Lies in Love Read Free Page B

Sara walked
away without another word. She was giving up on the whole mess. She
didn’t know what to do about her sister, but sending a man in
her direction wasn’t going to fix the funk she was in. She’d
just have to learn to like it. This was who her sister was now, for
better or for worse. Sara found Talia at the same table, staring at
her empty martini glass and retrieved her to take her home.

    “I’ve
got it.” Camey came running in from the front of the shop after
Talia went out to get lunch. Reina and Sara were moving arrangements
to the cooler while Izzy, the animated, blonde high school intern,
ran the counter.
    “What
now?” Reina was over all the hair-brained schemes Camey had
been secretly proposing all morning.
    Camey
held out her cell phone. “Look.” A deliciously well-built
man named Landon Havens appeared on the screen, shirtless, his left
arm covered halfway with an ornate dead tree containing what looked
to be the edge of a lifelike treehouse. His wheat-colored hair stuck
up in all directions in that sexy way and his sapphire eyes nearly
leapt off the screen. His lips were plumped perfectly around his
beautiful white teeth and were surrounded by a sandy-blonde goatee.
The man was a near-perfect specimen.
    “He’s
nice, but what’s your point?” Sara rolled her eyes in
true Talia style. Sometimes there was no denying they were sisters.
    “He’s
an escort.”
    “What?”
both Sara and Reina shrieked in unison.
    “We
didn’t have any luck with the guy at the club, and, honestly,
it is going to take a lot of persistence for a guy to want to stick
around for more than five minutes with Talia. Surely with a little
monetary incentive, this guy will at least try to keep her interested
for, say, an hour? Surely an hour would wear her down.”
    “I
don’t know about this. I mean, can’t these guys be
dangerous? They could have an STD or something,” Sara, always
the cautious one, piped in.
    “Escorts
are very careful these days. They always use condoms and get tested
quite frequently.” Camey noticed the inquiring stares she
received from the girls after the information she just unloaded. “My
sister used an escort once after she and her husband got a divorce.
It got her through a tough time.”
    “Mija,
this could be bad for all of us. If she finds out that we put this
together, she may never forgive us.”
    “At
this point, that’s a risk I’m willing to take. She’s
miserable to be around and I can’t fathom what is going through
that head of hers. Something isn’t right up there.” Camey
swiped across her screen to display the escort’s information
and set her phone on the counter. “They don’t even have
to sleep together, but if they do, maybe this will brighten her mood
a little.” All of the girls looked at each other quizzically.
“It’s worth a shot.”
    “How
is this going to work?” Sara was the first to concede.
    Camey
had hope that this plan would be successful.
    “I
say we all chip in and meet the guy together. If he’s a total
skeeze we leave and never speak of it again. But if we do this and he
agrees, what’s the worst that could happen?” Camey
clicked the phone number on the escort page and saved it to her
phone.
    “Talia
could find out and never forgive us. That would be pretty awful,”
Reina, being the level-headed one, stated.
    “She
won’t find out. We carry this to our graves. Just trust me.”
Camey heard the front door of the shop open and, peeking through the
pass-through to the front, saw Talia walking in. She whispered, “I’ll
call him tonight and set up a meeting. We can make a decision from
there.” She slipped her phone in her pocket and returned to
work.
    Talia
entered the workroom and set the deli bag on the counter. “Why
aren’t these arrangements in the cooler?” She fixed her
eyes on Sara, waiting for an answer.
    Sara’s
head fell, downcast. “I was just finishing up.”
    “What’d
you get us?” Camey drew Talia’s