The Third Wife

The first in the LiBREttO series of short stories by Crystin Morgan

Every Friday afternoon four friends – Leah, Belle, Geeta and Effie – meet at the local hangout for women with impeccable nails, waiting-list handbags and banker husbands: Café Jamilla.

They gossip, they giggle, they bitch, they lust after rainbow-coloured patisseries. And they drink coffee. But when Effie breaks the news that her boyfriend Rhys has asked her to marry him, the sight of her sparkling emerald engagement ring reminds Belle of an extraordinary tale she heard one booze-fuelled night some years ago. A tale of a third wife. A tale of an affair, a guilty conscience, a disappearance, a suspected murder and a desperate plan that couldn't possibly work. Could it? A tale that's ripe for a Hollywood treatment, the four women agree.

With George Clooney playing the male lead, naturally.