“Don’t tell me she invited you over to say Kia wants to do something else this year, party at the zoo, or a sleepover. We were counting on the income. We’d already added it to the budget.”
“Kia wants the party.” Lucy uncorked the bottle and started to fill three wine glasses. “It will be her biggest one yet.”
“What does this have to do with Philip Ryder?” Emma demanded.
“Let me guess,” Nicole said. “Delaney knows him.”
Lucy nodded as she stabbed a straw into the first juice box.
“She’s slept with him.” Nicole reached for the third still juice-free glass and took a long drink of bubbly.
“Yes.” Lucy tossed the half-empty juice aside and raised her glass to her lips. “But she didn’t know him as Philip Ryder.”
Lucy drained her drink and then spilled the entire story—or at least what she’d pieced together. When she finished, she poured another round and looked at her friends.
“Your brother’s best friend, a freaking billionaire, created a Fated for Love account so that you would go out with him?” Nicole said. “How did he know you would find the account?”
“He knows Lucy,” Emma said with a shrug.
“I told him what I was looking for after the disaster date with Mr. Thigh Gap.” Lucy stared into her fizzing, berry-colored drink. “He listened.”
“And when you ignored his presents and continued to date losers, h
e took action,” Emma said. “He found a way to get your attention.”
“A creepy way,” Nicole muttered. “Stalking you online.”
“I think its sweet,” Emma said. “But my opinion doesn’t matter. What do you think, Lucy?”
“I think . . . ” Lucy took another long drink and then set her empty glass on the counter. “I think that I’m falling for a man who deceived me.”
The alcohol mixed with the heavy doses of sugar from the emergency buns and fresh-baked scone left her dizzy. Or maybe that light-headed spinning feeling came from the realization that the man she’d kissed in the closet, the man she’d fantasized about kissing again, was the same person who’d written those heartfelt messages.
He wrote those messages while I was standing right there!
“I’m falling for a man who chatted about my love life while sending me messages about handcuffs,” Lucy continued. “He knew the whole time.”
Nicole made a hissing sound.
“I wonder what drives a man like Jared to do something like that,” Emma murmured.
“He had to know I would learn the truth,” Lucy said. “We had a date—”
“Which he postponed,” Nicole pointed out.
“Maybe he was afraid Finn would find out so he canceled?” Emma asked.
Lucy closed her eyes and tried to picture Jared Mitchell afraid. She couldn’t imagine a man who ruled the world around him, who dared to steal her away from her date and kiss her—he wouldn’t run from a confrontation with her brother.
“Maybe Jared wanted to get my attention,” Lucy said softly.
“By lying to you.” Nicole carried her glass to the sink. “The bored billionaire bachelor thought it would be fun to lead you on—”
“Or maybe this was his grand gesture to get your attention,” Emma cut in. “What if he meant every word he wrote while pretending to be Philip? Would you forgive him?”
Yes.
But would she learn to trust him?