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“I’ll make Vera rough you up,” he warns.

Vera rounds on him. “I’m not your muscle.”

“She listens to you!” he huffs, throwing up his arms.

“Guys,” I sigh, sinking down to the edge of my desk, resting my hands on the edge. “Shut up.”

“Comeon,” Nate practically whines, like he isn’t a thirty-five-year-old man. “You know how I get when nobody will let me in on the gossip. Do you want that for us? Do you want to subject all of us to that?”

“Because it would be my fault,” I muse.

Nate throws up his hands. “Well, obviously.”

“He’s not wrong,” Vera chimes in.

I tilt my head back, puffing out a long breath between my lips. “You two are the worst gossips I have ever met.”

“Don’t lump me in with him,” Vera tuts.

“Oh shut up,” Nate says with a cluck of his tongue. “You’ve been champing at the bit just as much as I have.”

“Fine,” I sigh. “I went home with him.”

“Obviously,” Nate snorts. “Did you…?”

“I think that much is also obvious,” I respond dryly.

“You’re being infuriatingly vague,” he quips.

I roll my eyes. “How dare I be vague with my own business.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you tease,” Vera scoffs. “Are you guys a thing or not?”

My eyes go round at her cross tone, and I realize she is definitely just as invested in this as Nate is. They really are more alike than they give themselves credit for.

“We’re not…nota thing,” I offer. “Maybe.” I tilt forward, slipping off my desk just to start pacing. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck we are.”

“Oh God,” Nate groans. “She’s going to marry him. We’re all going to end up working for Ezra Hart. They’ll call her the Heartbreak Princess. Or will it be queen? What happens when you marry a prince?”

“Shut up, Nate,” Vera and I both say in unison.

Vera tilts her head at me. “Seriously, are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay,” I say too quickly.

Vera’s look is imperious, and I cave.

“Okay,” I try again. “I’m freaking out a little.”

Vera nods. “There it is.”

“I just…” I stop pacing, running my fingers through my hair. “I hated him, you know? Or at least, I thought I did. I mean, the sex was always good, but spending time with him was never at the top of my to-do list.”

Nate leans in like I’m telling his favorite bedtime story. “But…?”

“But, I…I don’t know. He’s…I just…” I shake my head. “I’ve realized I haven’t been fair to him.”

“A duchess,” Vera says.