Jesse sighed and unlocked his door. “She knows you don’t have that kind of money, Tiger Lily.” He pushed the door open. “Maybe she had a big falling-out with Tariq like she did with you. Or maybe the psycho girlfriend scared her off.”

Inside the apartment, I dropped onto the sofa and stared at the ceiling. “When were you going to tell me about the flowers and chocolates Martin sent?” I asked, my tone aiming for casual.

“The… oh.” Jesse’s face gave away his guilt. My friend was many things, but he’d never been a man who could hide his emotions. “Look, I thought it was for the best if you didn’t see ’em. You know, you were havin’ a tough day, and I didn’t want him comin’ on in and takin’ advantage. Steer clear of him, okay?”

Jesse’s meddling was nothing new. Part of me was annoyed with him, but a bigger portion was amused by the lengths he’d go to keep me safe. He was my big brother, gay boyfriend, and father confessor. I’d told him too much about my problems with Martin and now he loathed him on sight. Jesse was better at holding a grudge than I was. After a year of dating Martin, I’d accidentally learned that my lover had been married twice before, not the one trip to the altar he’d admitted. The news had upset me, though I couldn’t really explain why; Jesse had been furious about it. Worse was the lady architect, as Jesse dubbed her. She had come to the party Martin and I had thrown to celebrate our engagement. Her wide-eyed expression brought to mind Anne Baxter in All About Eve, and I got used to seeing it at dinner parties and events. That’s a bulldozer disguised as a powder puff, Jesse warned me. Later, I learned that she’d traveled with Martin to London and Dubai and Singapore, a fact she let slip one evening while smiling at me over a martini. When I confronted him, Martin insisted that the trips were for work. I never found out what, if anything had happened between them, and my questions lingered. I cyber-stalked the lady architect now and then, and had found that she had married and moved back to Virginia. But the uncertainty had fractured my relationship with Martin.

“I wasn’t tryin’ to deprive you of chocolate, y’know,” Jesse added. “Tomorrow I’m gettin’ you a box from MarieBelle. Sweets for the sweet.”

He knew how to worm his way back into my heart better than Martin did. MarieBelle was our shared obsession, a Soho shop with treats worth breaking any diet for. I closed my eyes and sighed. “Do you want to open a bottle of wine?”

“Nah. Don’t get too comfy there,” Jesse warned. “I’m runnin’ you a bath.”