Page 188 of Boyfriend of the Hour

“She’s right about one thing. Joni shouldn’t have been at that sketchy event to begin with. I still don’t even know what to think about the video.” There was a sigh.

Ah, yes. That. I still couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud. My whole family knew about the recording that could not be named. The moment Marie had opened her door, at just past noon her time, I had burst into tears and told her the entire story. About Nathan. About Kyle. About Shawn. About the years of secrets I’d kept even from her.

My brother had been working with his police buddies in New York to track down the original and get it buried. I hadn’t seen it uploaded to the internet, but it was only a matter of time. If Shawn knew people were looking for it, he’d also know he had a gold mine.

“Have you had any more luck finding it?” Marie asked. “Or the guy who filmed it?”

I chuffed. Apparently, big, mighty Xavier and his billions had been looped in on the search.

“That wanker’s gone missing,” Xavier said. “Last seen in Belmont around the Antonis, like your brother said, then disappeared in Newark. He knows we’re looking for him.”

“I still can’t believe I never knew about him.”

“Ces feels the same way,” Xavier told her. “Says she should have known something was going on.”

“Frankie left for school the next year,” Marie countered. “Joni and I were still sharing a room until then.Ishould have known something was different. We were still kids.”

I cringed at the pity in her voice. Out of all our siblings, Marie was the only one who had never felt sorry for me. Growing up, we’d always been such polar opposites that, as much as I hated to admit it, I’d always enjoyed goading her jealousy. I was the one who was popular, who was pretty, who the boys liked. She never even went to her senior prom. I went to five, starting inthe eighth grade. She wasn’t even kissed until she was twenty, whereas I’d claimed that honor at nine.

But what had served as badges of honor when I was a teenager now felt like big scarlet stamps that read one thing: Joni Zola. Big fat slut.

The tiny French doors opened with a creak on the other side of the privacy screen separating Marie’s “bedroom” from the rest of the apartment. I rolled over into a pillow onto the side Marie had given me and stifled a groan.

“I know you’re awake, you bum,” she called. “I could see your shadow moving through the window, so stop eavesdropping and get up.”

I shoved myself up from the bed with a groan. “Still such a snitch.”

Xavier chuckled.

A few minutes later, I joined them in the kitchen, where Xavier was whipping us up some breakfast. I glanced at the clock on the wall. One thirty. Okay, maybe it was lunch.

“You look like you just got dragged through a swamp,” Marie said as she took a sip of tea. “Think you might shower today?”

I shot her a dirty look. “You’re such a brat, Mimi.”

“Pretty sure that’s whatyou’vealways been called. Glad to see a little spark, though.”

She seemed to wait for my normal retort, but I had nothing else. Back home, I would have gone for the low-hanging fruit. Teased her about dressing like the Amish or keeping her virginity locked up tighter than a drum.

But all that was gone now. Marie might still have been waiting for the perfect man to deflower her, but the glasses-wearing nun had disappeared during her time in Paris, replaced by a chic, dark-haired nymph that more than resembled a young Audrey Hepburn now that she’d cut her hair last month. And I,usually called the “pretty one” of the family, had morphed back into the ugly duckling in my frumpy bun and faded sweatpants.

Marie sighed. “I’m going to run to the market for the salad stuff. Can you handle her?”

Xavier shot me a quick blue-eyed look, like I was some kind of flight risk. “I think so.”

Please. Like I was going anywhere dressed like a homeless puppy.

Marie left, and I flopped at the kitchen table, surprised when Xavier immediately set a steaming cup of stovetop espresso and a biscuit in front of me. It was hard, sometimes, to remember that before he discovered he was a duke, he’d first been a chef and eventually a restaurant mogul.

Apparently, the man hadn’t forgotten his way around a kitchen.

“Drink,” he ordered. “And then we should talk.”

I obeyed while he continued to work at the stove, cooking up something that looked like an omelet.

I honestly couldn’t care less. Nothing tasted good anymore anyway.

“We don’t know each other very well, do we?” Xavier wondered as he slid the omelet onto a plate and immediately started mixing another like a well-oiled machine.