The Trouble with Love (Sex, Love & Stiletto 4)

Emma froze. “You talked to Alex Cassidy about this? About me?”

“Well, of course. Who better to know your type than your ex-fiancé?”

Emma threw up her hands in exasperation. Does everyone know about that?”

Camille shrugged. “Pretty much.”

Emma gritted her teeth, just for a moment, at the thought of her private life being not so private. If it were up to Emma, the unpleasant past she shared with Cassidy would have gone to the grave with them, and she was pretty sure he felt the same. Without ever having talked about it, she knew that was part of the reason they both played the cold war game, frosting each other out whenever possible. It kept both of them from losing their temper and saying something they shouldn’t.

But then Emma had gone and let him get under her skin at a baseball game, of all places. Julie’s fiancé had overheard them, and though Mitchell Forbes wasn’t prone to gossip, he’d mentioned it to Julie, and Julie . . . well, God bless her, she’d apparently gone and told the entire world.

Emma didn’t really blame everyone for being interested. She knew that a failed engagement was juicy gossip. A failed engagement between a relationships columnist and a hotshot editor in chief was even more intriguing.

Still, just because Emma understood the interest in her personal life didn’t mean she had to like it.

A grumble snuck out before she could stop it. “What happened to the genteel world where people didn’t talk to other people about their exes? Isn’t that off-limits in polite society?”

“You’re so cute when you go all Magnolia Manners,” Camille said gleefully. “Was that a little drawl I heard creeping into your voice?”

Emma pressed her lips together. She’d worked long and hard to banish the soft North Carolina lilt from her speech. She wanted no trace of the naïve girl she’d been back then to show.

Emma tried agai

n. “I’m just saying—”

Camille gave another of those dismissive waves of her hand. “I know what you’re just sayin’. And don’t worry, I don’t usually go around throwing previous relationships in people’s faces. But you and Cassidy have always seemed so at peace with your past.” She paused. “Aren’t you?”

“Definitely,” Emma said. Firmly.

“So then,” Camille said with a shrug, “I figured there’d be no harm in getting his opinion on whether or not you and Benedict might hit it off.”

Emma remained silent, and Camille gave her a knowing look. “You want to know what Cassidy said, don’t you?”

Emma pursed her lips and made a deliberately indifferent face. “Not really.”

Camille leaned forward. “He thought you and Benedict would be excellent together.”

Not a trace of emotion flickered across Emma’s face. She was confident in that. When it came to Cassidy, she’d long ago learned to ward off pesky things like feelings.

Emma handed back Camille’s cellphone. “I’m not really looking for a relationship right now.”

“Fine,” Camille said with a shrug. “Doesn’t mean that you can’t date. Have sex. Have fun.”

“I can have fun without a man.”

“Of course you can. We all can. But, Emma . . .” Camille’s face was kind, and that was unnerving. “You’re young. You’re beautiful. And from one cynic to another . . . if you wrap yourself in bitterness too long, it will start to seep inside you.”

Emma swallowed. She knew she could be a bit . . . distant at times. But bitter? She wasn’t bitter.

Was she?

The thought chafed. Her eyes dropped to the phone in front of Camille.

Maybe she should ease off the whole ice queen thing. Give a guy a chance.

“I’m handing the reins over to Cassidy by the end of the week,” Camille said, her voice quieter than usual. “But I do have one last assignment for you before I leave.”

Emma’s eyebrows lifted. “Assignment? I pick my own stories.”