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“What fuss?”

“Um, hello?” Dani looks at Nicole like,Jump in here.

“I love how she always thinks who we date is a group decision,” Nicole says to me.

“We’renotdating.”

“Either way. You, dear Quinn, areobsessed.”

“I’m not!”

“Girl. I know an obsessed woman when I see one,” she says. “You know the way you eat a salted caramel chocolate bar?”

“Um… no?”

“Well, I’ve seen you do it. And it’s the exact way you look when you talk about him.”

“Ew. Really?”

“Yes, really. I’m jealous, actually.”

I know she means it. Nicole is perpetually single, perpetually looking, and has worse luck than I do with men. She’d love to fall madly in love. Until then, she’ll happily live vicariously through her friends’ relationships.

“Come on, Quinn. Give us the goods,” she says.

“Okay, okay. Fine. Here’s the goods.” I pause, considering how to put it, well aware that the mimosas are scrambling my better sense.

I’m also aware that anything I do or say might get reported to Harlan by any one of his many staff. But we’ve got the music playing loudly enough for some privacy, and Carlisle only pops out of the house now and then to check on us.

“The thing is, it started out as that weird fake date scenario. But I guess it kind of became something more?”

Nicole knows about the whole fake date thing now. I had to tell her I went to dinner with him, obviously. She’s my girl. And what if it got back to her, via her friend Megan, that Harlan introduced me to Jameson as someone I wasn’t? If Nicole and Megan got talking, Harlan’s lie about Darla might unravel, andMegan might tell Jameson, and then Jameson would confront Harlan… And I’d have screwed this up for him.

I didn’t mention Darla’s name to Dani or Nicole. But I did make Nicole swear to me up and down that she wouldn’t get involved. As in, she wouldn’t tell Megan what I told her in confidence—that the date was fake. And I trust my girls with my life. Nicole would never betray my trust.

This floatie island here? This is a zone of trust.

Anyway, Nicole’s not particularly interested in the fake part. All she wants to know is therealpart, if there is one.

“How much more?” she presses, waggling her eyebrows at me.

“I mean, we’ve seen each other a handful of times. Even though we weren’t supposed to after that one night.”

“Says who?” she asks.

“Him. He said he’d never see me again, and the next thing I know, he’s showing up at the bakery, and then he’s driving me home, and then he’s showing up at my place to abduct me, and?—”

“Abduct you?” Dani says, eyes narrowing. “Iknewit. He’s blackmailing you again, isn’t he?”

I broke down and finally told them about the blackmail thing, too. Maybe not the best idea.

I don’t know how Dani will get past it.

Not that I need her to. He’s not my boyfriend or anything. And he’s never going to be, obviously.

“It’s nothing like that. He’s actually letting me use the kitchen just to help me out. Like, one very successful business person to another not-so-successful business person.”

Dani looks skeptical.