Page 24 of Filthy Rich Temptation

Sadie from her teens would have been at the heart of it.

Grinning and yelling as much as those teens we passed.

‘You don’t need to thank me,’ I say, still rowing, still inching her away from it. ‘You’re doing me a favour by getting me out of the apartment too.’

Her smile lifts to one side. ‘I did think you were looking a little too vampire-like.’

‘Vampire-like?’ I choke out.

‘Sure, I’m surprised you don’t shimmer in the sun like Edward Cullen.’

Now I laugh. ‘Ha! Don’t you be getting me mixed up in your weird Twiglet fantasies.’

She laughs too, and it’s like sunshine. Real and true and there’s my Sadie – no, notmySadie. But the Sadie I remember.God, how I’vemissedher. The thought punches through me, painfully acute.

‘I’d forgotten how you call it that.’

I swallow the sudden tightness in my chest.

‘You sayTwilight, I say Twiglet, same shi?—’

Her brows lift above her sunnies.

‘Ship!’ I quickly correct.

I mouth an apology but to be fair, our captain is too engrossed in narrating a passing duck’s life story to care what curse I was or wasn’t about to utter. And I’m too eager to draw more of the old Sadie out… even if I am sailing too close to the wind by lumping me, her, and movie fantasies in the same breath.

Though she started it. She’d been obsessed with Edward as a teen. Edward this, Edward that. Edward Edward Edward.

Until, suddenly, she’d turned that laser focus on me…

‘Mummy, what’s Twiglet?’

A laugh bursts from my lips as Lottie comes to the rescue yet again. The girl deserves a full sweep of medals – gold for stopping the near-kiss in the car, silver for shutting down my thoughts, and bronze for being the ultimate third wheel.

‘It’sTwilight,not Twiglet.’ Sadie shoots me a mock-scowl as she says it. ‘And it’s a movie Mummy used to love.’

‘I like Twiglet better,’ Lottie says matter of factly, and I grin as Sadie huffs, her own mouth teasing up at the corners.

‘Great. And so, the corruption begins.’

‘No corruption,’ I say not bothering to dampen my grin, ‘just an education in what constitutes a good movie versus a bad.’

‘You know I’m long overdue a rewatch, and your giant flatscreen with its fancy surround sound will truly do it justice.’

‘Be my guest,’ I deadpan, ‘so long as it’s not on my watch.’

Her lips purse to the left. ‘I’m sure we could find something else to watch together, if that’s you offering up a movie night.’

Walked right into that one, didn’t you?

And the image paints itself so clearly – a bowl of popcorn, her head tucked into my shoulder, a blanket strewn across us… cozy and domesticated and very muchnotme.

Deflection is, though…

‘Captain Lottie,’ I blurt out, ‘fancy helping me row this mighty vessel around the island? Or are you more pirate princess than sea captain now?’

Lottie springs to her feet with a dramatic, ‘ARRR!’