Shopping for a Billionaire 4 by Julia Kent Page B

piece of chicken in the air and says, “But we figured that out. They’re both part of that charity. Her father and his father donated more than a year’s tuition at Smith to the project, so they’re just there.”
    “Together,” I groan.
    “But not together together,” Amanda insists.
    “They watched me run into a garbage can and cover myself with slime.”
    “There are worse things,” Amy says.
    “Like what?”
    “Being caught with your hand in a toilet in the men’s room?”
    I hit her. Hard. With a piece of shrimp.
    “That can’t be all there is,” Amy insists. She’s in her running clothes, tight knee-length Lycra pants and a tank top with a built-in shelf bra, two other sports bras underneath. The Jacoby girls aren’t just well endowed. We have so much breast tissue that if left unleashed, one good sudden turn to the right and we could knock out a small village.
    She stretches. I reach for my ice cream. Both involve moving muscles, right? So I’m exercising right now, too. Hand, wrist, tongue, taste buds, sorrow-filled heart… 
    “So the whole Twitter thing happens,” Amanda says in a contemplative voice. “Declan claims that he understands the lesbian thing was for work. But he says you told him in the lighthouse that you were only dating him for the account—”
    “That was a joke !”
    Amy holds up one hand to get me to pause. Amanda is deep in thought, eyes on the windowsill, staring so intently at a small basil plant that it might spontaneously turn into pesto sauce.
    “—and he quoted Jessica, and then something about Steve’s mother?”
    Ouch. “What I said to Monica about only dating Declan for money got back to him.”
    “ I said that!” Amanda protests.
    “I confirmed it.” A sick wave of horror pours through me. Even at the time, when I said it, I had a premonition it was a bad idea.
    Now I know it. And I can’t let it go. Over and over, the memories of everything I ever said to Declan that might make him think I was manipulative and not earnest in my intimate moments makes me cry. 
    I couldn’t just own up to the truth and blow the mystery shop, could I? Most people would. Instead, I tap-danced to please all the different people I thought I needed to please.
    And in the end I lost the one I wanted to please the most.
    “Still doesn’t make sense,” Amanda says, brooding. “He’s not that shallow.”
    “He’s that accustomed to being used by women for his money and connections, though,” I wail. “He told me I was special because I wasn’t trying to use him.” The memory of his vulnerability during that conversation makes me feel like I’m two inches tall and covered in excrement. He thinks I violated that. Violated his trust.
    That is what hurts the most.
    Amanda’s still shaking her head slowly. “I still don’t buy it. You guys weren’t together for that long—”
    “A month.” I wish it could have been forever. 
    “—but he’s an eminently reasonable guy. You’re a reasonable woman. He should have heard you out. Should have listened.”
    “He’s overreacting,” Amy concurs. “And he was kind of weird at Easter. Uptight and shy. Mom said the butter lamb freaked him out. Maybe he has a dairy phobia?” 
    I snorted. “No. It reminded him of his mother.”
    “Hmmm,” Amanda says, stroking chin hairs she doesn’t have. “Perhaps that’s part of this.”
    “Huh?”
    “Nothing. Let me think this through.” 
    I’m kind of done with this conversation and now am absent-mindedly reading work email. It’s the kind of day where I can get away with working from home. I don’t have any mystery shops today. Just 115 emails from the people I manage.
    As I open emails and scan quickly, I see we have three new approved mystery shoppers. Amanda and Amy take over the Declan analysis, trying to understand his motives, while I check out. I’ve worried and wondered and analyzed this issue to death, and can only come to one conclusion:
    When you date