Hudson waited until Aidan had taken a long pull on a bottle of water to say, “So. Lily, huh?”

Chapter 13

The salon turned out to be an interesting place. Cassandra stopped by daily, eight months pregnant and bored out of her mind. Today she plopped herself into the massage chair they had for waiting clients. When she turned it on, her body shimmied and shook in an alarming fashion.

“Turn that thing down,” Jonathan said. “You’re going to go into labor.”

“That’s the idea,” she said, turning the chair up.

Jonathan pointed at her. “If you birth that thing in here, I’m going to …” He paused like he couldn’t think of anything heinous enough.

And while he was thinking, Cassandra doubled over with a cry.

“Oh, God,” Jonathan said, face going white. “What the hell did I tell you?”

Cassandra lifted her face and grinned. “Gotcha.”

Jonathan just stared at her. “You’re not in labor?”

“Nope.”

Jonathan let out a long, slow, shaky breath, a hand to his heart.

Cassandra laughed and kept on with her massage chair antics. She also got her kicks out of announcing every little event, such as “The baby just stuck her foot into my bladder” or “I think I lost my plug” or “Don’t get too close, I’m gassy today and there’s some hang time.”

Lily couldn’t imagine the feeling of having someone step on her bladder and she had no idea what a plug was, but she made sure to stay out of Cassandra’s personal space bubble so as not to experience any of the hang time.

“Am I wearing pants?” Cassandra asked the room. “I hope I remembered pants today. I don’t want anyone to see my cankles.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be home building a nest or something?” Jonathan asked her, still irritated.

“I’m nesting here,” Cassandra said on a yawn. “And it’s hard work.”

Jonathan sighed and brought her some hot tea.

Lily didn’t expect to have clients right away, but she’d underestimated the far reach of the Internet. Jonathan referred people to her, but mostly they seemed to come out of the woodwork wanting her to spill celebrity gossip. Her nine o’clock was a thirty-something mom of two originally from San Diego who now ran a bookkeeping service in Cedar Ridge.

“So you’re back home after the big to-do, huh?” she asked Lily. “I thought the celebrities liked when you leaked stuff about them.”

Lily kept her sigh to herself. “Turns out it depends on who it is.”

Sympathetic eyes met hers in the mirror. “Let me guess. Your boss told you to notify the paparazzi and then when it backfired, you took the heat.”

Lily’s throat caught at the simple validation that this shit happened, all the time, and really she hadn’t done anything wrong. She was so stunned she couldn’t speak.