m dreading that
conversation. That woman sounds like a deranged chipmunk when she’s upset. I’d—”
    “What
I want to know,” Beth interrupted, patting Suzanne again in apology, and
turning to the group significantly, “is why isn’t Marci drinking?”
    “Don’t
be silly,” Suzanne said, “of course she is. That’s a Coke and…”
    “Coke,”
Marci finished. Even in the dim lighting of the bar, Suzanne could tell she was
blushing.
    “Spill
it, Marcella,” Beth