Ignoring the jab, Nicola continued, “You don’t have… typical relationships. But I think Boss Man’s doing a number on you, in a good way. It might help you figure it out if you talked about it, like, chick to chick.”

Sugar crossed her arms, her defenses going into high gear. Battle guards up. Shields at the ready.

Nicola tried again. “Impressive, huh? Somehow, I had no doubt, but don’t tell Cash I said that.”

Sugar tried to imagine gossiping about Jared, a man who thought he was God. After all, on the floor, she’d moaned both, “God” and “Jared.” Guess it’d be easy enough to get confused.

Unfolding her arms, Sugar mumbled, “I’ll try the friend thing on a trial run.”

“Trial run.” Nicola’s laughter bubbled. “There’s a club downstairs. I think you’re in need of a couple drinks. Asal has to spend the night with the UN attaché tonight, so it’s game on for us.”

Sugar studied the woman who was volunteering to be her friend. It wasn’t that she couldn’t make friends. She had plenty of GUNS gals to kick back with, but none she trusted. Still, she walked to the counter, took the folded paper, and handed it to Nicola.

Nicola glanced at the paper, then her. “This is…”

“An e-mail between me and my sister. She’s watching GUNS for me while I’m gone.”

The paper crinkled as Nicola unfolded it. In the background, Asal was on her feet, singing the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song in English. Smart kid.

Nicola read the e-mail and then folded it, shaking her head. “Nosy. They act like they’re not. But those men couldn’t keep their noses out of private crap if it killed them.” She bit her lip in thought. “But if it were my guess, Parker hacked into your e-mail to pull details on the GSI project, saw this, and decided Boss Man needed a kick in his impressive ass.”

Sugar flinched at the invasion of her privacy. “I don’t even know Parker, and he’s up in my business.”

“Parker’s the most well behaved of the bunch. That’s not saying much, but he’s discreet. He’s the tech guy. Can hack into any system, phone, computer, whatever, if you gave him the right tools. But Jared had this on him? That says a lot.”

“Yeah, that he’s a dick. Which I already knew. So no new revelations. The sex was hot, and hopefully, we got it out of our system.”

“You’re lying.”

“Christ, everyone keeps calling me a liar.”

“Don’t lie, and maybe that’ll stop.”

Sugar walked over to a barstool and leaned on it. The truth blows. Her feelings were written in that e-mail, and she’d teared up after Jared had left and she had kicked over a chair.

She cleared her throat. “Jared needs to be a one-time rodeo. He and I… we think the same. Or at least we did. Then something happened up here.” She tapped her temple. “And I wanted more.”