Page 42 of The Game

“Dreamy. Honestly, Malachi handled most of it as I was busy at work, and it was the perfect May wedding. How are things with you? I can see you’re doing fine.” I gestured to her bump.

Peonie stroked her rounded belly. “Unbearably happy. This happened right away. Jacob thinks we got pregnant that first night, though we certainly put in a lot of practice in the month we were locked away together, and since.”

Her gaze slid to Annie, and her cheeks pinkened as if she worried she’d said too much. In my interview with Shade, he’d made it clear that we couldn’t openly discuss the finer details of the game. Not with strangers. It operated on a fragile legal basis—though all contestants gave their consent, the inability to withdraw that once the game had started was…questionable at best.

Annie flapped a hand. “Don’t worry on my account. We’re best friends. I know what went on in that basement. In fact, I’ve been considering doing it myself. I’m just not sure they’d be interested in me.”

My jaw dropped. Peonie’s did as well.

“Why would you say that?” I asked. “You’re beautiful.”

“Every man in there would be fighting for you,” Peonie agreed.

Annie raised a shoulder. “I’m a divorced mother of three. Even with my tummy tuck, I have stretch marks no amount of expensive cream can fix. I’m the wrong side of thirty?—”

I cut her off. “You’re the same age as me. Stop inventing barriers.”

She toed the ground. “Okay, fine. Is it weird that the minute my divorce settlement came through, the first thing I thought of was your game?”

Delight fizzled inside me, and I suddenly got why Annie had asked to come here for our walk. At the end of the cobbled boulevard was the warehouse.

“Then let’s go sign you up now,” I said.

Peonie clapped her hands. “Yes! Do it. I swear you won’t regret it.”

The door opened behind her, and her man came out. I recognised Jacob instantly by the tumble of dark hair falling in his eyes, and from how he instantly looked for his woman.

He curled a protective arm around her, one eyebrow raised in question as she turned to him.

“This is Emmeline. She and Malachi were in the game, remember? Then her friend, sorry, what’s your name?”

“I’m Annie.”

“Annie is going to sign up as well. Isn’t that incredible?”

Jacob’s expression shifted to a self-satisfied grin. “I can recommend it.”

Peonie searched in her bag and extracted her phone, approaching the low wall with it held out. “Put your number in, Annie. I want to know when you’re going in. We’ll walk down to celebrate you when you leave. We’ve done it with a couple of other games over the months, as it’s just a short distance away.”

Annie blushed but tapped out her details on the screen. “People do that?”

I remembered my exit, just about, though it was lost in the sensation of being in Malachi’s arms. “It’s a party. Don’t forget people will be watching the whole thing on screens in the warehouse, too. Though they’ll be doing their own kind of celebrations.”

An older couple strolled down the river path, and all of us fell silent until they’d gone by.

Jacob lifted his chin. “One time we went, it was when that girl stabbed her man with her heel.”

I stared at him.

He laughed. “You didn’t hear about it? He’s some billionaire, and she has a temper for days. They were still fucking while he wrestled her to his car, covered in blood. I’ve heard stories about them since.”

Annie gasped. “They’re still together?”

“Of course. Apparently, she’ll stalk into his meetings because he’s pissed her off, and he’ll have her over the conference table almost before the execs have had a chance to scatter.” He grinned, clearly loving our shock. “We’d better go. We’re buying baby furniture today, and that’s a sentence I never thought I’d say until I laid eyes on Peonie. Good luck in the game, Annie. Nice to meet you, Emmeline.”

We called out farewells, and Peonie mimed Annie texting her before they walked away to their car.

Left alone with my best friend, I faced her. “So, are we doing this?”

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