Just My Luck by Adele Parks (best interesting books to read TXT) 📕

seated everyone and was certainly designed to encourage conversation. They had a fridge especially for chilling white wine and a selection of cut-glass decanters to allow red wines to breathe. But the luxury and excess had become the problem.

Lexi had never been particularly hung up on the fact she was the least well-off of her three friends. It was just a fact. Even when Patrick made the occasional snobby comment about the temperature of her house in the winter (too cold) or the wine in the summer (too warm), she let the gibes wash over her like water off a duck’s back. Lexi didn’t blame Carla for her husband’s boorishness. She actually felt a bit sorry for her. All the money in the world didn’t compensate for a husband who could behave like a prat.

But, over the past few months, Lexi’s perspective had changed. She had started to find Patrick’s flashy ways annoying, even cruel. He had so much, and she worked with so many people who had next to nothing. She tested him, talked in general, nonspecific terms about her cases at work to gauge his reaction. He was dismissive, derisive. She hadn’t cared too much that the man was a snob, but now she realized he was so much more dreadful than that. He was heartless, callous, pitiless. Now, she found his constant talk about his wealth, his profits, his business actively repulsive.

An awkwardness had sprouted up between her and Carla as Lexi started to look at things differently. She used to be so good at compartmentalizing, but now one thing bled into another. In these past few months Lexi’s work had become increasingly all-absorbing. Certain cases had burrowed their way into her head and heart. Toma Albu, for example, had leached into her home and social life. She knew very well that she shouldn’t have been investigating his claims privately and with such vigor. She was overstepping. She couldn’t tell her boss what she was up to because she knew Ellie would rein her in. Remind her of the proper channels that ought to handle the matter. But Lexi doubted the proper channels could go far enough—they didn’t have the resources. There was only ever a certain amount that could be done. Lexi had wanted to gather hard, empirical evidence. She couldn’t let this atrocity go unpunished. And now she had it and didn’t know what to do with it. She hadn’t confided in Jake, either. He wouldn’t approve of her casting aside the bureau’s guidelines, not that he was a stickler for rules himself, but he would be worried for her safety if he knew she was running around town with Toma, a desperate, emotional and vulnerable man.

A sexy, single and handsome man. What would he say?

And because she hadn’t told Jake what she was up to, she hadn’t told Jennifer or Carla, either. Lexi was self-aware enough to understand that the fact she was keeping quiet about something that was so important to her had probably contributed to the unease between her and her friends. The unpleasantness about the buying of the lottery ticket that had occurred last week hadn’t helped matters.

Patrick had made things so unbearable for everyone.

It was complex. There was a web of crisscrossing relationships and a shared history that tied them all together. Their relationships and the children’s relationships were interwoven; the warp and weft of their lives, which had always been neat and regulated, now was entangled, knotted. She needed things to go ahead as usual. She needed everyone to carry on until she’d thought this through fully. Until she decided on her next step.

Lexi thought perhaps she could talk to Jennifer. Sometimes they did have conversations outside of their relationship with Carla. This wasn’t a secrecy thing, or a matter of leaving anyone out. Their particular intimacy had grown over this past year, largely from the fact Emily and Ridley were dating. They saw a lot of one another when they dropped off or picked up the kids. Jennifer was always so interested in Lexi’s life. She was the friend most likely to lend a sympathetic ear if Lexi wanted to grumble about the kids, Jake or work. They sometimes did have a small moan about Carla’s flashy extravagance, Patrick’s arrogance. Only occasionally. They really tried not to. And so Lexi was bitterly disappointed when on Saturday evening, at about five o’clock, she received a WhatsApp message from Jennifer saying that they were making an impromptu visit to Fred’s sister and they would have to postpone dinner that week. The message was sent via the group chat. A second later, Carla posted, too. Oh, well, let’s skip this week then. I’m exhausted and could do with putting my feet up.

Lexi couldn’t remember another occasion when any of them had canceled at such late notice without at least the courtesy of making a phone call. Jennifer didn’t even like her sister-in-law; she was always grumbling about her undisciplined children and dirty house. Why had she suddenly decided to visit? Unless there was a family emergency... It didn’t add up, and if there was a family emergency she would have mentioned it. Wouldn’t she? Lexi told herself that it was perfectly reasonable for Carla to want a night in, although normally if one of them couldn’t manage the Saturday-night meetups, the other two would discuss whether to go ahead or do something different. A creeping, prickly sensation crawled up Lexi’s spine, and she felt suspicious of the proximity of when the messages had been posted.

She shook her head, trying to clear it. She was being crazy, paranoid.

Maybe, yet she couldn’t stop herself imagining them sitting, heads together, planning how to pull out of the evening.

The bleak and humiliating thought swelled in Lexi’s head, spread through her like a disease and caused twinges in her gut. Last week, when Patrick had said the lottery was common, she had felt a sting of something like shame. Hurt. Anger? How dare he? The vile