A book in the Secret Lives of Society Wives series, 2006

Special thanks and acknowledgment is given to Jennifer Greene for her contribution to the Secret Lives of Society Wives miniseries.

Emma Dearborn felt an itch. Not a little itch. A maddening, unrelenting itch-right between her shoulder blades, where she couldn’t reach it.

Emma wasn’t prone to itches and was almost never guilty of fidgeting, which was probably why she remembered experiencing the same terrorizing itch sensation before. It had only happened twice in her life. The first time, she’d accidentally driven her dad’s restored priceless Morgan into Long Island Sound at Greenwich Point when she was sixteen. The car had been recovered; her dad nearly hadn’t. The other time, her date for the annual Christmas cotillion had turned ugly, and she’d had to walk home in her long white satin dress and heels in a snowstorm, crying the whole time.

Since those days, of course, she was no longer a novice with driving or men. More to the point, the itch this time couldn’t possibly relate to some impending traumatic event. Her life was going splendiferously.

Impatiently she took a long gulp of mint-raspberry tea. Mentally she told herself to get over the damned itch and quit squirming. For Pete’s sake, there was nothing remotely wrong. Everything around her reflected her serenely contented life.

“Emma?”

A basking-warm June sun soaked through the glass windows overlooking the pool outside. The Emerald Room was the one place in the Eastwick Country Club where members could dress casually. Today the pool was chock-full of kids fresh out of school and shrieking with joyful energy. Inside, moms in sandals and shorts elbowed with the business-lunch crowd in suits.