The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

“According to the paper I am.” Mostly true. Heart rate? Autobahn fast.

“Where’s the ring?” Daphne asked.

“I don’t have one.” Her palms started to sweat.

“Does he dress left or right?” her best friend asked in a rush and a wicked little grin.

“Left.” Totally true. Also, her lying-induced anxiety was making her stomach cramp up.

“Middle name?”

She gulped. “Charles.” It could be Charles. It also just happened to be the name of the guy who’d taken their brunch order.

“Favorite breakfast food?”

“Waffles.” At least that’s what Sawyer loved to pop in the toaster for post-coital refreshment—a mental image she didn’t need when her pulse was already jackhammering in her ears.

Daphne took a sip of coffee and looking bored all of a sudden asked, “When are you leaving for Australia?”

“Two and a half weeks.” Finally, one she didn’t have to mislead about.

“Called it!” Daphne raised her arm and pumped her fist. “The whole engagement is bullshit. So what’s the real story?”

Oh crap. If she was getting married, there would be no Australia.

Figuratively cornered by Daphne’s eyes and the power of long-term friendship, her cheeks blazed, her heart slammed against her ribs, and the words rushed out—along with some very unfortunately timed stress tears.

“Just because I’m still going to Australia doesn’t mean the engagement is fake or that I’m dodging my mom’s calls because I hate lying to her or that I’ve been making myself stay away from you guys because I knew you’d figure out the truth.” Breaths coming in short gasps, she looked down at the napkin she’d shredded without realizing it and grabbed a fresh one from the dispenser on the table to dry her cheeks and wipe her runny nose. Damn. She did not mean for all of that to come out. Maybe it hadn’t. If she prayed hard enough maybe it had only happened in her head. She glanced up at Daphne, and she was staring at her with mouth agape. Nope. She’d definitely said it out loud. “Tae.”

“I don’t know what that last word was,” Daphne said, “and I’m still processing the rest.”

“It means shit in Tagalog.” Which was the best possible word for what she’d just said because there would be no stopping the interrogation that was going to happen next.

“Okay, let me get this straight.” Her friend took a quick sip of coffee. “You’re not engaged?”

Clover shook her head. “No.”

“Thank God,” she said and sank back against her seat. “I thought you’d lost your fucking mind or had joined a cult.”

“None of the above.” She reached for her espresso with hands that didn’t shake for the first time since she’d arrived at Grounded Coffee. “I’m Sawyer’s personal buffer.”

“You’re a fluffer?” Daphne asked in a stage whisper. “Like in porn?”

“No!” Clover said, perhaps a bit too forcefully considering the looks they got from some of the people sitting near their table. “Mierda.”

Great. Let’s just add making a public fool of yourself to everything else.

She offered the strangers a smile—a perfectly polite response if she’d been in small town Sparksville, but one that only elicited confused and wary reactions from the good people of Harbor City who learned from birth not to acknowledge each other. The only benefit of that being that they all very quickly turned back to their own tables.

Daphne leaned in close and lowered her voice, “You’re having sex with him, though.”

“What makes you say that?” And there went what little remained of her napkin.

“Because if you weren’t you would have just straight denied it,” she said, bold as brass. “Face it, Clover, you can’t keep shit from me—obviously, since it took about ten minutes to break you. Don’t ever turn to a life of crime. You’d suck at it.”

And didn’t she know it. “Noted.”