LITMIR.BIZ

      To my brilliant, hilarious, talented, sweet,

       beautiful and more-fun-than-fiction children.

       You are my real-life Happily-Ever-Afters. I love you.

      PROLOGUE

      “SO YOU TAKE your reckless adventuring like you take your coffee: lukewarm and watered down?”

      Nichole Daniels stared first at the shu mai being jabbed in dumpling accusation from across their small table, and then at the gleaming blue eyes centering her best friend’s face beyond. “Hypothetical reckless adventuring. And, for clarification, I want to enjoy my coffee. Not get hurt by it. So I take it hot, but not scalding. I like it brewed strong, but cut with something creamy to avoid heartburn.”

      Maeve snorted. “You cut it with skim milk. Cripes! The whole point of this was to embrace the no-consequences element of a fantasy we weren’t planning to live out. I mean, seriously, I don’t want to be trapped on a deserted island at all. And if I actually was, I’d hope it would be with some kind of mechanical genius who played survival games of the non-cannibal variety in his spare time. But for the purpose of this chatty lunchtime game girlfriends play … in a context separate from reality … for one single night without consequences maybe you’d want something robust … rich … Oh, my God … something topped with whipped cream!”

      “Enough, enough.” Nichole laughed, cutting into Maeve’s ramping excitement before the whole restaurant started staring at them. “I get the concept. Honestly, I’m just not interested.”

      Maeve narrowed her eyes. “It’s a fantasy. How can you not be interested?”

      Echoes of a distant conversation teased through Nichole’s mind—accusations and blame, heartbreak and humiliation, and the fantasy she’d bet her future on revealed for the nightmare it was. Everything she’d lost. Everyone.

      She’d been down that road. Twice already. No thanks for a third.

      It didn’t pay to pretend. Not even over a dim sum lunch with her best friend.

      “I’m just not,” she managed through a stiff smile.

      “Hence your overnight-on-a-deserted-island order for a male of unspecified looks who’s safe, honest and can keep up his end of a conversation.” Another jab of the chopsticks. “Lame.”

      “Not lame. Maybe my reality is everything I want it to be. How about that? I’ve got a kickass career, a button-cute place in a cool neighborhood and the greatest friends in the world,” she said, batting her eyes at the best of them. “What more could a girl ask for?”

      “Do you want me to start down at the toes or up at the head … Or should I just start in the middle, ‘cause that region might make my point a little faster.”

      “None of the above! Now, stop taunting me with your dumpling or I’m going to eat it.”

      Maeve snapped her chopsticks back, popping the shrimp bundle into her mouth with a grin. On finishing the bite, though, her look became more contemplative than teasing. “I’m serious, Nikki. It’s been three years. Don’t you ever get lonely?”

      Nichole stared back, the word no poised on her tongue. Only as the seconds stretched, the single word that was the lie she’d been telling herself for all too long suddenly wouldn’t form. Her life was so right—in all the ways that mattered—she hadn’t let herself think too much about those times when the stillness of her apartment left a sort of hollow feeling deep in her chest. Or when the empty chair across her table kept her from using the bay window breakfast nook that was half the reason she’d signed the lease in the first place. But they were there, nonetheless, apparently lying in wait for the right opportunity

Скачать книгу