“Correction. Too long to lie to each other and think we can get away with it.”
I flick my gaze skyward.
I’m not budging on this. Whether it’s pointless, given the way Stefano couldn’t get away from my house fast enough—almost three weeks ago now—we made a promise.
Three weeks.
Morgan pulls the trigger. “Your face is giving it all away for free ninety-nine, ma’am. Try again because I’m not buying your lies.”
An exhausted sigh blusters out of me as she turns on her heel into the book aisle.
“What do you want me to say that Monica hasn’t already?” I ask. “Stefano Fortemani is fine as hell, single, and I sure would’ve let him spank me and tell me what a bad,badgirl I’ve been.”
She snickers. “All of that?”
“Yes, Iwould’ve. But it’s not going to happen. We’re two different people who want different things and it’s not going to work.”
Pursing her lips, she glances over at a shelf full of fiction romance books before she scans one with a woman draped in the arms of a blue alien.
I scan it, too, removing it from her registry.
“You don’t need this book.”
She shrugs and studies the cover again, then the one beside it, and the next.
“You’re telling me you and Stefano are so different, but these women are falling for aliens, barbarians, and wolves. The man doesn’t have freaking tentacles.”
Laughter rumbles over my shoulders.
“No, he doesn’t. But he does still have feelings for his ex-wife, who’s coming to your wedding, at Victoria’s request. There’s still ties there. Otherwise, why else would he have been with me right after he saw her pregnancy post?”
“Um because it’s shocking.”
I tilt my head. “Exactly. What a surprise, the woman who you married, loved, and wanted children with is having a baby. What better way not to think about it than banging it out with someone else?”
She snaps a you-just-told-on-yourself” finger at me, and I don’t bother denying it.
“Again,ex,as in divorced and it’s over for many reasons we couldn’t possibly know about.”
I suck my teeth.
“And anyway, from where I’m standing…” She breaks off, and I sense that “I’m” includes Dante plus the Sister Circle, and whichever groomsmen care enough to comment about us. “The chemistry between you two is off the charts. We saw the sappy glances and lip-licking. And just now, in the car, you looked about five seconds from self-satisfying. So, tell me again, why you’repretending”—she emphasizes the word—“nothing is happening between you?”
This time, I know there’s no chance she’s letting this go.
Stubbornly, I scan Kennedy Ryan’s sweeping romance,Before I Let You Go, on principle, thenMarriage Be Hardby Kevin and Melissa Fredericks as I dip out the aisle toward candles and flatware.
“I can’t talk about it.”
Naturally, she treats this like a challenge, which she gladly accepts. “Theoretically then…”
Coming to a hard stop at the aisle cap, I shoot a Prosecco-scented candle before I meet her unwavering gaze.
“Ifhe’d left the private room at Il Sapore, and went out to the alley, thenmaybeI would’ve followed him to ask why he couldn’t spend two minutes with me before he had to run out. And that Monica was right about paying attention to the details because I should be the one running.”
“Andifyou did, what would he have said?”
I shrug. “Maybehe’d have said he wasn’t frustrated with me, but at the fact that his ex-wife was pregnant with another man.”
