“You’re buying Ethan flowers?” Madison echoed, letting her mouth drop into a perfect O shape.

“Yes. And myself.”

“And yourself.”

“Are you just going to repeat everything I say?” I inquired politely.

“Yes, until you make some sort of sense to me.”

“Very well.” I took her hand in mine—the second time we’d held hands in a week—dragging her deeper into the store. The scent of pollen was so thickly sweet I almost gagged. I didn’t know how Mad could like it. But of course she could. It smelled like her childhood and nostalgia and her mother. I didn’t know how I hadn’t thought of it before. Kudos to Ethan for figuring it out before me. Flowers. Simply fucking genius.

“I understand you have some reservations regarding our relationship and would like to tweak the fine print of our arrangement. Remember I told you I want to keep doing this until my father passes away?” I asked, ignoring how bitter the words felt in my mouth.

Dad was feeling like shit, but he continued coming to work every day. Julian was running around dropping hints about the state of Dad’s health to shareholders and investors, anonymously tipping the media about a major change coming on the board. Grant had caught him in the act, after Julian had checked into a hotel room twenty minutes before a Wall Street reporter was directed into the same room. My best friend had been at the restaurant in the lobby of the hotel, having lunch with his mother.

My cousin was definitely going for what we called in chess “the double attack.”

“By ‘doing this,’ you mean ‘doing me,’ right?” Madison frowned, her eyes roaming the place like it was a candy shop. She couldn’t help herself. She touched an orange-purple flower, fingering its velvety petal between her fingers and shivering with pleasure. That was all it took to make my cock jerk in my pants.

“Yes,” I said. “But I decided to give you the whole fiancée package at the discount price of just having your company.”

“What does the fiancée package include?” She yawned. Not a good start.

“Dating, movie nights, restaurants, fucking, meeting your dad.” I let that last one sink in, watching her face, but she remained stoic, focused on the flowers in front of her as she leaned down to sniff the sunflowers.

“I’m serious about this,” I added.

“You cheated on me,” she pointed out for the millionth time.

Not this old tune again. It was time she knew the truth. I touched her arm, making her gaze dart up to mine. “I didn’t cheat on you.”

She groaned, pretending not to care. “I saw you.”

“No, what you saw was me coming into my apartment with someone else. You didn’t see me touch her. You didn’t see me kiss her. I never did.”

“There were lipstick marks on your dress shirt.” She turned around to me fully now. She wasn’t whispering either. A thirtysomething couple who was very clearly looking at flowers for their wedding eyed us curiously.

Keep watching, assholes.

“It wasn’t my shirt.”

“Of course it wasn’t.” Mad threw her head back and laughed. A bitter laugh I never wanted to hear from her mouth again. It sounded foreign. Completely un-Madison-like. The woman next to the man beside us elbowed her beau, cocking her head in our direction. Un-fucking-believable. I gave the husband-to-be a what-the-fuck glare.

He shrugged helplessly. “Sorry, bro. Sounds like you kind of brought this on yourself.” He chuckled.

I turned my attention back to Madison. “The shirt wasn’t mine. It was Grant’s. He hooked up with someone. No, let me amend—he was in the middle of hooking up with someone and got called in for work. Understandably, he couldn’t show up wearing a shirt that suggested he was vacationing in Ho Island.”

“So you volunteered your shirt.” More sarcasm.

“Correct,” I gritted out. “Remember that shirt? It was white. I don’t wear white. I only wear—”

“Black,” she finished for me, her eyes flaring. She had a light bulb moment. I’d worn black that day. Hell, I wore black any day. There was a beat of silence. The couple beside us looked invested in our exchange, and I’d have given them a piece of my mind if I weren’t completely focused on explaining to Madison what she’d really seen that night.

“It doesn’t matter, anyway. So what if it was Grant’s shirt? The woman you brought home was real. I saw her. I guess she just followed you? No”—she held her hand up, smiling, but there was nothing happy about that smile—“she was just running away from an ax murderer, and you gave her shelter, right?”

The woman beside us giggled. Her fiancé tucked his chin down, hiding a grin. I was going to kill someone. Likely myself for coming up with that stupid plan in the first place.

“I brought her home because I knew you’d be there,” I said dryly.

“You couldn’t have.” Mad shook her head. “I told no one other than . . .”

“Katie,” I finished for her. “Katie told me. I mentioned I might spend my birthday weekend in Florida with Grant. She told me I wouldn’t want to do that, then revealed your plan.”

By the look on Madison’s face, I knew the penny had dropped. Caught in an emotional tornado at the restaurant the other day, Mad had forgotten she’d told Katie about the birthday surprise prior to waiting in my apartment. So at the restaurant, she recited her story about the cheating bastard she caught, but she wasn’t privy to the fact Katie had told me about Madison waiting for me in lingerie in my bed.

And she forgot she herself had informed Katie she’d be waiting for me in my bedroom.

Katie wasn’t stupid. She’d done the math but hadn’t said anything. At least one person in my family already knew what Julian was dying to uncover—I’d fucked up.

“And you brought her home so I’d catch you.” Mad’s nostrils flared.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted you to see.”

“Why?”

“Because things were getting too real too fast, and I don’t do real, Madison. I think we both know I don’t do fast either.” I glared at the couple next to us pointedly. The guy blushed. Really? Now I didn’t even care his girl was judging me. She was sentenced to a life with a prematurely ejaculating husband.