Page 55 of Dangerous Men

I know Jade won’t let it go until she gets what she wants, and secretly, I’ve been dying to tell her, anyway.

“Well…” I pick at my pizza, tearing off bits of crust and not meeting her eyes. “After you left, we uh… we ended up in the penthouse… and we”—I gesture vaguely—“well… you know.”

“If you can’t say ‘we had sex,’ you lose your privileges of having it, Sydney. That’s my one rule. You know that.”

Jade has a lot of “one rules”—enough to fill a book—but they’re all good rules to follow. Never book a flight the day before a holiday. Always stock up on candy the day after Halloween. Super glue can be used in lieu of surgical stitches in a pinch, but don’t you dare try that with duct tape. Those sorts of things.

“We didn’t actually have sex,” I admit to her. “Not technically, anyway. But we… fooled around.”

“That’s still sex,” Jade corrects. “But I’ll ignore that, because it’s about damn time you and Tall, Dark, and Handsome didsomethingother than mentally undressing each other in front of me.” From the grin on her face, you’d think she was the one who ended up with a millionaire between her thighs. “How’d the other one take it? The blond one, who looks like he belongs on a movie set?”

I clear my throat, eyes locked on my pizza.

“Well, actually… he was there, too.”

When I glance up, the look on Jade’s face is almost better than what Ash and Alec and I did together. Jaw hanging open, eyes comically wide, Jade stares at me in shock.

“Youdidn’t!” she gasps.

I grin. “Well, I sort of did, yeah.”

Jade squeals, clapping her hands together. “Oh, Sydney! I am just… I’m just…” I think she might cry. “I’mso proud of you!”

I duck my head, hiding my face behind my hair and grinning.

“Did you enjoy it?” she asks.

“I loved it,” I admit. I squirm a little in my seat even thinking about it. “Every second of it. They were very…attentive.”

“So does this mean the three of you are…” Jade pauses, considering how to say it. “An item? A throuple?”

“No!” I answer too quickly, before even giving it much thought. “At least… I don’t know, actually. Alec asked me out, and I said yes, so… Maybe? Is that…weird?”

“Sydney, my love, my best friend in the whole wide world, myeverything,” she says. “I have been running in queer spaces long enough to know that polyamory isn’tanything weird. It’s not even that uncommon.”

I raise an eyebrow at her. There’s no way that could be true, right?

“Honestly, it’s about time you straights caught up,” Jade tells me. “You’re always like… ten years behind everything. It’s embarrassing for you all.”

“Have you ever tried it?” I ask. “Dating multiple people, I mean?”

Jade pulls a face. “Never. Sadly, I am simply too much woman for most people to handle. Even as a group.” She stares into space, sighing dramatically. “It’s my curse, really.”

I giggle.

“Listen…” Jade turns serious. “I’m happy for you, really I am, but… are you sure about this? Not the multiple partners thing,” she adds quickly. “But with him, I mean. Mason Sterling.”

My plate is now full of shredded bits of crust. I brush crumbs from my fingers and pick up a new slice of pizza. “What do youmean?”

Jade shifts uncomfortably. “Look… I know you missed a lot when you left for college. When we were growing up, there were so many blue laws, gambling was still illegal, and?—”

I swallow my bite of pizza. “And what?” I ask. The college I attended might have only been an hour from the city, but it could have easily been one hundred, considering how cut off I was from local events. It had been a shock when I’d moved back to see how much the city had changed in just four short years. How unrecognizable it was from the place I grew up.

“And then… suddenly, those laws started disappearing. Sterling hotels started being built all over the city,” Jade tells me. “Out of nowhere. And, a few months later, the mayor is out after a huge scandal, the entire city council has been replaced, and?—”

“There’s no way you’re saying what I think you’re saying, Jade.”

“—and overnight gambling is legal again,” Jade continues, speaking over me. “And before the end of the year, there arethreeSterling casinos inside the city limits, like they’d known. And just like that, Fortune City is the gambling capital of the country.”