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buy her a drink and try to be the one to take her home. Romi was the kind

of woman other women naturally hated because she was so damn beautiful.

No, it definitely wasn’t just jealousy that Kiera felt. She felt the stirrings

of quite a few other sensations in some very inconvenient spots. That alone

pissed her off. Girls like Romi were off limits. Everyone was off limits.

She’d been burned a few times and learned the hard way that dating and all

the messy feelings that went with it weren’t for her. Now, she had a fake

boyfriend who her conservative parents adored. John was everything that

they wanted for their daughter. He was everything because he was a guy

and there were precious few of those she’d brought home over the years.

Money had given her just about everything she could ever want, but it

hadn’t made it any easier to tell her parents she was a lesbian. She’d been

trying to find the courage for years, but somehow it always faltered, and

every time she’d tried to sit down and have the conversation with them, it

just never happened.

Honestly, she was scared. She was an only child. She had one aunt, two

uncles, three cousins, and that was it. To her, family was everything. She

couldn’t bear to think about losing them because they wouldn’t accept her

for who she truly was.

“Does that actually matter?” Wynn asked, bringing her back to the

present. “So what if she likes retro clothes? A dress and heels hasn’t

impacted her ability to work. She did more today, on her second day, than

some of us can do in weeks. I’m impressed. I think you should give her a

chance.”

“A chance? To destroy the business? To spend all her time flirting with

customers instead of actually helping them?”

Wynn rolled his eyes again. His left knee started to vibrate as he bounced

his foot up and down, which Kiera knew he did when he was annoyed. She

was pushing all his buttons and she knew it. She never acted like this.

Petulant. Childish. Spouting stereotypes and judgements. That wasn’t her.