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She’d prepared for this, and nothing—not her parents’ pleas, or even a good-looking neighbor—was going to distract her from her goal: take what was rightfully, contractually, hers. If she didn’t, she had everything to lose.

Chapter Two

“God, I’ve missed you,” Maggie said, drawing Jill into another tight embrace.

“I’ve been gone only three months,” Jill exhaled, the words barely able to escape her compressed lungs. “And you’ve seen me twice on video chat.”

She’d stopped by Maggie and Bennett’s house to grab the keys to the house she’d be crashing in the next few days, but she hadn’t even gotten as far as the foyer in the past five minutes.

“Still. I needed this.” Maggie squeezed tighter. Lily strolled past both women and made for the room with the fridge in it since she was accustomed to being fed straight from the thing at Aunt Maggie’s house.

Jill giggled and stepped back, assessing her best friend. She’d expected a put-together, sharply dressed woman-boss CEO prepared for a formal meeting despite the informality of their friendship. It was how they’d always done things to keep the lines between work and play as clear as possible—Steel Born demanded professionalism, and they could relax every other moment.

What she got, however, was her best friend in a tattered bathrobe and house slippers, her hair three stops past relaxed and in disheveled territory. Jill glanced at her watch. It was ten after ten in the morning.

“Are you okay, Mags?”

Maggie shooed off the question and walked away, gesturing with a wave over her shoulder that Jill follow her.

“Okaaay,” Jill muttered. “Do you want me to come back later?” she hollered.

“Nope. Now’s fine. Come in while I make us tea.”

Tea? Now Jill was worried. Her best friend might mainline espresso most waking hours of the day, but only in desperate situations did she bother with tea.

She got to the kitchen and whistled. Half-empty bags of chips were littered on the counter between candy wrappers and a glass jar filled with nothing but lime-green liquid.

“What’s going on?” she asked, taking the teapot out of Maggie’s hands and nodding to the overstuffed couch. “Talk to me.”

Maggie bit her bottom lip. If Jill didn’t know her best friend better than anyone, she’d guess Maggie was about to cry. But Maggie never shed a tear, not without a damn good reason. Something was up.

“Well, do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

Jill’s heart plummeted to her stomach. This wasn’t a well visit or friendly chat between besties. Jill was supposed to be here to receive the big news her colleague—not friend—had to share. She was supposed to be getting half the company she’d built. Bad news never factored into her thoughts.

“Um, good news first.”

Maggie sat up taller, sniffled, and put on a smile just as Jill put on the water for tea.

“We’re going to merge with MBE.”

Jill coughed on something stuck in her throat. “Sorry, we—meaning you and me? Like Steel Born? We’re going to merge with Bennett’s company?”

“We are. It seems prudent at this juncture since we’ve got some big contracts coming up. We could use the name and the weight of MBE to build our client base and their funding could launch us into the ranching stratosphere.”

Jill tapped her foot on the tile; the echo traveled down the long hallway. They’d never needed anyone else to fund them or secure them clients in the past. They were good on their own. Great, even. She was only getting half the story. The Maggie she knew would never have gone for this no matter how wonderful her husband was or how good he was at running his own business.

“And this is a done deal?”

“I guess so.”

She guessed so? Where was her best friend and who was this wishy-washy woman who’d replaced her?

Jill reached for Maggie’s hand, but she slipped it under her thigh, her gaze unwilling or unable to meet Jill’s. Fear and worry mixed in a nauseating cocktail. The whole situation reeked of something unnamed but with the potential to tear Jill’s life—the life she’d willingly chosen—to pieces.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Things have been … odd around here. I didn’t have time.”