“You need some stuff moved?”
“No, I mean Icoulduse a hand giving people a ride to the bar, but I also need you to have sex with Nicole.”
Noah stared, convinced he’d heard wrong.
“I’ve got it all figured out.” Tabby unlocked her phone and showed him a list. “Around midnight, Nix will be medium-tipsy and Sam will be moderately-drunk. The DJ will play Toxic, which is Sam’s sex jam—don’t ask me how I know that—and she and Scott will leave, thus removing a big obstacle between you and Nix. At this point, if I’ve played my cards correctly, Nix will approachyou,at which point—”
Noah held up a hand. “This is not happening.”
“But it should! This is exactly what Nix needs.”
“How do you know?”
Tabby rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer. Anyway, don’t act like you don’t want to be all up in Nix. We allknowyou want to be all up in Nix. Just do it. I’ll buy you a box of doughnuts.”
This. This was why you didn’t make friends. Why you didn’t get attached to places. These complications, the little things people knew about you that built up so that one day they all got used against you. Noah hadn’t had time to process the Nicole situation but one thing was clear—if Nicole didn’t get back with her ex, she was going to stay at Silver Daughters Ink, making his dick hard and his life miserable. It was in his best interest that she got back with her ex and if that couldn’t happen, he needed to stay the fuck away.
“I’m not coming,” he told Tabby. “Prior commitment.”
“So, you won’t make Nicole happy by giving it to her hardcore and keeping her from her nutcase ex?”
“You’ve got some fuckin’ balls calling him a nutcase.”
Tabby didn’t smile. “You’ll regret it if you don’t come to the party. Mark my words.”
Their order was called. Noah had never been so happy to be getting a latte. “We’re going now.”
“Fine, but don’t tell anyone about my indecent proposal.”
“You couldn’t pay me to.”
“Not even for a million dollars?”
“No.”
“Not even if it would save the lives of every cancer patient on planet earth?”
Noah closed his eyes. He liked Tabby, but talking to her made him want a vasectomy ten thousand times more.
Chapter 3
Nicole tugged at the hem of her sparkly pink dress. She hadn’t bought clubbing clothes with her to Melbourne and Sam’s taste was more adventurous than hers. The material required her to go commando and she was already paranoid about flashing someone.
“I can’t come out tonight.”
Sam handed her a glass filled to the brim with sparkling wine. “You can. You will. You must. You have no alternative.”
“Isn’t this all a bit fascist? You and Tabby forcing me to have a party I don’t want?”
“Not when we’re doing it out of love. Drink.”
Nicole sipped obediently. For the past week she’d been doing whatever her sisters told her; eating when they put meals in front of her, falling asleep when they turned out the lights. Either she was obeying commands or she was in their dad’s office, pushing away thoughts of Aaron with work. She’d been sure that her manic breakup energy would reveal the reason Silver Daughters almost went bankrupt, but she’d found nothing.
“Did you or Dad make any big payments in the last twelve months?” she asked Sam for what felt like the millionth time. “Anything you withdrew out of the SDI accounts and forgot to put on the books?”
Sam glared at her over her wineglass. “No work talk.”
“But—”