“How did you convince them?” Jewel asked, and Stella frowned for a hot second before fixing her face. She already knew exactly how because Lloyd and Diane told her.

Ah, so she wants to air my backstory, Stella thought. She glanced at Harlow, who was watching her and waiting for an answer. If they were all a part of the story, then Jewel must have needed Harlow to hear it. To play or not to play …

“I told them I’m going to write an essay about you. Maybe even a book,” Stella said. “A tell-all bursting with every good, bad, weird, and intensely ugly fact I can dig up.”

Harlow gasped, actually gasped, letting her mouth hang open.

“What?” Stella asked, all innocence. “She agreed to give me a no-holds-barred interview. It’s why my parents said yes.”

“People lie, Stella,” Jewel said with a grin. “Why would I tell you anything about me?”

Stella decided to keep the innocent act going and added in a dash of faux confusion. “Why wouldn’t you? Aren’t celebrities always going on and on about how they can’t be normal? How everyone knows them and they have no privacy and they can’t trust anyone, waah!” She laughed lightly. “I don’t know you. I don’t care about you or any of this. Who better to be yourself with than little old oblivious me? Face it, we’re a romance novel waiting to happen.”

Jewel scoffed, blinking rapidly from shock as she looked away and back again. “Why would I want someone like you?”

Anyone else would have been insulted or instantly embarrassed. But not Stella.

Never Stella.

“Someone like me?” Stella mock-gasped and pressed her free hand to her chest. “You make me sound so scandalous and irresponsible. I love it. Though, truthfully, I’ve always thought of myself as the sheltered know-it-all with the tragic backstory, but I do have a soft spot for the corrupting bad-boy type. I can totally be that for you. If that’s what you need.”

Suddenly, Jewel smiled, nothing friendly about it. “What I need is for you to do a job for me.”

Against her better judgment, Stella glanced at Harlow, who met her gaze with a question. She had no idea what was going on either.

Jewel led them straight to a pair of double doors, which she pushed open with both hands. Bookshelves, a fireplace, a desk, inspirational art on the walls—someone’s dark cherrywood office.

“I’m listening,” Stella said.

“Harlow’s too seasoned,” Jewel said, nodding to her while opening the desk drawer. “They know her. But you, Stella, don’t have a leg in this race.”

Stella squinted. “That’s not how that saying works.”