I smiled back and told her the truth. “There’s no way I’m better than Mrs. Bennet.”

“You’re at least equal in my book. Would you teach me something?” she asked earnestly.

Though I wanted to run, there was nowhere to go. So I said, “I’ll show you what I know.”

And with my stomach sick and twisted, I showed the one woman Luke had ever loved my secrets, all except one.

LUKE

I couldn’t stop smiling.

It was like my teeth were greased, my cheeks aching as I pulled up in the delivery truck.

Tess was inside—that was reason one. Reason two was that she was not only inside, but had agreed to be mine. Reason three was that I had something to tell her.

Something big.

After my last delivery, I’d run to a meeting after getting a text from a buddy I used to bartend with. His sister worked for Floral magazine, and I’d hit him up, asking for a meeting, which he’d delivered in the form of an ambush at a coffee shop. An elevator pitch and our Instagram feed—that was all it had taken to get her to agree to another meeting, a real meeting, one that could end in a feature. A cover feature, if I could manage it.

Tess might have been right. Mom might actually have a heart attack.

Now that I’d convinced Tess to date me, my new life mission was to manage that cover feature.

I killed the engine and popped open the door, waving at my Dad and Kash as I bounded toward the shop.

Toward Tess.

I wanted to see the look on her face when I told her, wanted the kisses she’d grant me after, wanted to spin her around and hear her laugh and to share this feeling with her. Her, before my mom or my siblings, before anybody in the world, I wanted to tell her.

I threw open the swinging doors to the workroom like the goddamn King of Siam.

“Tess,” I called, scanning the workroom. “You’re never gonna believe—”

The words died in my throat, my smile gone for the first time in twenty-four hours.

There was Tess, looking at me like a sheep that just realized she stood in the slaughterhouse, her eyes big and brown and too deep to fathom. And Ivy, who cut a scowl in my direction.

And Wendy. Standing next to Tess. Smiling at me like she hadn’t seen me in a decade and had missed every minute.

I stared at them like I was looking at a crime scene, the details sharp and screaming—Tess’s shock and worry, the stillness of the room, the hope in Wendy’s eyes. And then I found myself, slapping a smile back on my face.

New-new mission: defuse whatever the fuck was happening here and get Wendy the hell out of the shop. Immediately.

“Well,” I started, schooling my voice for maximum amiability, “you are about the last person I expected to see today.”