Claire winced. “Um, do I have to answer? I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that in a month, you’ll be Mrs. West. Or are you keeping your name?”

“I’ll keep it,” Audrey said. “Over a million people know me as @TheAudreyTate. It’s literally my job to be her.”

“And you don’t think they’d follow @TheAudreyWest?”

“Huh,” Audrey said, tilting her head. “I’d never thought of it, but that doesn’t sound bad, does it?”

“It doesn’t. But I think you have plenty of time to figure it out,” Naomi said.

“Does she?” Claire asked doubtfully. “Her engagement’s now moving at warp speed.”

“Oh please,” Audrey said. “You literally went to Paris as a single woman and came back married a week later.”

Claire grinned. “That’s true. Best decision of my life, too.”

“Well, this is the best decision of my life,” Audrey said. “So there.”

She picked up her menu, wanting—needing—a break from the conversation, but she didn’t miss the concerned look her friends exchanged.

She understood. The three of them had made a pact, and she knew they saw it as their duty to look out for her romantic interests, just as she’d looked out for theirs. Audrey just hoped they could understand that all situations were not created equally.

They’d made an agreement to help protect each other from scoundrels, yes. But there were different ways of doing that. With Naomi, it had been helping to expose one scoundrel so that she could see what was right in front of her—Oliver. With Claire, it had been helping her friend see that all men weren’t like Brayden, and that some, like Scott, were pretty damn great. And absolutely perfect for her.

But Audrey didn’t fit into either category. She hadn’t given up on love. She didn’t think all men were cheats. She just knew that with the big kind of love came big risks, and she didn’t think she could survive another Brayden. Or at least her heart couldn’t.

So, yes, she knew from the outside, she and Clarke sounded crazy. Even on the inside, it was a little bit nuts. But it was safe. He was safe.

Clarke was the only man who’d always been simply Audrey’s, no one else’s.

But now she just had to figure out how not to want him so that she didn’t lose him.

Chapter Nineteen

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26

I’m still not understanding why I need to be here?” Clarke said, feeling uncomfortably large and, well, male, in the decidedly feminine space.

“It was part of the deal,” Audrey said, picking up something that looked like a pile of hot-pink string and setting it back down again. “The store’s giving me an entire trousseau on the house. In exchange, I document the shopping process. With my lover.”