: Chapter 8

“So lay it on me. How’s my old man doing?” I sidestepped a kid on a scooter as I walked with Grant to Madison’s apartment. Grant Gerwig had been my best friend ever since I was four. Currently, he was a Colin Firth–looking, prestigious oncologist with a private clinic in the Upper East Side. He was one of those assholes you read about who accidentally found the cure to an incurable disease at a bar eating stale peanuts while waiting for their Tinder date. The kind of smart that made you wonder if there was a secret meaning to life that he wasn’t telling you about. We jogged every morning together and made it a point to have a weekend drink, no matter our schedules, if we were both in town. When we’d found out about Dad, I’d physically dragged Ronan Black to Grant’s clinic for a second opinion, despite him muttering that he clearly remembered having to help Grant “take care of business” when my best friend had had an accident while watching a horror flick with me when we were five. “I just don’t like the idea of getting my medical verdicts from people I knew before they were fully potty trained.”

Anyway, both young Grant and the old doctor Dad had gone to initially were on the same page. The cancer was too advanced, too incurable. Still, I felt slightly less helpless having Dad treated by my best friend.

“You know I’m not at liberty to discuss it.” Grant stuffed a fist into his khaki pants, using his free hand to redirect a kid on a scooter so he didn’t collide with a tree. The kid’s mother thanked him as she raced down the street after her son.

Mad’s bohemian, colorful street suffered from the greatest problem of our nation, New York’s number one enemy: the stop-and-take-a-picture-in-the-middle-of-the-fucking-road tourist. There were people everywhere. Taking selfies with a vintage candy shop in the background, waiting in line to a gay bar, browsing secondhand books on stands outside an independent bookshop. The slimness of life didn’t touch this street. It was vivid and alive and bursting with color.

It made me resentful that the sunken-cheeked kid with the nylon backpack and the A S S CNTIOCIALOCIALLUB hoodie, the middle-aged dog walker with the sundress, and even the goddamn four dogs she was trying to shepherd were going to outlive my father. The man who’d created Black & Co. Who provided thousands of jobs and was responsible for a third of the textile business in New York. Who’d contributed to the US economy and attended my rowing tournaments religiously and helped Jul turn his summer town house in Nantucket into an eco-friendly monster that basically lived off the grid with his bare hands and sat through Katie’s high school theater shows and God fucking dammit, life was unfair.

“Chase?” Grant peered into my eyes. He was heading for a date. We’d figured we’d grab a quick beer beforehand. “Did you listen to what I said? Patient-doctor confidentiality and so forth.”

I grunted, kicking a soggy garbage bag sitting at the curb. I was already annoyed with the prospect of sharing Dad with Julian, Amber, and Madison tonight. I’d visited him every day for the past week, even though we worked together in the same office. He seemed to be getting progressively worse, and some of the other employees were starting to talk.

“He’s in a lot of pain.” The words came out like I was in a lot of pain too.

“Tell him to give me a call. There’s a lot we can do about it.”

“He’s a stubborn bastard,” I countered.

“Doesn’t run in the family, obviously.” Grant smiled wryly.

We both stopped in front of the same brownstone. He raised an eyebrow. So did I.

“Well, I guess I will see you tomorrow for golf?” he asked.

“That’s the plan.” I took the steps up. So did Grant. We stopped again. Stared at each other.

“Yes?” I asked impatiently. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

Had Madison decided to date every doctor in New York?

The entrance door swung open, and Layla, Madison’s even-crazier friend with the funky green hair, burst out like a stripper from a cake.

“Grant! You’re here!” She flung her arms over his neck. It was a highly unorthodox way to greet a man you weren’t planning to get into bed with in the next few hours, unless . . .

Unless he started dating her weeks ago and didn’t want to tell me because I was being a miserable piece of shit trying to come to terms with Dad’s situation.

“Layla,” I said curtly.

“Prince of Darkness,” she answered in the exact same manner. “I’m praying for my best friend’s sake that you’ll be nice this evening.”

“Even God can’t interfere with my nefarious behavior, but thanks for the royal title. I see you’re dating my best friend,” I drawled.

“Sleeping with him,” she amended. “Yes.”

Grant flashed me an apologetic smile. “You weren’t exactly in the right headspace to talk about this, and as Layla said, she laid down the rules pretty strictly. This is casual and should not affect your or Maddie’s lives.”

Not in the mood to touch this BS with a ten-foot pole, I rolled my eyes, ambling through the door. When Madison and I had broken up, Grant was another person who’d pinned the downfall on me. While I’d forbidden him to keep in touch with her, I didn’t put it past Madison to have played matchmaker to him and Layla. Another trait I absolutely despised about Martyr Maddie—she was always in everyone’s business and forever tried to hook people up with dates, furniture they needed, and social activities.

I especially hated that she’d paired these two together, because Grant actually wanted the whole white-picket-fence-and-sane-wife dream, and the first time I’d met Layla, she’d launched into a forty-minute speech about why monogamy was unnatural. Daisy and Frank would make a more sensible pairing than those two.

I knocked on Madison’s door, hearing Daisy barking excitedly. Mad opened, and I became weak in the knees and hard everywhere else, because what the fuck?

Madison wore a little black dress, snug in all the right places—completely pattern-free—paired with black velvet heels and a turquoise neckpiece. Something between a necklace and a studded collar. Her short brown hair was extra messy in a just-got-fucked purposeful way, her lips were scarlet, and her olive eyes were winged with a dramatic black femme fatale liner. My cock stood for a round of applause, throwing imaginary roses at her feet. The rest of me wondered what had inspired me to do anything else with her back when we were dating other than sleep with her until there was nothing left of her.

“You look great.” I narrowed my eyes into slits, the compliment coming out as an accusation.

She grabbed her purse and keys, frowning at me. “Didn’t you say you wanted to coordinate clothes? I remembered you are very fond of black. Black glossy door, black furniture, black satin sheets . . .” She began to count all the black things in my apartment.

“You forgot the black blinders. Would you like to pay my bedroom another visit?” I offered her a wolfish smirk.

“Hard pass.”

That’s not the only thing that’s hard right now, sweetheart.

I had a violent urge to touch her. Push a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, kiss her cheek in greeting, or perch her on my lap, spread her ass cheeks, and eat her from behind. Before I had the chance to do that (I was going for brushing lint off her sleeve, although orally devouring her was my personal preference), someone tapped me on the shoulder from behind.

The day had been entirely full of unpleasant surprises, but Pediatric Dudebro in his dress shirt, stupid tie, and running tights was the cherry on the shit cake. He grinned at Madison, giving her two thumbs up for the outfit.

“Maddie! I came to get a good-luck kiss before the half marathon.” He was running in place on her threshold beside me, both of us outside her door. I didn’t care how nice this man was. He was oozing douchebagness in radioactive quantities.

“Hi.” He turned to beam at me, offering me his hand. I shook it, making sure I pressed hard enough to almost crush his bones. The only reason I didn’t go for full destruction was because his patients were minors and I had enough reasons to suspect I was the first name on karma’s shit list. If he were a plastic surgeon, catering to bored housewives and vain men, his hand would be marshmallow right about now.

“Chase Black.”

“Ethan Goodman.”

“Ethan is . . .” Mad trailed off, allowing herself a moment to think about what he was to her. We both looked at her expectantly. A slow smile spread across my face. They hadn’t had that conversation yet. They weren’t anywhere near as serious as she wanted me to think they were. Mad cleared her throat. “We’re seeing each other.”

Ethan nodded in confirmation, pleased with her bullshit explanation. If I were introduced as anything other than boyfri . . .

Finish that thought, idiot. My brain pointed a gun at my temple from the inside. I fucking dare you.

“Nice tie. Is that from Brioni’s newest collection?” I jutted my chin in its direction, dead-ass serious. He wore a PAW Patrol tie. Specifically, with Chase on it, wearing his firefighter helmet. I only knew the dog’s name because Booger Face used to call me Doggy Chase for a while, and I’d been worried and disturbed about her knowing my favorite sexual position.

Also, why weren’t we talking about the fact he wore tights?

“Brioni?” he echoed, still running in place. “Is that a designer brand?”

“Close. An Italian dish,” I deadpanned.

I felt like an asshole. No doubt I looked like one too. And for the first time in a very long time, it felt like crossing an invisible line. I’d always been sarcastic and brash, but never completely off-the-rails rude. In Ethan’s case, I couldn’t stop myself. I imagined him pressing his tights-clad crotch (seriously, were we just going to ignore the tights?) against Madison’s soft curves and kissing her, and frankly, that made me want to drink myself to death, smash the bottle of whiskey on a brick, and stab him with it.

“Chase!” Madison stomped her high heel, which, for the record, I wasn’t opposed to removing with my teeth later tonight. My cock was stirring uncomfortably in my briefs every time I caught a waft of her perfume. Pumpkin pie, coconut, and Daisy’s smell. She smelled like home. A home I categorically wasn’t invited to, but a home nonetheless. Ethan jutted his chin out at me, a glint of wildness in his eyes. It was a carnal spark that told me he knew Madison was a catch, and he wasn’t backing down.

All yours, Pedi Boy.

“I admit I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to clothing. I’m hoping Maddie here helps me out.” He flashed her a smile and a wink. I ran my eyes along his body, assessing him.

“Sucks for you. The pot and the kettle going shopping. No retinas will be safe.”

I was now insulting both of them. Very bad form, considering she was about to help me. But they seemed wrong together, and she was so oblivious to it I couldn’t stop myself.

Mad rolled her eyes. “See what I mean about you not ever having to worry about him? He’s insufferable. I’ll see you tomorrow, Ethan.” She leaned forward, touching his chest as she kissed his cheek. Her lips lingered on his skin a moment too long, and my hands curled into fists, itching to grab her waist and physically remove her from him. “Good luck with the marathon.”

“Half marathon,” he corrected, hugging her tight.

Don’t look at his tights. If he has an erection, you might have to kill him, and your lawyer is in the Maldives on vacation.

When Mad and I stepped out of her building, my pulse returned to its regular rhythm.

“Do you smell that?” She sniffed the air theatrically.

“Smell what?”

“The urine from the pissing contest you just launched at my doorstep.”

I laughed. The 2.0 version of her was considerably more fun to hang out with, despite the constant headache she gave me. I said the thing I thought would rile her up the most, because seeing her cheeks turn pink was one of my favorite pastimes.

“I didn’t know golden showers are your jam. I am happy to accommodate this.”

“Chase!” she shrieked.

“What? It’d save water. I’m just being an environmentalist.” Somehow I thought Greta Thunberg still wouldn’t approve.

“That’s it—now I know it. The devil wears Black.”

She meant both my favorite color and my last name.

“Better the devil you know than the angel you don’t.”

“I can’t wait to get to know the angel better,” she retorted.

“I bet the angel doesn’t know how to do that thing with his tongue you like so much.”

“The angel makes me happy,” she snapped, reddening under her understated makeup. Mad was always good at that. Looking put together without resembling a Kiss band member.

“Bull. Fucking. Shit. He makes you comfortable.”

“What’s wrong with comfortable?”

“Comfortable would never set you on fire.”

“Maybe I don’t want to burn.”

“We all want to burn, Mad. It is dangerous, ergo, we want it.”

We proceeded to the subway. I decided grilling her about Grant and Layla would garner more hostility. As it was, if hate translated into electricity, Madison would detonate my ass. We took the train to the Upper West Side. Driving in Manhattan on Friday night was the equivalent of rubbing your dick across a grater: Technically possible, but why would you want to try?

When we exited the train, Mad stopped dead in her tracks, a look of horror marring her face. I turned back to her. “What is it now?”

“I forgot the banana bread.” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh shoot. How did you not remind me? I was so flustered when you and Ethan were doing a dance-off on my threshold I totally forgot to bring it.”

Like anyone gave a shit. Katie and Mom just wanted her to feel like they were looking forward to something other than her royal presence. Her ability to tolerate me mystified them. They weren’t actually looking forward to the banana bread. In fact, they weren’t looking forward to consuming anything that wasn’t wine or bad reality TV shows.

“It wasn’t a dance-off,” I pointed out.

“It was,” she insisted. “And you lost. Metaphorically speaking, you dance like everyone’s drunk uncle.”

“I do not dance like ev—” I closed my eyes, massaging my temples. I was not going to reduce myself to the intellect of a woman who could distinguish everyone in the Kardashian clan by name. Willingly. “They’ll manage without the banana bread.”

“But it’s dessert.”

“Hate to break it to you, but no one was counting on your banana bread. Julian and Amber probably had three catering companies and Gordon Ramsay himself working the kitchen since last night.”

“Well, I promised!”

Is it even legal to fantasize about doing things to her? I pondered at this point. She is mentally fifteen.

“They probably forgot.”

“I texted with Katie and Lori all week. They definitely haven’t.”

They were texting all week? Was that why Mom had gotten out of bed and Katie had actually showed up to work? A twinge of something ridiculous and unwarranted squeezed my chest. I ignored it, keeping my expression carefully blank.

“There’s a bakery around the corner.” I inhaled through my nostrils. “Do you want to buy a replacement, or is Martyr Maddie above tricking people?”

“A bit late to pretend I’m above that.” She waved her hand between us. Right. I’d made her tell a much bigger lie.

I realized Madison was the whole package. I should be acknowledged somehow for my stupidity. I’d thrown away a supreme fuck just because I was afraid she . . . what, exactly? Would trick me into marrying her somehow? That was never going to happen.

Tell that to the engagement ring she is wearing right now, which you gave her.

I suddenly remembered exactly why I’d stayed with Madison for longer than a week, even though I hadn’t had one serious conversation with her the entire time:

In return, I’d cheated on her—that was what she thought, anyway—and never had met her father while he’d visited the city. Chances were, getting in her pants wasn’t in the future for me. It was best to get this over with as soon as possible.

I bought two loaves of banana bread from Levain Bakery while Mad dashed into a supermarket to get a baking tray. We met at an intersection just in front of Julian’s building. She took the banana bread from my hand, still wrapped in a brown paper bag, held the bag by the tip, and began to batter the bread against a building violently. I stared at her, as did the rest of the street.

“May I ask what in the goddamn world are you doing?” My voice came out more cordial than I thought was necessary. She was assaulting a baked good, after all. Very publicly, if I might add.

“No homemade banana bread looks as perfect as the ones from bakeries. I’m just making it look authentic,” came her swift reply, as she poured the distressed loaves into the tray she’d bought and covered them in plastic wrap. She was panting, her tits rising and falling in her tight dress.

I looked away, not thinking about how perfect her breasts felt in my palms.

“You should put more of that effort into trying to look like you can tolerate me,” I noted sourly.

“That’s above my pay grade.”

“I don’t pay you.”

“Exactly.”

We crossed the street, glaring at each other. Another one of our unspoken staring contests.

“You know,” I started, “I could—”

“Nope. Please don’t try to bribe me with apartments and cars and golden helicopters. God, you’re predictable. I’m so glad I met Ethan.”

A man who wore tights and a PAW Patrol tie was besting me. Now was a good time to off myself.

In the elevator, I ducked my head toward her. I didn’t know why. She just looked . . . Mad-like. Sexy in a cute, retro-chic kind of way. The kind teenagers liked masturbating to. Or, you know, thirty-two-year-old tycoons too.

“Did you just sniff me?” She turned around, eyes wide.

“No.” Yes. Dammit.

“You’re like a feral animal.”

“Better than a PAW Patrol–collared Chihuahua.”

She rolled her eyes like I was a one-trick pony, took my hand, and put it over her bare collarbone. I resisted the need to gulp. Her skin was hot, silky, and perfect; there was nothing sexual about what she did when she rubbed her delicate neck with my big palm, but I was pretty sure a pearl of precome graced the crown of my cock by the time she was done.

“There.” She pushed my hand away. “That’ll give you a good portion of my smell until tomorrow morning, and you’ll smell like me when we get in there. Happy?”

“With you? Never,” I spat out.

She smiled.

I frowned.

The elevator slid open, and we both stepped out.

It was going to be a long fucking night.

Julian lived in an Upper West Side five-bedroom penthouse overlooking the city that held an uncanny resemblance to a brothel, including red-upholstered furniture, dripping chandeliers, and an extensive wet bar. The minute we entered the premises, I ushered Dad to Clementine’s room for some privacy. His cheeks were sunken. Life leaked out of him in slow motion. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, exactly. I knew there wasn’t a treatment for his level billion of cancer. Grant said putting him through chemo—if his blood tests would even allow for him to go through chemo—was a waste of time and effort and would only make him feel even sicker. At this point, it was about keeping him comfortable.

Only he wasn’t looking anywhere near comfortable to me.

“Chase.” Dad frowned. “Why are we in here?” He looked around Booger Face’s room. It was the only space in the apartment that didn’t look like you might catch an STD if you sat on a piece of furniture. All pink-hued walls and ceilings and white fixtures.

“Because you’re not taking care of yourself,” I spat out. “You need to take your meds.”

“I don’t like to feel sedated,” he countered. “I want to be present.”

“I don’t want you to suffer,” I argued.

“It’s not your decision to make.”

After a ten-minute argument, in which I badgered him to call Grant and failed to convince him, I dragged myself to the open kitchen area, joining the rest of the family. I left Dad in Clementine’s room, too angry to look him in the face. When I got to the kitchen (more chandeliers, crème-and-gold countertops, flower-patterned fucking everything, and no trace of actual food), I stopped dead in my tracks.

Booger Face was sitting on the counter, dangling her purple sneakers in the air, laughing in delight. Mad was twisting Clementine’s unruly orange hair into a french braid, blabbering about warrior princesses. Amber was side-eyeing them behind her flute of champagne, not even pretending to listen to my mother’s litany of every store in town that had run out of the sandals she was after. Julian, who stood next to his wife, gave me a death stare, his white-knuckled hold on his champagne nearly smashing the glass to dust. A stab of petty glee prickled my chest.

Madison was giving them no reason to suspect we were less than two lovebirds. Good. So good, in fact, I had to remind myself why having a girlfriend, even if it was sexy, capable Madison, wasn’t a good idea:

I sauntered into the kitchen, dropping a kiss on Clementine’s crown of crazy orange hair. I wrapped my arm around Madison. “What’s good?”

“Everything!” Mom turned to me, her voice shrill. “Everything is great. The banana bread looks delicious. Thank you, Maddie.”

“Looks awfully similar to the one they sell at Levain down the road,” Amber muttered into her drink. Her short red minidress was perfect for a pelvic examination or amateur college porn.

“Been hitting the bakery often, Am?” I deliberately swept my eyes along her toned, fit frame just for shits and giggles.

She turned the color of her dress, narrowing her eyes at me. “Actually, I lost three pounds. I’m doing this new hot sculpt yoga class five times a week.”

“Your accomplishments know no bounds.”

“What about you, Maddie—do you exercise?” She turned to my fake fiancée, smiling at her sweetly.

Madison, pretending to be oblivious to her host’s passive-aggressiveness, snapped Booger Face’s braid in a thin pink elastic. “Not unless you count walking from the living room to the kitchen to fetch some ice cream while The Walking Dead is on commercial break. I really should switch to AMC Premiere, but I need the physical activity. And there are so many commercial breaks.”

I stifled a grin, delighted by Mad’s response to a paling, thoroughly annoyed Amber.

“Wow. I can’t imagine my life without working out.” Amber played with her diamond necklace.

“It’s a terrible existence,” Maddie agreed easily, “but someone’s gotta do it.”

I wanted to kiss her.

I wanted to kiss her bad.

The fact I technically could, because she was my so-called fiancée, didn’t help matters. I knew Martyr Maddie wouldn’t slap me in the face if I tried to kiss her publicly, but I couldn’t muster enough assholeness to go from rude and surly to straight-up bastard.

The meal was buffet-style. All the dishes were still in their prepacked catering containers, spread across the massive U-shaped kitchen island. As with everything Julian and his wife did, it was beautifully impersonalized.

There were honey-glazed crab cakes and artichoke bottoms stuffed with crabmeat, miso-marinated Hawaiian butterfish and cucumber bites. This time, Mad took a chance on most of the dishes. It was Clementine who sat in horror in front of her plate, her big green eyes staring at the heap of dead sea creatures.

“But Mom . . . ,” she kept saying. “Mommy. Mommy. Mom. Mommy.”

“Jesus Christ, Julian, just give her some Cheerios,” Amber finally snapped, when it was obvious she couldn’t continue telling Katie her story of how she’d been mistaken for Kate Hudson at Saks Fifth Avenue.

“But I don’t want Cheerios.” Clementine pouted, her brows diving down. “I’m tired of eating them all the time. I want Grandma’s pancakes.”

“Grandma doesn’t have that special grandma mix.” Mom dropped her utensils on her plate, her eyes softening. Clementine spent a good amount of time at my parents’ house, and Mom braved the kitchen to treat her granddaughter to the one thing she made by herself and didn’t ask the cook to fix—instant mix pancakes.

It was my understanding that Amber and Julian’s relationship was an endless string of arguments, with Julian getting kicked out of the house frequently and Amber crying herself to sleep on a weekly basis. My parents tried to shield Booger Face from this reality as much as they could.

Madison watched the exchange with thinly masked alert. I could see the wheels in her brain turning. She didn’t want to overstep, but she didn’t like Amber’s treatment of Booger Face. I didn’t think anyone did. That kid lived off cereal, Pop-Tarts, and air.

“What mix do you usually use?” Madison turned to my mother, placing a hand on her wrist. “For the pancakes?”

“Quick Wheat.”

“Okay, so flour, sugar, eggs, water, milk, and salt. Hershey’s Kisses if you have them too. Where’s your pantry?” She turned to Amber, her eyes daring her host to refuse. Yet again, I found myself hard. Was there anything Madison did that didn’t give me a raging erection? I tried to think. I hadn’t been hard when she’d assaulted the banana bread publicly. Although, if I was being honest, she’d still looked fuckable. Tie-able, too, though.

Amber smiled politely. “She can eat what everyone else is eating. In our household, everyone is having the same dish or no food at all. It’s a parent thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

Right under the belt. I looked over at Madison, who kept her smile fresh and sweet.

I agreed with Amber’s sentiment, but this was a pile of bullshit in Clementine’s case. Booger Face never had what everyone else was having. Amber simply wanted to punish Clementine for warming up to Madison. Only Clementine wasn’t privy to that.

“Isn’t she sensitive to shellfish?” Dad frowned at Julian. Julian turned his gaze helplessly to his wife. Jesus Christ. Katie dragged Clementine’s plate away from her. “Mildly allergic. It gives her a rash.”

“The doctor said she will develop immunity if she eats shellfish regularly.” Amber blushed under her makeup. I almost pitied her. She wasn’t a neglectful mother, but she had the maternal instincts of a bag of Cheetos. Booger Face had private tutors, and Amber took her to ballet lessons and taught her how to swim, ride a bike, and do cartwheels. She even took her to French lessons. Julian’s involvement in his kid’s life, however, was minimal and limited to patting her head like she was a Labrador every evening when he came back home. I had a theory that Amber had lost her soul the day she’d chosen Julian Black for a husband. Of course, being the president of the I Loathe Julian hate club for the past three years, I was a little biased. At any rate, I had a feeling I could recruit Mad as our newest member, judging by her interaction with the couple.

“Shouldn’t she start with small quantities?” Katie turned to Amber.

“I’m hun-grayyyyyy,” Clementine whined, throwing her head back.

“Really, it’ll be no trouble at all. It will take me ten minutes,” Madison began to explain in the cacophony of voices that spoke over one another.

“Just let her have pancakes!” my father boomed all of a sudden, slamming his fist on the table. The room fell quiet. Madison sprang into action, scurrying to the kitchen.

I turned my attention back to my food.

“Aren’t you going to accompany your fiancée?” Julian sat back, starting a new shitstorm.

I shrugged. “She can find her way around your kitchen.”

“Can you find your way to the twenty-first century, though? That’s quite chauvinistic.”

I fought an eye roll. “Since when is it chauvinistic to insinuate that my girlfriend can make her own food? Doesn’t it make her independent? Anyway, when was the last time you fixed yourself a plate of something that wasn’t bought at Whole Foods?”

“Girlfriend?” Julian arched an eyebrow that said busted. “Thought she was your fiancée.”

“Chase. Julian. Stop,” my mother bit out. “You’re upsetting your father.”

He started it, I wanted to protest. For obvious reasons, I didn’t.

I could see Madison making herself comfortable in Julian and Amber’s kitchen. Heard the sound of the sizzling butter as it hit the pan. The scent of warm sugar wafted through the air, and I didn’t think there was one asshole at the table who wanted to eat crab stuffed into organic vegetables instead of what my fake fiancée was making.

“I really like Maddie.” Booger Face sucked on her organic boxed juice, sighing.

“That’s nice, sweetheart.” Amber looked away from her plate, blinking rapidly.

“I really, really like her,” Clementine continued, not winning any tact points this evening. “It is nice of her to make me pancakes. I hope I see her in the clinic again soon.”

Amber snapped her head up like a guard dog who’d just heard a twig crunching under a boot. “In the clinic?”

“Yeah. When I went to get my shots. I wanted to say hello, but you were talking on the phone and said there was no time, remember?” Clementine glanced at her in confusion, and something very dark and very cold uncurled inside my chest. I bet Amber hadn’t been paying attention to what Clementine said at the time. “I saw her when I went to the doctor to get my shots. Maddie hugged my doctor. She hugged him hard. For a long time. Like couples in movies do. It was so disgusting.” Booger Face shivered, shaking her head with disgust.

The room was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat. All eyes slowly slid in my direction. I had nothing to say. Nothing other than WHY WAS MADISON HUGGING THE ASSHOLE WITH THE TIE AND TIGHTS LONG AND HARD LIKE COUPLES IN MOVIES DO?

Hugging led to other things, and all those things assaulted my brain in a collage of Mad and Dr. Tights going at it like bunnies in front of a pediatric clinic. Him grabbing the back of her neck roughly, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. I took a sip of my water, concentrating on not tossing the table and everything on it through the floor-to-ceiling window. I wanted to do something radical and violent and shocking but knew it wasn’t going to help my case.

I didn’t trust myself to speak. To think.

“Is that so, sweetheart?” Julian poured more water into my glass, his voice like a snake’s hiss. “What’s your pediatrician’s name again?”

“Dr. Goodman,” Clementine purred, stupidly delighted to be acknowledged by her father. “He has the best ties, Dad. Of cartoons and Disney characters. And he lets me pinch him when he gives me shots. I like him, even though he hugged Maddie so hard there was no space between their bodies. Then he kissed her cheek. Yuck.”

I was going to commit murder. I was sure of it.

Amber’s eyes were clinging to my face, but it was Katie who asked brokenly, “Chase? I mean . . . is this true?”

I had two options. Making Booger Face look like a liar—which she wasn’t—or chalking this up to her wild nine-year-old imagination. There was also a third option, of admitting it to be true and coming clean. But that meant letting Julian win. Three years ago, I’d have bowed out of this gracefully.

Today, though, it was war.

“Maybe you saw someone who looks like her, Booger.” I ran my hand through Clementine’s braid.

She stared at me, serious as a heart attack, scowling. “No, I didn’t. She wore the same green dress with the little avocados she did in the Hamptons. I told Mommy I want a dress like that, and she said she would rather set herself on fire than have me wear it.”

Fuck my life in the ass. I’d chosen the most recognizable woman in New York to play my doting fake fiancée. Everyone was watching our exchange intently. My father, especially, looked pale and extra frail. He knotted his fingers together, tapping his index fingers to his lips contemplatively.

I gave Julian a meaningful stare.

He waved his fingers at me dismissively. He didn’t fucking care.

Mad chose that exact moment to make her grand return with a big smile, oven mitts, and a plate stacked with a mountain of steaming pancakes. She slid the plate in Clementine’s direction, drenching the pancakes in enough maple syrup to drown a hamster. “There you go, sweets.”

“Maddie.” Julian almost sprawled in his seat, he was so smug. “Clementine just shared something very interesting with us. She said she saw you hugging her pediatrician, Dr. Goodman, this week, and that he kissed your cheek. Is this true?” He elevated an eyebrow, feigning surprise.

“Chase says she must’ve seen wrong.” Amber jumped on the shit wagon, recovering quickly from her failure to feed her own child. “But I know my daughter, and she is extremely observant.”

Madison’s eyes darted to me. I held her gaze. I wasn’t sure what I was asking her, but I knew if she was going to refuse it, there was a good chance I’d set the world on fire.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Since when were clocks so goddamn loud? I waited for her to say something. Anything. How the tables had turned. Six months ago, Madison Goldbloom would bend over backward to make me happy (quite literally—we’d tried that position twice). Now, I was at her mercy.

Her lips parted, and the room sucked in a collective breath.

“Oh, Dr. Goodman!” she exclaimed with her big Maddie smile, but I could see right through it. The self-disgust laced with panic swimming in her big brown eyes. “Clemmy, you definitely saw me! Dr. Goodman and I are old friends. He is practicing for a half marathon. I just dropped by with some baked goods because I was in the area visiting a friend.”

Of course. A friend. A friend. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

Because the only women you talk to who are not blood related to you end up in your bed. You wouldn’t recognize friendship with the fairer sex if it kneed you in the nuts.

Clementine seemed to be appeased by that, smiling her partly toothless grin at Madison like she’d hung the stars and moon for her.

Julian, however, wasn’t impressed by this bullshit. He looked between Mad and me, arching an eyebrow. He was about to say something I 100 percent didn’t want to hear, his mouth falling open, when a loud bang snapped everyone out of the drama. My gaze darted to the head of the table.

Dad.