“I know! I felt so bad about that. I never should’ve gone out with Linc when this was happening with Alex. I’d only met him the day before, and you guys had gone to the trouble of fixing me up with Linc, so I didn’t want to cancel.”

“What did Linc say when he took you home?”

“That he’d had a good time and wanted to see me again.”

“Ouch.”

“I told him things were complicated at the moment, and it wasn’t the best time for me to be starting something. I’m a bad person.”

“Stop it,” Syd said. “You had the plans with Linc long before you threw tomatoes at Alex. How were you supposed to know that was going to happen?”

“True, but still… I probably should’ve canceled the date with Linc after I rolled around naked in the sand with Alex.”

Sydney fanned her face again. “This is so hot.”

“It got hotter when I decided to go after Alex and found him standing in my doorway. We were all over each other. We…you know…had sex. Lots and lots of sex, so much sex I couldn’t move yesterday. I think he might’ve sexed me into a fever.”

Sydney lost it laughing. “Girlfriend, if anyone deserves to be sexed into a fever, it’s you.”

“I haven’t told him about Toby,” Jenny said, getting to the heart of the matter. “Before this goes any further, I have to tell him. Especially since I had the dream again last night, and I said Toby’s name. Alex asked me who he was. I said he was my fiancé. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the rest.”

“Because you’re afraid of the look.”

“Yes! I like the way he treats me now—not like I’m fragile and breakable, but like I’m strong and sexy. I don’t want that to change, but I also don’t want him to hear about it from someone else.”

“That is a predicament.” Sydney got up and headed for the kitchen. “We need beverages.”

Jenny followed her and gratefully accepted the tall glass of icy lemonade that Sydney poured for her.

Sydney leaned against the counter, eyeing Jenny shrewdly. “You really like this guy?”

“I do. I feel a connection with him that I’ve only ever had with one other person. He’s told me it’s a terrible time for him to be starting something, that he has nothing to offer me, but that doesn’t keep me from wanting to be with him. And it hasn’t kept him from coming back to me either.”

“Then I think you tell him the story, but you also say what you don’t want. Put it right out there. Tell him it would hurt you if he treated you differently in the future because of what he knows about you.”

“You think that’ll work?”