"I did."
"You walked into my penthouse," Roxanne said slowly, as if each word needed permission to survive, "at whatever illegal hour this is, and the first word you chose was bitch?"
"Technically, the first word was hey." Melissa's tone remained perfectly composed. "The second was bitch. I believe in precision, Roxanne. Especially when using profanity."
Roxanne stared at her and Melissa stared back.
The moon, being useless in all matters of conflict resolution, illuminated both of them equally.
Then Melissa's mouth twitched.
It was not quite a smile but the ghost that came before a smile, the first treasonous movement that had carried resentment too long and had begun, against its own pride, to consider laying some of it down.
Anyone else might have missed it. Roxanne did not; she had survived a decade of reading Melissa's face across luncheons, committee meetings, galas, and every other decorative battlefield Paradise's wealthy women used to pretend they were not at war.
