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She stopped walking, turned and smiled at me. “I’m glad you said that. That is just what I was planning to do. It is my day off.”

“You don’t have days off.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Whatever,” I shot back. It was a longstanding debate and neither of us had ever conceded more than a whatever in defeat. And by that I meant me. There’d been no whatever from her. She remained consistently stubborn on the point. On all points, really. The adorable little shrew.

It was a few hours later when I caught sight of Ro. The party was in full swing when I noticed her and something strange happened in my brain.

Something vital disconnected.

Or maybe it snapped.

I started behaving strangely, in a way that I couldn’t account for.

She was standing across the pool, flanked by my friends Lourdes, Frankie, and Iris, and she was laughing at whatever Iris had just said.

I didn’t recognize her at first. I’d never seen her wearing so little clothing. The itty bitty black bikini that barely covered her essentials was wholly uncharacteristic for her.

Which was why I immediately blamed the three wicked women she currently found so fucking funny.

Troublemaking females, I thought with a huff.

Her figure wasn’t boxy. On the country, she had delicate, shapely shoulders, world class, natural tits, and a tiny waist that shaped into some very grabbable hips.

She had a knock ’em out and kill ’em, figure, and she’d been hiding it like her life depended on it this entire fucking time.

I’d strongly suspected, but having it confirmed was not helpful at all.

I watched the women huddled together, gimlet-eyed. Iris, Devereux, Frankie and Lourdes and several other party girls I vaguely recognized.

I was lounging in the shade under a cabana, Dair next to me, Heath on the other side of him.

I sent Dair a look, and he nodded silently. He saw what was happening.

I sent Heath the same look, but he just glared at me and kept sipping his beer. Even with the soothing influence of his lovely wife Lourdes and their cute little son, he was still the scariest motherfucker I’d ever met.

“Seriously?” I asked the men. “No one else is worried about this? Look at them. They’re planning world domination over there. We should be frightened.”

Even Heath laughed at that one.

“Iris likely is,” Heath said, laugh dying, serious again. She was his sister, so he knew better than anyone how diabolical she was. “She could pull it off, too.”

“See? My God, she is scary. Do you understand how scary she is, Dair?”

He was smiling fondly at his much younger wife. She saw him, winked, and shook her barely covered, perky ass in his direction.

He was so far gone, I didn’t know why I bothered.

It was like he’d totally forgotten her scorched earth campaign to take his soul. She’d pursued him like a detective on a hot case and upended his whole life in the process.

My eyes narrowed when I saw what they were doing then. “Do you see this?” I asked loudly.

“See what?” Dair asked good-naturedly.

“What they’re doing!”

“Shots? What’s the big deal?”