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I laughed “Wait until you see what Rosa and Kyle have whipped up for dinner”

Ethan went in the direction of the reception I lingered in the foyer, awaiting our final guest I should have had ne in-hand, because I was suddenly wracked with nervous anxiety

How, exactly, did one break the kind of news I had to break to Mikaela Madsen?

Visions of her slapping me Joan Collins/Dynasty–style flashed in —out of heart-wrenching agony because she couldn’t accept the reality of my words—How could you be so cruel, Ari? How could you blatantly lie to ?

My throat tightened She’d be right in the accusation, even though it’d never been my intention to keep this from her—it’d been a necessity Imperative Out of my hands

Would she understand that?

I wrung my hands now as I paced the wide hallway,on the heated stone floor The elegant chandeliers lining the long corridor and vast entryere on a low setting The cut-crystal-and-glass adornlittery rays over the silvery-blue hue filling the house There was a large fireplace in the foyer, with roaring flae off the autu quality

Dane preferred gas fireplaces in every other roo one created a very ho ambience to the otherwise expansive house I wanted Mikaela to feel welcomed I wanted her to understand that she hadn’t been excluded from our clandestine efforts because she was any less important than the others in our circle Circumstance alone had dictated who learned of Dane’s existence And when

As I rationalized this in my mind, the vibrato chimes echoed in the hallway I juht uard It wasn’t a nor on our door We were set way back in the woods, along the creek, extremely difficult to find

But everyone currently in the house had our gate code because they had reason to coht noell Dane trusted her and so, too, did I

I pulled open the door and was instantly enveloped in a rich aroma that nearly hypnotized ht of her overpowered the scent of her

“Wow,” I said “You take cocktail reception attire to all-new levels”

“Ah, Ari” She affectionately gave air-kisses to both cheeks “Ciao, bella Emerald is your color!”

“I’m pretty fond of it” I ushered her in and carefully slipped the full-length fur coat from her shoulders “That dress is sensational” In fact, it looked straight out of Dynasty That didn’t bode well for me, did it? I’d strea froold, clingy with strategic cutouts Heidi Klum herself couldn’t have worn it better

“Rosa always did like fors,” Mikaela mused in her Italian accent I had yet to discern how she’d so quickly acquired it, since she’d been born and raised in Philadelphia, “next door” to Dane According to iven the size of their respective estates