Présentation de l'éditeur An ill-conceived pact between four L.A. housewives to each indulge in a year-long extramarital affair leads to freedom, revenge, social climbing, sex, drugs, and murder in this hilarious and biting solo debut by a coauthor of The Right Address and Wolves in Chic Clothing.To address their general malaise, four privileged L.A. housewives each make a pact to have a year-long extramarital affair. Their husbands are declared off-limits and the friends agree to confide only in each other (the theory being that dalliances cause trouble in large part because word gets out). And so our ladies embark—two eagerly, one cautiously, and one very reluctantly—on perilous romantic paths that lead to all manner of adventure and intrigue. As the year progresses, secrets are revealed, betrayals pile up, desires are brought to light, lies are told, and each woman is forced to face up to the truth of who she is and the choices that have brought her here. When the women discover that a local gossip has been spying on their conversations and is threatening to reveal their secrets to the whole town, how far will they go to stop him? And how well do these friends really know each other anyway?With a wry eye and an insider’s view of L.A.’s wealthy and occasionally desperate housewives, The Infidelity Pact is at once poignant and hilarious, a book that is sure to be talked about on both coasts—and everywhere in between. Extrait 1The Brie was heaving, the wind was howling, and the doorbell kept ringing. It was the second Saturday in January, and Eliza and Declan Gallahue were hosting one of their small but chic cocktail parties at their small but chic house on Via de la Paz. The party was entering its second hour. Most of the guests had already arrived and had a drink in hand and a canape in mouth. The room glowed with the warmth of the twenty–five–watt bulbs that Eliza had painstakingly put in every lamp in her living room, having extracted the usual seventy–five–watt bulbs that she favored, tucking them into a drawer for the night on the advice of her favorite decorator friend who said that it was the best way to create a festive atmosphere. Besides, didn’t everyone look so much better in the dimmer glow? It seemed to do the trick. People were relaxed, the chatter had reached a comfortable din, and most guests were already on their second drink.Eliza tried to suppress the anxiety she’d been feeling since even before taking on the job of hostess. If only she could relax and have a good time, especially since the party was going well. But somehow she was still too edgy to enjoy her success. She tried to talk herself into it. The house looked good—she had asked her housekeeper to come early that morning to attend to all the miscellaneous upkeep, like shining the silver picture frames and ironing the monogrammed linen cocktail napkins that had seemed like such an irrelevant wedding gift but actually came in handy. In a last–minute pre–party frenzy, Eliza had run around pulling errant feathers out of deflating pillows, realigning the George Smith armchairs so that they were perfectly symmetrical, picking drooping leaves off potted plants and rearranging the small collection of Halcyon Days enamel boxes that she kept on a side table. Minor details, but now no one would say the house was anything other than immaculate. When she was nervous, no one cleaned up like Eliza Gallahue.Eliza also knew that she looked good: after a stressful morning she had cleared her afternoon and gotten a blowout for her shoulder–length hair at Frederic Fekkai, then splurged for a session with the makeup artist. (That was one thing Eliza could never master: makeup application. Her husband always teased her about it, and begged her to get a lesson; she was so inept with an eyeliner brush that it was almost comical. Her mother had told her at quite an early age that she was hopeless with small mechanical skills, so Eliza figured there was no po
