Page 52 of Don't Call Me Sweetheart (Something Borrowed 1)

Marley opened her mouth with a sigh and took a bite. The tart flavor of lemon and the sinful taste of dark chocolate filled her mouth. She licked her lips, and didn’t want to admit that the treat did make her feel a bit better.

“Good?”

Marley took the rest of the bar from her and opened her mouth for another bite. As she chewed, her eyes rolled back into her head and she swallowed slowly, savoring it. “You’re evil.”

Rylie clapped her hands. “Yay, I’ve always wanted to be evil.”

“Mission accomplished. You should just bring whatever is left in the container back to my office.”

“Yowza, that bad huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be right back with the bars then.”

Marley watched her leave the room and debated on whether to tell Rylie what she saw. She didn’t want to do anything to void her contract, but her conscience was sickened with Sonora. How could she do that to Brent? A man who despite her many flaws, wanted to marry her. She’d figured Sonora was marrying him for his money considering her financial straits, but it wasn’t as though Brent was a toad! And even if he was horrible to her, she could leave him. There was no excuse for cheating.

When Rylie came back in, Marley said, “Can you close the door please? I need to ask you a hypothetical.”

“Sure.” Rylie shut the door and set the glass Pyrex dish with the rest of the bars on Marley’s desk and sat down. “What’s up?”

Marley leaned against the edge of her desk and lowered her voice. “If you saw one of your brides or grooms cheating, would you tell Kelly? Or the person’s significant other?”

“Who—”

“This is hypothetical.”

Rylie’s gaze narrowed, but she didn’t ask any more questions. “Oh. Well, I guess I’d ask Kelly first and see what she said. I know some clients have a confidentiality agreement, so even if you see them doing something illegal, you can’t talk about it, unless they break the contract first.”

At least if Marley told Kelly, it wouldn’t be on her. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Thanks, Rylie.”

“Anytime.” She stood up, and grabbed one more bar from the pan. “The rest are yours. I don’t need them around. Asher keeps telling me that I could lose weight if I wasn’t constantly eating.”

Marley scowled. “Funny, how he never complains when you make dinner for him. And he’s not perfect by any means!”

Rylie appeared so defeated that Marley wanted to personally hunt Asher down and skewer him with a spork.

“He’s right though. I have to sample everything, and especially baking all the sweets…I could cut back or star

t substituting for sugar.”

Marley walked around the desk, and bent over to hug her friend. “Rylie, if you want to lose weight, then that is fine and I will support you, but do not change because some jackass thinks his shit don’t stink. You are gorgeous.”

“Whatever, I’m—”

“Gorgeous, and if you say anything else to the contrary, I will hurt you. I will dump all of these beautiful lemon bars out on my desk and beat you with the glass pan and eat them over your bloody body.”

“Okay, okay. Geez, I’m going to get out of here. You’re cray cray!” But when Rylie left Marley’s office, she was smiling, which was Marley’s goal. Then when Marley heard Dustin say hi to Rylie out in the hallway, she went to the door to keep an eye on the dirty rat.

So far, most of the women in the office had fallen under his spell, including Rylie. If she only knew what Marley knew, she’d be just as disgusted with the jerk.

“Hey, Rylie, got something sweet for me?”

Marley wanted to gag.

Rylie took a bite of her bar and held it out to him. “Here. It’s the last one.”

He leaned close and whatever he whispered, Rylie’s cheeks turned bright red.