Faking Ms. Right (Dirty Martini Running Club #1)(79)

“Mind if we sit?” Nora asked, pointing at the two chairs on the other side of my desk.

“Please.”

Hazel sat, her back stick straight. The way she regarded me, her expression impossible to read, made me feel like a subject in a lab experiment.

Nora lowered herself more slowly and set her handbag down at her feet. “Shepherd, we have a problem.”

I knew I had a problem. An Everly-shaped problem, right in the center of my chest. But we had a problem? Were they here to chew me out on Everly’s behalf?

“We?”

“Yes, we,” Nora said, and Hazel nodded so hard she had to fix her glasses. “Do you have any idea where Everly is right now?”

“No, she took all her vacation time,” I said. “Why? Don’t you know where she is?”

“Oh, we know exactly where she is,” Nora said. “Miami.”

A sense of dread hit me in the pit of my stomach. “Why is she in Miami?”

“Remember her phone interview last week?” Nora asked, and I nodded once. “It went well. So well, in fact, that they invited her to come for an in-person interview. In Miami. She left this morning.”

My eyes widened. Miami? As in, Florida? “What the fuck?”

“Exactly,” Nora said. “I’m glad we’re on the same page. We need to do something about this.”

“We want what’s best for Everly,” Hazel said. “And there’s a slim chance that moving to Miami is what’s best for her.”

Nora waved a hand. “Maybe, but I doubt it. Hazel and I agreed that if she really has her heart set on Miami, and the job is a once in a lifetime opportunity, we’ll support her even though we’ll be devastated to lose our bestie. After all, Miami is a great place to visit.”

I gaped at her, still too shocked at the notion of Everly moving to the opposite corner of the country to say a word.

“However,” Nora continued, “I’m not even remotely convinced this is what’s best for her.”

“Neither am I,” Hazel said.

Nora pointed to her friend. “If Hazel agrees with me, you know I’m right. That’s how this works. The job might be fantastic, but all three of us know what’s really important here.”

“What?” I managed to croak out.

“You,” Nora said, her tone matter-of-fact. “You’re obviously her true love and if there’s anyone in this world who deserves to spend the rest of her life in blissful happiness with her true love, it’s Everly.”

“Precisely,” Hazel said.

“Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are.” Nora re-crossed her legs. “I don’t even believe in true love. But Everly was made for it. She’s like a princess in a fairy tale. A sunshiney, overly-optimistic princess with terrible dating luck, but a princess nonetheless.”

I had no idea what to say to that. But Nora wasn’t finished.

“Let me level with you, Shepherd. You messed this up, and you messed it up badly. But I’m still on your team, mostly because Everly genuinely loves you and I’ve decided to channel my inner Everly and try to see the best in you. So we’re here to help.”

“Help?”

Hazel sighed. “Help you, of course.”

“You need to fix this,” Nora said.

“Why is this my fault?” I asked, knowing full well it was my fault. Mostly, at least.

Nora’s brows knitted together. “Is that a serious question?”

Hazel glanced at her. “I think he’s serious.”

“Maybe I was too harsh with her, but she kept the sperm donor thing from me.”

“Too harsh is an understatement,” Nora said. “Did you really expect her to tell you about that, especially after she’d already decided she wasn’t going to go through with it?”

“It’s an uncomfortable topic to begin with,” Hazel said. “And the dynamic of you being her employer made it particularly awkward.”

“She had an ulterior motive that she kept from me. I trusted her and…” I trailed off. I didn’t want to get into all the ways I’d trusted Everly. How hard that had been for me.

“You feel a sense of betrayal because you discovered information that changed the way you viewed your relationship with Everly,” Hazel said.

“Yes, exactly.”

“It’s natural to need some time and space to process that information,” Hazel said.

“But now we need you to get your head out of your ass so you can fix this and bring our girl back,” Nora said.

“Excuse me?”

Nora sighed. “Shepherd, you know her. You know what a big heart she has. She’d do just about anything for the people she loves.”

I rubbed my chin, my eyes on my desk. Everly had the biggest heart of anyone I’d ever met.

“Maybe we were wrong about you,” Nora said. “But answer me one question.”

“What?”

“Do you love her?”

“Yes.” The answer rolled off my tongue so fast, I blinked in shock that I’d admitted it to them.

Nora and Hazel glanced at each other, smiling.

“We thought so,” Nora said. “Everyone who saw you together at the engagement party could tell.”