“Cheers.” She taps her glass against mine. “I know we usually do this at HERS, but this will have to do in a pinch.”
“I mean . . .” I take a look around at her beautiful kitchen, the pendant lights hanging above us, the two-toned cabinets with gold hardware, and the gorgeous tile backsplash beneath them is all immaculate. “This is hardly sloppy seconds.”
“Thank you.” She takes a small sip of her bubbly. “They’ve just been filming so much for Love the Player at HERS and I have too much shit going on in my life to even think about putting a damn mic on. Now that Aviana’s husband got traded, those producers are working double-time to create drama and I know better than to fall into that trap.”
I shudder at the thought of cameras catching anything that I’m about to admit to.
“That’s a good call, what I’m about to tell you isn’t something I’d want going around either.”
“I’m intrigued, go on.”
The stabbing chest pain that has been bothering me for the last week starts up again.
“I need you to agree to be my lawyer.” I ignore the shocked look on Vonnie’s face as I pull out my checkbook that Liv still mocks me for having. “How much should I give you?”
“Fuck. If you’re enacting client-lawyer confidentiality on me, this is good enough to go pro bono.” She leans over and snaps shut my checkbook. “I agree to take you on as a client, now spill.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath, not even knowing where I should start this clusterfuck of a story. “Do you want the good or bad stuff first?”
“I would normally say bad, but by the way your lips look a little swollen and bruised, I’m going to assume the good has to do with Q. So I pick good.”
I haven’t told anyone about Quinton and me yet. We didn’t make the decision not to say anything, but seeing as I’m a female in a male-dominated industry, it seems smarter for me to keep it on the down-low . . . even though I want to shout it from the rooftops.
“Quinton ca—” I don’t even get the first sentence out before Vonnie’s jumping off her seat and her scream is puncturing my eardrums.
“I knew it! I knew the good shit had to do with Q! What happened? How was it? How does that beard feel up close and personal? It has taken him from fine to finer and I’m loving it.” I’m not sure she’s taken a breath, let alone given me the chance to answer her rapid-fire questions.
“I was trying to get there when you went full rap verse on me. Like I was saying . . .” I take a deep gulp of my champagne, needing the liquid courage to get through all of this. “Quinton came over on Halloween. I’d mentioned to him before that I was dreading this holiday season and this was going to be my first Halloween not passing out candy with my dad and watching movies.” The butterflies return to my stomach just thinking about how thoughtful he was that day. “So he took me to his house and he bought pumpkins for us to carve, candy to pass out to the kids, just everything. Then at the end of the night, we kissed.”
“I knew it! I knew those lips looked fuller than usual!”
“Yeah, there’s been a lot of kissing.” I graze my fingers across my lips without realizing what I’m doing. “And it’s been great. We cleared up a bunch of misunderstandings we both had and things are going really well.”
Too well, one could say.
One being me.
We meet up at one of our places almost every night and eat dinner together. Then we either do some work for his foundation or talk when we say we’re going to watch a movie. I’m starting to feel like we’re in a real relationship and he’s one of my best friends.
And then I remember I’m lying to him.
“Now for the bad news,” I say.
“Oh lord. Hold on.” Vonnie holds up her index finger as she drains the rest of her glass before filling it right back up again. “Poppy and Brynn were a pain in the ass, but I have a feeling you’re about to blow them straight out of the water.”
“You know how I agreed to plan the event for Mr. Mahler?”
“Yeah . . .” She drags out the word. “He’s a creep, but you need him on your side if you’re going to keep this job, and maybe even more if you don’t make it past this season.”
“Thank you!” I slap a hand on her granite countertops. “That’s why I took this job with him. He had me sign an NDA, which is standard for these big events, so I didn’t think much of it.”
“Fuck the foreshadowing already, spill!”
“Okay, okay. Geez!” I really wish I would have asked for something stronger. “The day after we kissed for the first time, I met Mr. Mahler at the venue for the event and he finally shared all the details with me. The main one being it’s a fundraiser for Glenn Chandler.”
There.
I said it.
Mr. Mahler didn’t appear out of thin air to sue me, and the world didn’t explode.
“That disgusting son of a bitch who has been dragging Q every chance he gets? That fucking Glenn Chandler?” Vonnie shouts and the pendants I was just admiring rattle overhead.
So the world didn’t explode, but I’m pretty sure Vonnie did.
“One and the same,” I say. “I don’t know what to do. Legally, I can’t tell Quinton, but each time I’m with him and I don’t tell him, I feel like I’m lying. And on top of that, I think this guy is a total prick! He’s terrible and the last thing I want to do is plan an event that could help him. But I’m already skating on thin ice with Mahler, I can’t not do it.”
“Fucking hell.” Vonnie sits back on her stool and
