Page 34 of Fall Into Temptation
He was sogood. In her experience, few people werethatsolidly good and kind and trustworthy. And she’d already gone and screwed it up.
No secrets. No surprises,he’d told her.
And she’d been lying to him—not to mention her own family—since day one. Stupid Uranus was really fucking things up for her. But in her heart, she knew she’d done more of the fucking up than any planet.
--------
“Hey. Wake up!” The cheerful order had Eva sitting straight up in bed and scurrying back against the headboard when she found Joey plopped on the foot of the bed.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Eva demanded, pulling a pillow over her face. “And how did you get in here?”
“I shimmied up the drainpipe. You left your window open.” Joey jerked a thumb at the window behind her.
“Why are you in my bed?”
Joey, dressed for work in the stables, stretched out on the bed. “Well, I got this funny text from someone I considered a friend,” she began.
Eva groaned and pulled the pillow tighter over her face. Of all the people to give her a hard time, she hadn’t expected it to be Joey.
“At least, I thought we were friends. But it turns out she’s a big, fat liar and thought she could clean it up with a text,” Joey continued. “I was expecting some kind of a post-coital text about how amazing Cardona is in the sack. So, I texted you back. And you know what happened?”
“What?” Eva mumbled through her pillow.
“There was no response. In fact, everyone in town has been texting, calling, messaging you, and beating on your front door. I had to wait until Cardona left your porch before climbing up here.”
“Shit.” Eva heaved the pillow off her face. It hit the floor with a dullwhoomph. “I panicked. Donovan and Mrs. Nordemann were staring at me like I was a freak, and I could hear the Blue Moon grapevine gearing up.”
“Were you ever planning to tell us?” Joey asked, swinging her legs.
“Of course! I had a plan. I just wanted to finish this book. And release it. And hit a bestseller list.”
“That’s a lot of ands,” Joey observed.
“I wanted to be really good at this so it would be this amazing surprise to everyone.”
“God, you’re an asshole,” Joey told her with no heat to the words.
“Come on! It’s not that bad!”
“You have a family that loves the shit out of you, and you think the nice thing to do is keep this huge part of your life a secret from them, so not only do you cut them out of the process, but you make them feel like you didn’t trust them to be there for you.”
“That’s not true!”
“I wonder how your sisters feel?” Joey said, nodding her head toward Eva’s phone. “Family is supposed to be there for the hard work, not just the payoff. You robbed them and you of that.”
“Great pep talk. Thanks, Joey,” Eva said with sarcasm.
Joey sat back up and heaved a grocery bag onto the bed. “You can redeem yourself in my eyes at least by signing these.” She upended the bag on the quilt and every single one of Eva’s books spilled out.
“My books. You have them all?”
“Romance is kind of my guilty pleasure,” Joey admitted. “Keeps me and Jax pretty creative in the sack if you know what I mean.”
“You want me to sign my books?” Eva felt the warm rush of pride.
“Duh.” Joey tossed a pen at her. “You can start with ‘To my best friend, Joey…’”
Eva was on her fourth book when a voice louder than it should have been carried through the open window.
