I pop the last of my scone in my mouth and wash it down with a long drink of tea. Bea watches me, revulsion painting her face, followed by a full-body shudder. It’s so subversively enjoyable to make her writhe, I almost can’t swallow without laughing.

“You’re a strange man.” Shaking her head, Bea analyzes the board. “So what’s the strategy?”

“Well, you opened with a French Defense, so here we are.”

“I’m not talking about chess, Jamie. I’m talking about the meddlers, who are entirely responsible for the fact that you and I are having a coffee date instead of avoiding each other like the plague.”

“Coffee and green tea. Let’s be inclusive.”

She hovers over her pawn, then drops her hand, staring at the board. “I’m pissed. You’re perturbed. But that doesn’t solve our problem. My sister’s so hell-bent on me dating again, she swindled me into going on a date.”

“Same with Jean-Claude.” Turning over the situation, I sip my tea. “What a maddening irony that we won’t be safe from their pressure to date until we’re dating again—”

“Oh my God.” Bea’s eyes widen. “That’s it, you genius.”

“What? What’s genius?”

She bounces in her seat. “We have to convince them that their plan worked. We have to pretend we’re falling in love.”

“I’m not following. Why would we feign a romantic relationship?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, the logic slips into place. “Oh. To get them to leave us alone?”

“I mean, that’ll be a nice perk.” Her eyes glint mischievously. “We fake a romance to crush their dreams, James. Give them a taste of their own shitty medicine and show them how much being manipulated blows.”

“How?”

Bea leans in, washing me with her soft, warm scent, which is unsettlingly pleasant. “We pretend to date, get them invested in us, convince them that we’re blissfully happy. Then . . . ?”

A lightbulb pings over my head. “Then we break up?”

“Yes.” She nods triumphantly. “Then we break up.”

Sitting back in my chair, I run my palm against my jaw. “I don’t on principle believe in revenge.”

She rolls her eyes. “God forbid you step one tiny toe outside the line of your moral code, you curmudgeonly Capricorn.”

“Would you stop with the astrological nonsense—”

She gasps. “Take that back. It’s not nonsense.”

I sigh heavily. “Beatrice—”

“You”—she jabs a finger in my direction—“could not be more of a Capricorn. Look it up. Prepare to be humbled, Mr. Rules and Regulations.”

“Rules and regulations exist for a reason. They provide order and structure, they establish clear expectations and dictate appropriate behavior—”

“Which our ‘friends’ completely violated,” she fires back.

“And because they crossed a line, we should, too? Two wrongs don’t make a right.”