“You’re lucky you’re cute.” I reached for another.

“Hey.” Dahlia playfully smacked my hand away. “You’ve had more than your share of those.”

“But I’m too skinny,” I pouted. “I want a bigger ass and boobs.”

Dahlia rolled her eyes, knowing I was joking. When I was younger my slender figure had bothered me a little, but the older I got the more I appreciated it. I had the kind of body most clothes looked good on, and I’d stopped worrying about my small boobs and ass a long time ago when I’d stopped worrying about my body in respect to what men found sexy.

Another reason to hate Vaughn Tremaine since he was the exception to my rule.

I hated that I cared about his opinion on anything, let alone my level of attractiveness.

Bastard.

“What’s with the sudden scowl?” Dahlia pointed to my furrowed brow.

“Just thinking about Devlin and his never-ending need to be a pain in the ass,” I lied.

“You should tell Vaughn,” Jessica said.

“What?” I startled, wondering how she knew I’d been thinking about him. “Tell him what?”

“That Devlin is gearing up to bother you. Vaughn told Cooper that he wouldn’t let Devlin cause trouble for us and I believe him. I know you have your issues with him, but this is bigger than that.”

“I’m not telling Vaughn.” I looked to Dahlia and Emery for backup but they were wearing I agree with Jessica expressions. “You’re all crazy. Vaughn would rather see my place go under than do anything to help me.” I knew that wasn’t true but I wasn’t asking that man for help.

“That’s not true at all.” Jessica sounded exasperated. “I wish you and he would just admit you’re attracted to one another and stop acting like children at recess.”

Shocked by her outburst I sat back in my seat and swallowed a bite of sandwich. “That was almost mean. And he’s not attracted to me.”

“Aha! But you’re attracted to him?” Dahlia grinned with excitement at the prospect.

“What? No. What?”

“You just said ‘he’s not attracted to me’ when Jessica said you were attracted to one another. You made no mention of you not being attracted to him, just him not being attracted to you,” Dahlia explained.

My heart started thudding hard against my chest. “But I meant that. That thing you just said. About us both. I am not attracted to Vaughn Tremaine.”

“Methinks thou dost protest too much.” Dahlia laughed.

“Methinks thou no longer deserves the last canapé.” I swiped it from the plate, and grinned at her silent objection before I popped it into my mouth.

“I still think you should tell Vaughn,” Jessica insisted.

“To have him laugh in my face? No thanks. Subject change!” I clapped my hands together. “Where will we start? Jessica and Cooper and wondering when he’s going to get off his ass and get down on one knee, or Emery and man lessons?”

Emery shrank from me.

I almost felt bad.

Almost.

Dahlia wrinkled her nose. “Man lessons?”

“Yes—teaching Emery how to speak to men without wanting the ground to open up and swallow her whole.”

“That would be nice, I suppose,” Emery muttered.

“So lessons it is.”

She blushed. “Maybe some other time.”

“Bailey,” Jess warned.

“Oh, come on.” For once I ignored Jess. “You’re among friends, Em. No one here wants to humiliate you. We just want to help. I don’t want you to be alone forever. But if you do, then that’s great, that’s fine. I’ll leave you alone to that decision because I just want you to be happy.”

For a moment she looked from me to Dahlia to Jess and then back to me. Studying me, sensing my sincerity, Emery straightened her spine and threw back her shoulders. “Okay.” She still seemed unsure despite her bold body language. “I don’t want to be alone. Man lessons. But . . . not today. Later, okay?”

I grinned, happy and determined to help her. Jess and Dahlia shared a smile at my infectious excitement. “Later.”

“Well,” Jess mused. “If we’re not doing any lessons . . . we could talk about the fact that Cooper proposed and we’re planning to get married at the end of the summer.”

This of course was met with a chorus of delighted shrieks.

Vaughn

“These figures aren’t looking any better, Grant.” Vaughn’s voice was cold with disappointment as he spoke with Grant Foster, the manager at The Montgomery, Vaughn’s boutique hotel in Greenwich Village. He’d named it after his mother, Lillian Montgomery. Unlike his father, Lillian was a blue blood; a descendant of Nicholas Montgomery, an Englishman who’d settled in New York and established himself as a huge player in the industrial revolution. The Montgomerys had their fingers in all sorts of pies, mostly in aeronautics and other transportation-shaped pies. As far as his dad told it Lillian was the darling of New York society and it had caused quite the scandal when she’d ignored her parents’ wishes and married a nobody upstart from Augusta, Maine.

They disowned and disinherited her, and consequently Vaughn had nothing to do with that side of his family.

But his mother was a Montgomery and he was proud of who she was, no matter her family’s attitude. He wasn’t hiding from that side of his heritage, and naming his Manhattan hotel after them was a “fuck you” to his grandparents and a “love you” to his mother.