“Because he might think that’s what you think of his penis?” I shake my head. “That’s crazy.”

  “But you didn’t get a picture, right?”

  “Nope. You destroyed it before I could.”

  Natalie lets out a sigh of relief. “Good.”

  “Even if I did, though, I’d never show it to Joel.” I fold my arms beneath my head and stare at the ceiling. “Remember what I said at the start of the party. Everything that happens tonight remains a secret between us women. And we women know how to keep secrets, don’t we?”

  “I know you’re good at keeping secrets,” Natalie tells me. “I mean, Joel still doesn’t know that you’re seeing someone even though I was afraid that he would find out earlier.”

  I give her a puzzled look. “Earlier?”

  “I was looking for you downstairs just before the program started,” she explains. “Joel went to look for you. I was afraid he’d find you kissing a guy in some corner or walk in while you…”

  She stops.

  “While I was having sex with someone?” I finish her sentence.

  She nods. “I’m glad he didn’t.”

  Me too. I’m glad he didn’t walk in while I was kissing Ryker.

  I glance at her. “You’re good at keeping secrets, too. You haven’t told Joel that I’m sleeping with someone.”

  “I’m not.” Natalie sighs. “I told Ryker.”

  “What?”

  “When Joel was looking for you, I slipped and told Ryker.”

  I see. So that’s how Ryker knew I told Natalie I was sleeping with someone, which is the same thing he told Joel. It’s almost funny.

  Natalie grabs my hand. “I’m sorry, Claire.”

  I shake my head. “It’s okay. It’s just Ryker.”

  “But he might tell Joel.” I hear the worry in Natalie’s voice.

  She slaps her forehead.

  “Damn it. I should have asked him not to tell Joel.”

  My eyebrows arch. I haven’t heard Natalie curse before. Is it because she’s drunk? I know I am. A little. If someone asked me to walk a straight line right now, I don’t think I’d be able to.

  Natalie gets up. “Maybe I should call Ryker right now. You have his number, don’t you?”

  I shake my head again. “You don’t have to.”

  “It’s too late, isn’t it?” Her forehead furrows as she touches her chin. “It’s too late. He could have already told Joel while they were having their party.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “But if he did, you’d be in trouble.” Natalie grips her hair as she starts pacing the floor. “Oh my god. I can’t believe I got you in trouble.”

  Okay. She’s drunk. She’s talking and worrying way too much.

  “Natalie…”

  She looks at me. “But don’t worry. I promise I have your back. I promise I won’t let him—”

  “Natalie!”

  I sit up and raise my voice because I can’t take her whining anymore. Then I reach for her hand.

  “Natalie, it’s okay. Ryker didn’t tell Joel. He won’t.”

  She gives me a puzzled look. “But how can you be so sure?”

  I scratch the back of my head. I guess the only way for me to put her mind at ease is to tell her about Ryker and me. But can I trust her not to tell Joel? She just admitted she’s not good at keeping secrets.

  Still, at least she didn’t spill the beans to Joel even though I’m sure she had plenty of opportunities. Besides, given all the remorse she’s feeling now, she’s bound to be more careful in the future, right?

  Everyone deserves a second chance. Also, I need someone to confide in or I might end up being the one telling Joel. Sometimes, I just get the urge to do it anyway. Why do I have to keep my relationship with Ryker a secret when we’re not doing anything wrong? I’m not a minor. I’m not Ryker’s sister. He’s not married. I’m not married. He’s not a priest. He’s not royalty. Neither of us have any weird diseases. So why are we hiding?

  The only reason I keep quiet is because I told Ryker I would. I told him I’d give him a chance to tell Joel about us and I told him I’d wait until after the wedding.

  But I didn’t say anything about not telling anyone else. And I’ve been wanting to tell Natalie my secret for a long time. I can’t contain it any longer.

  I look into her eyes. “Do you promise me, Natalie, that you won’t tell anyone what I’m going to tell you?”

  Her eyes grow wide. “You’re going to tell me another secret?”

  “Do you swear on your honor as… the bride who asked me to be her maid of honor? As my future sister-in-law?”

  Natalie doesn’t answer. She just sits on the edge of her bed and looks at her lap.

  I sit beside her. “Natalie, can I trust you to keep another secret?”

  I can decide to trust her, but that won’t mean anything if she can’t trust herself.

  Finally, she looks at me. She nods and takes my hand.

  “You can. I promise I won’t tell. I won’t fail you again.”

  I smile. “I know you won’t.”

  Then I draw a deep breath. Here we go.

  “It’s Ryker.”

  Natalie says nothing. I realize she’s waiting for me to say more.

  “The man I’m seeing, the man I’m sleeping with, is Ryker,” I tell her.

  Natalie’s eyes grow wide. For another moment, she says nothing. Then she smiles as she squeezes my hand.

  “I knew it.”

  My eyebrows furrow. “You knew?”

  When? How?

  “I knew it from the moment you two started fighting when Joel picked him to be his best man,” Natalie tells me with a grin. “And tonight, when the two of you were standing on stage, I couldn’t help but think the two of you made a perfect couple.”

  My eyebrows arch. She noticed? Does that mean Joel noticed, too?

  She nudges my arm. “So you’re the lucky woman Ryker’s seeing who’s good in bed, huh?”

  I look at her. “Does Joel know?”

  “No.” Natalie shakes her head. “You know how dense Joel can be.”

  Thank goodness.

  “And I understand why you don’t want to tell him.”

  “I do, actually, but Ryker is afraid he’ll get upset.”

  “Yeah. He might.”

  “And Ryker doesn’t want him to get upset before the wedding. He thinks the two of you deserve to have the perfect wedding, which I do, too.”

  Natalie nods. “That’s very kind of him. And you. But it must be hard having to keep a man like that secret.”

  I grin. “You have no idea.”

  Natalie falls silent. I turn my head and see wonder, joy in her eyes. At the same time, though, she looks like she’s about to cry.

  “What?”

  “You love him.” She says as she gives my hand another squeeze. “You do.”

  I let out a sigh before resting my head on her shoulder.

  “I think I’ve loved him all my life and I didn’t realize it until seven years ago.”

  Natalie rests her head against mine and rubs my shoulder.

  “Aw. That must make things even harder.”

  “It does,” I agree. “But at least I have him now.”

  She lifts her head. “If you want to tell Joel, I’ll help you. I’ll stand by your side and hold your hand.”

  I shake mine. “I told Ryker I’d let him be the one to tell.”

  She sighs. “I guess it has to be him since he’s Joel’s best friend. It must be tough for him, too.”

  “It is.”

  “But hey, I’m here. I’m not going to let Joel do anything stupid like hurting his best friend or never talking to him again. And I’m definitely not going to let him disregard your feelings and your happiness.”

  I lift my head to look at her. “Thanks, Nat.”

  She tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “No problem. Anything for my amazing maid of honor.”

  I wrap my arms around her. She’s the one who’s amazing.

  “It’s my honor to call you my sister,” I tell her.

  “Aw.” She kisses my hair and strokes it. “Don’t worry. Everything will be alright.”

  I nod. I hope so. I sure hope so.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ryker

  I sure hope this works, I think as I go over the document on my screen.

  It contains the plans I’ve drawn up for the Hawthorne Foundation, and it wasn’t easy to put it together while still doing my actual job plus planning a wedding shower. That’s why it’s taken so long. But now, I think I have enough information. I have the structure. I’ve laid out a budget. I have a list of potential beneficiaries. I studied the legal stuff. I even have an idea for a logo. I guess Claire’s creativity is contagious.

  All that’s left to do is to tell Ethan, which I’m planning to do this week, and then present it to the Board. Then hopefully, sometime after Joel’s wedding, I can leave this office and start living my life with Claire.

  Claire. I smile as I remember her in that green dress and in one of my sweaters, which is all she was wearing when I left her in my bed this morning. She was snoring softly, her golden hair spread out on the pillow.

  She’s the inspiration for this project. For everything that’s going on in my life right now, actually.

  I hear a knock on the door. I think it’s Miller so I yell, “Come in!”

  It’s not. It’s Asher again.

  I close the lid of my laptop. I don’t want him to find out what I’m up to, even though he helped me come up with the idea. Not until Ethan knows.

  “Shouldn’t you be in your office?” I ask him as I tap my fingers on my desk.

  He looks at me with narrowed eyes. “Were you watching porn?”

  “No.”

  Of course that’s the first thing he thought of when he saw me closing my laptop.

  “Why would I have to do that?”

  “I see.” Asher grins. “So things are going that well with Claire?”

  I shake my head. “I’m not giving you any details.”

  He frowns. “Even though I helped you get back together with her?”

  I guess that’s partly true. Even so…

  “No.”

  He sighs as he sits in front of my desk. I give him a questioning look.

  “Did you come here just to ask me about Claire?”

  “I came here to check on my little brother,” he answers.

  “I’m fine.”

  “How was the wedding shower?” he asks.

  “Good. Everything went well.”

  “And the bachelor party? Any strippers?”

  I knew he was going to ask that.

  “No. And you should stop thinking about other women. Violet will kill you.”

  “No, she won’t. She can’t live without me. Besides, she knows she’s all I think about.”

  I know it, too. Asher may still act like a playboy sometimes, but I know he’ll never cheat on Violet. He’s in love with her.

  “I was just curious if you had fun last Friday night,” he says.

  “It was fun,” I tell him. “We drank. We threw darts and played pool.”

  “Oh. Like when you were in college?”

  “And then we hit an arcade that I paid to stay open late just for us so we could play video games for old times’ sake.”

  “Kids,” Asher mutters.

  “It was fun,” I tell him again. That’s what matters, and even more so because I beat Joel at one of his favorite games—a fact he refuses to acknowledge until now.

  “Good,” Asher says.

  He falls silent for a moment as if waiting for me to say something. I don’t, so he speaks again.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me how I spent last Friday night?”

  I put my hands up. “I’m happy for you, Asher, but if you’re going to start telling me about how you and Violet—”

  “I spent two hours listening to Ethan whine.”

  I look at him with furrowed eyebrows. Oh, right. He was drinking with Ethan. I was supposed to be with them, too, but I had Joel’s wedding shower and the bachelor party.

  “Ethan? Whine?” I shake my head in disbelief. “Since when does Ethan whine?”

  “Since Stella got very pregnant and very emotional,” Asher answers. “Apparently she’s past the stage where she wants to have sex all the time. Now she just cries all the time because she misses her parents. And if Ethan tries to comfort her, she picks a fight with him and throws stuff at him.”

  “Poor Ethan.”

  “So yeah, Ethan is pretty lost. And pissed.”

  Which means he’s probably going to lock himself up in his office and bury himself in work again, which in turn means I won’t be able to talk to him and present my plans for the Hawthorne Foundation. Even if I go to his office, he won’t be in the mood to listen. And I need him to be in the mood to listen.

  Damn.

  “And you owe me one.” Asher points a finger at me. “Because you weren’t there, I had to listen to all his crap alone.”

  “You could have just told him to shut up.”

  “No one tells Ethan to shut up. Except Stella, maybe.”

  “Then talk to Stella. You’re friends, right?”

  Asher shakes his head. “I would, but I don’t want her throwing stuff at me.” He touches his chin. “Maybe I’ll ask Violet to do it. But you still owe me one. You better be there on Friday.”

  “I will be,” I promise him.

  I’d rather spend the night with Claire, but I’m not going to let my brothers down.

  “Okay.” Asher stands up. “Now, do you have that report I asked for last week?”

  Is that the real reason he’s here?

  “You could have asked Dylan to come get it.”

  “Like I said, I wanted to check on my little brother. So do you have it?”

  I pull the folder out from under the pile of papers on my desk. As I do, a sheet of paper falls to the floor. An alarm sounds in my head as I realize it’s the document outlining the philanthropic efforts of another company, the one I researched for the Foundation.

  Asher picks it up and looks puzzled.

  “Are we trying to acquire this company?” he asks. “I thought it was one of our major competitors.”

  I grab the sheet of paper from him and hand him my report. “It is. I was just doing some research.”

  Still, Asher gives me a puzzled look.

  “About the companies they’ve acquired,” I add to convince him.

  That seems to do it.

  “I see.” He taps his fingers on the folder I’ve given him. “So you’re not leaving the company?”

  “What?”

  Did he somehow find out about my plans?

  “Because I heard they want to be more aggressive about their expansion into the Asian market and they’re looking for someone to spearhead that.”

  Oh. He thought I was jumping ship.

  “I’m not moving to that company. Like you said, they’re the competition. What made you think I would go and join them? I’d never do that to Ethan, to Dad, to you.”

  “Aw.”

  Asher tries to pinch my cheek. I slap his hand away.

  “Did you really think I could do that?”

  “I thought maybe you’d like to travel around Asia like your girlfriend does.”

  That part he got right.

  “But you’re right.” He lets out a breath. “You can’t do it. You’d miss me too much.”

  I snort.

  “Besides, you’re basically Ethan’s puppy.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You used to follow him around. You worship him. You do as he tells you. You clean up his mess sometimes. You’re loyal to him.”

  “Aren’t you?” I ask him in annoyance.

  “I’m more of a bear,” Asher says. “Or a lion.”

  And I’m a helpless puppy that wags its tail for attention and shows its belly when intimidated?

  “Get out,” I tell Asher.

  Before I throw something at him.

  He starts to walk away, then stops and glances over his shoulder.

  “Oh, thanks for the report.”

  Right. If he was really grateful, he could have showed it by not insulting me.

  “And just in case I don’t see you for the rest of the week, remember you better be there on Friday.”

  “I will be,” I tell him again before he disappears out the door.

  Hopefully by then, I’ll have told Ethan about my plans and he’ll be too happy for me to whine about anything.

  ~

  I haven’t.

  I tried to tell Ethan until Wednesday, but there didn’t seem to be a good opportunity, and then I told myself I’d just tell him tonight when we’re drinking. At least, here, he’s all ears. And he isn’t going to yell at me. Or so I hope.

  But maybe I’ll wait until he’s had a few sips of scotch.

  “How’s Stella?” I ask him first.

  Only when Asher glares at me do I realize that maybe I shouldn’t have asked that. If he starts whining about her, how am I supposed to tell him about my plans for the Foundation?

  But he doesn’t.

  “She’s fine,” he says after sipping his scotch. “She’s getting bigger by the week. But she’s still beautiful, of course.”

  Why do I get the feeling that Stella recently threw something at him because he hinted that she wasn’t?

  “That’s good, right?” I say. “I mean, the baby’s developing properly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know what you’re having yet?”

  Ethan shakes his head. “Stella doesn’t want to know.”

  “Okay.”

  He looks at me. “How are you? How’s Claire?”

  “Good,” I answer.

  He brings his glass of scotch to his lips. I take a sip of my gin tonic as I gather my courage.

  Now’s my chance. I should just tell Ethan what I’ve been planning, what I’ve been trying to tell him all week.

  I set down my glass and open my mouth, but before I can say a word, he does.

  “Actually, I have something to tell you and Asher.”

  And he sounds so serious that I can’t help but start to worry.

  “What?” I ask him.

  “Are you and Stella calling off your engagement?” Asher asks.