Page 94 of Decidedly Off Limits

“I hear she likes threesomes.”

I almost dropped my phone at that as I climbed out of my car. But could you blame me? Most men at some point in their lives get turned on at the idea of being in a threesome.

That’s just reality.

And no, I’ve never been in one, in case you were wondering.

“Not as far as I know,” I replied.

“So you weren’t screwing herandmy best friend while we were in Napa?” There was an edge to her voice that set off alarms in my head. The kind of alarms that blared loudly with bright flashing lights.

She knows.

“How could you hurt my best friend like that? How could you hurt the little sister ofyourbest friend?”

“I didn’t hurt her.” Just the opposite.

It wasmyheart that resembled a basketball that had been driven over by a cement truck. Kelsey’s heart was fine.

“Right you didn’t. You ripped out her heart and didn’t give a damn about it. This is exactly why you should never have gotten involved with her. You don’t do commitments, Trent.”

“That’s not true. I’ve done commitments. It was the women I’ve ended up with who turned kicking my heart into an Olympic sport.”

Maybe I could introduce them to the gold medalist in speed fucking.

They would make quite the team.

“Why would you think I was the one doing the ripping out of hearts?” I asked. If hope was a food group, there was enough in that simple sentence to feed a hungry family for a week.

A couple walked past me and the woman laughed. Before I could tell Erin she had it all wrong, my sister asked, “Where are you?”

“At The Grand Chelsea hotel. I’m participating in a charity event tonight.”

“Charity event? What kind of charity event?” Curiosity dripped off her words more than I would’ve expected. This wasn’t the first charity event I had participated in.

I told Erin about it and she laughed. Not the reaction I was expecting. “Well, have a good time tonight,” she said. “And whatever you do, don’t screw things up more than you already have. Despite what you might think, and despite what I would like, Kelsey feels the same way about you as I suspect you feel about her.”

Before I could ask her what the hell she was talking about, she hung up.

38

Kelsey

Owenand I walked through the plushly-decorated hotel lobby to the ballroom. The large sign, propped on a bronze easel next to the open double doors, left my mouth dropping open in an unattractive way.

THE ALBRIGHT HERITAGE FOUNDATION

CHARITY EVENT AND AUCTION

Holy freaking crap!

I scanned the area. Why? Because Murphy’s Law clearly stated: anything that can go wrong for Kelsey will go wrong in triplicate.

Don’t believe me? Read the fine print.

Which meant that even though Trent wasn’t involved in the calendar and auction, there was nothing stopping him from showing up tonight to lend his monetary support.

And since he wouldn’t be part of the calendar and auction, it meant he could bring a date. A drop-dead gorgeous date.