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Eden

Sitting at the table in the House of Starrett, Eden jiggled her foot.

The chances of Marcus showing up here were small but not nil.

The restaurant was a popular hangout for the guys as much as it was for her and her friends.

Plus, Marcus, Owen, and Andres were also friends with the owner, Chef Sean.

She happened to know that both Andres and Owen were preoccupied today with some kind of business webinar they were attending, though, and she doubted Marcus would come here without them.

He also wouldn’t expect her to come here since it was somewhere he regularly hung out.

Which made it the perfect place to meet up with Rita and Bree, aka her ride-or-die besties, aka the women responsible for her current predicament.

When Rita and Bree had hooked up with Andres and Owen, that meant she and Marcus had been stuck playing fifth wheel… together. So, really, it was their fault he was back in her life, saying such tempting things and making her want things she knew better than to want.

So, now they were going to get to listen to her bitch and hopefully, offer up some sound advice and a metaphorical smack back to reality.

She and Marcus were a bad idea.

Period.

“Hey! What’s the emergency?” Rita asked, startling Eden as the pretty blonde pulled a chair out. Eden had been so lost in thought, she hadn’t noticed her friend walking in, which was not like her at all.

“Let’s wait for… oh hey, Bree.” Eden switched tactics mid-sentence because she hadn’t realized Bree had also arrived.

She took the seat next to Rita on the opposite side of the table from Eden, her dark brown eyes sparkling with mischief.

Her hair was done in a new style, in a myriad of cute little poufs atop her head.

“Hey, Eden. I thought you were busy all day having ‘you’ time,” Bree said as she scooted her chair in.

Eden sighed.

“Figure out what you want from the menu, because once I start, I want your full attention,” she said, waving her hand.

They both laughed as if she was kidding. Little did they know. Once everyone’s food and drink orders were in, both of them looked at her attentively.

“Marcus showed up at my door about,”—she checked the clock on her phone—“an hour and a half ago to tell me that he’s decided I should give him a second chance.”

As different as they were in looks, Rita and Bree now had utterly identical expressions of shock. At least she wasn’t the only one feeling that way.

“Seriously?” The incredulousness in Rita’s voice made her feel a little better. Eden hadn’t known Rita and Bree until after she and Marcus had divorced, but they had heard the whole story. They’d been her two first real friends post-marriage. “Just like that out of nowhere?”

“I’m sure he didn’t say it exactly like that,” Bree said, glancing at Rita, then giving Eden a look. Bree was usually the voice of reason, which was both necessary and annoying since both Eden and Rita liked to shoot off at the mouth.

“Close enough,” Eden grumbled. She shook her head. Even the glimpse of pink she caught at the edges of her vision, which usually made her smile, didn’t cheer her up.

“What did he actually say, Eden?”

She sighed, then got a very short reprieve when the server came by with their drinks. Stirring sugar into her iced tea, she avoided her friends’ gazes for as long as she could, but eventually, their silent glares were unavoidable.

“He might have apologized for the past—way too late, might I add—and said something about how he likes who I am now, which is such bullshit. Then he said he’s learned a lot since our divorce—way, way, way too late for that—and said he wants a second chance.

” She glared at her glass. “Then when I slammed the door in his face, he said he’s not giving up and threatened that he’d see me later. ”

“Uh huh.” Rita, who had been firmly on her side before, was now giving her one of ‘those’ looks.

The problem with having besties was they could often read through the lines of what was being said to hear what wasn’t.

“So, he apologized, maybe even groveled a little, and you’re still so mad that he didn’t change back when you were married and waited till after you left that you slammed the door in his face. ”

Leaning back against her chair, Eden scowled at her friends as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“You’re supposed to be supporting me.”

“Absolutely,” Bree said immediately. “He’s an asshole and should have his dick cut off.”

“Well, that might be going a little far,” Rita murmured, though she grinned. Out of the three of them, Bree was the most patient and forgiving, which made the statement sound way more ludicrous than if Rita had said it. Rita, being the voice of reason, was also fairly ludicrous.

She was also right. That was going a little too far. It would be a waste of a very nice dick, and it wasn’t like he’d cheated or anything.

On the other hand, she didn’t love thinking about how other women had gotten to enjoy that very nice dick attached to the man who’d fucking changed into husband material after he was no longer married.

Ugh.

Men.

“I think the real question is what Eden is going to do,” Bree said, glancing at Rita, then focusing on Eden. She rested her chin on her hand, her eyes alight. Eden could practically see her thoughts.

Bree was a hopeless romantic, and she’d gotten even worse since hooking up with her Cheesy Daddy Dom.

Owen was practically perfect, though. Both Bree and Rita had the good fortune of finding amazing Daddy Doms, who were ready to commit to a relationship and doted on them.

Their only fault, as far as she could see, was being best friends with Marcus.

She couldn’t even really be mad at them because the Marcus he’d become was a much better friend than the Marcus he’d been.

The big jerk.

“Obviously, I’m going to avoid him as much as possible until he gets the message.”

“Does that mean you’re going to be avoiding us?” Bree asked hesitantly, as if she understood why the answer might be yes and she’d support Eden even if she didn’t like it. Eden seriously had the best friends.

“No, it just means I won’t be doing any more of that arguing with him or engaging with him while we’re all together. If that’s what he likes about me now, I’ll change it up. Eventually, he’ll get the message.”

“You think you can really do that?” Rita’s question was asked with no hesitation. She wasn’t one to mince words and tended to blurt out what she was thinking, so blunt questions were her style. Eden didn’t mind since they were her style, too.

Even if sometimes she didn’t like the question itself.

“Sure,” she said with a lot more confidence than she felt. She wasn’t completely lacking in self-awareness. She knew Marcus was great at getting under her skin, but ignoring him was a challenge, and she was also good at challenges.

Besides, she was rather looking forward to him trying hard to get her attention.

That way lies danger.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eden ignored the little warning voice in her head. Sometimes it was fun to live dangerously—as long as she didn’t fall into the actual trap.

“Well, good luck,” Rita said, shaking her head.

Their food arrived just as she spoke, which gave Eden the excuse not to answer.

It took a moment or two for everything to get settled once their plates were in front of them.

When she looked up again, her friends were both on their phones, which was unusual.

Normally, they all tried to stay off their phones when they were hanging out, unless they were looking something up.

“What are you doing?”

“Texting Andres,” Rita replied, while Bree just looked guilty and shrugged. “I want to know why he didn’t tell me that Marcus was going to try to get back together with you… Huh.”

“What?” Eden did her best not to squirm with impatience in her seat.

“It seems he didn’t know.”

“Neither did Owen.” Bree held up her phone with the screen turned toward Eden to prove it. “He’s going to text Marcus now.”

There was a little part of her that was hurt Marcus hadn’t told his friends. How serious could he be about pursuing her again if he hadn’t talked to them about it? Especially since their girlfriends were her best friends? Why had he kept it quiet?

I don’t want him to be serious about pursuing me, remember?

Right.