Hitting the Right Note Read Free Page B

her!”
    â€œOh my goodness, JJ!” Sydney squealed. “That’s amazing!”
    â€œYeah, yeah, that’s great,” Lissandra said, cutting in impatiently. “But we have bigger issues here. Do you know Sydney wants to move Sheree into the house?”
    JJ momentarily forgot her news at the mention of the name Sheree. “What!”
    â€œNow, JJ, before you jump to any conclusions, hear me out,” Sydney said. “You know I wouldn’t do this unless it was really serious. Plus I didn’t say for sure that we were going to do it, I was just saying we should consider it.”
    â€œConsider it?” JJ asked, her stomach tightening. “You want me to consider living with Sheree, the woman who lied about being pregnant so she could marry our brother, Dean, then stole his money, and left him so distraught he ran his car into a tree and ended up in the hospital?”
    â€œI know but—”
    â€œSydney, this is the same woman who almost ran you off the road with her car less than six months ago,” JJ continued. “The same woman who left us with debt up to our eyeballs from Dean’s medical bills. The same woman who has caused our family nothing but chaos since we met her.”
    â€œI agree, but—”
    â€œThis woman almost ruined your relationship with Hayden,” JJ argued.
    â€œI know,” Sydney said, cutting in. “But Hayden is the reason I am asking you guys to consider this. He is Sheree’s half brother and pretty much the only family she has left. If he doesn’t want to give up on her, how can I? And now that we’re talking marriage, I have to accept that she is going to be a part of my life too. Actually, all our lives.”
    â€œOh, hell no,” Lissandra said.
    â€œSydney, you can’t be serious. I can’t think of anything that would make me be okay with moving Sheree into our home,” JJ said.
    â€œWell, maybe—”
    â€œBabe,” Rayshawn called from the kitchenette. “You think they have any club soda? Was thinking of making some of your sangria.”
    JJ winced and covered the mouthpiece of the phone. But the dead silence on the line told her it was too late. With the mouthpiece still covered, she rushed over to her mini fridge, dug out a bottle of carbonated water, and tossed it at Rayshawn before slipping into the bathroom and closing the door.
    â€œWho was that?” Sydney asked finally.
    JJ cleared her throat. “Uh, no one.”
    â€œSo no one has a deep male voice and calls you babe?” Lissandra asked.
    JJ said nothing.
    â€œDon’t tell me that Saint Judith has a man in her hotel room,” Lissandra said with a laugh. “Oh, this is too good.”
    JJ’s cheeks burned, even though she knew her sisters couldn’t see her. She needed to end this conversation now.
    â€œSo you were about to say something about Sheree?”
    â€œUh-uh,” Sydney said. “We’re not about to skip over this. Do you really have a man in your hotel room, JJ? Please tell me that Lissandra isn’t right.”
    â€œThere is someone here,” JJ said. “But it’s not what you think. We just had dinner and so he was just making sure I got back to my room okay.”
    It wasn’t a complete lie. They really did just have dinner. But a year ago, JJ would have condemned her sisters if they had tried to pull off a half-truth like that one. However, she had told so many half-truths to so many people over the past couple months that it was almost becoming second nature. She was a better liar than she thought. Or maybe the assumption that people made that she never lied—which had been true up until recently—just made her lies that much easier to get away with.
    â€œI know you’re not trying to sell me that.”
    Except with her sisters.
    â€œLook, are you going to explain about Sheree or not?” JJ asked impatiently.
    â€œAnd