Page 29 of Tips and Trysts

She’s seated upright now, wearing a pair of sweats underneath her hospital gown, and most of the color has returned to her cheeks. She looks good. Amazing, as always, butgoodin the most basic sense. Healthy—definitely healthy for a woman who got shot a few hours ago.

The bullet didn’t fully enter her arm, but it passed along the outside and the wound was deep enough to warrant stitches. Cora hasn’t given me the download on her recovery time, but I’ve been researching in between questions from Beverly. It’s unlikely she’ll have long-term mobility issues, but she has to wear a sling for the first twenty-four hours. Her stitches will dissolve in a couple weeks.

“Are we done now?” Cora asks, tilting her head side to side and stretching. My immediate thought:Does she need a massage? I’m amazing at massages.

“Not quite. We still have to discuss the path forward.” Beverly glances over at the clear panel in the hospital room’s wall. My father is there, standing in the hallway and talking on his phone. When she’s positive he isn’t paying attention to us, Beverly leans forward and whispers, “Are you two fucking?”

Neither Cora nor I move a muscle at first.

“We’re not,” I reply, keeping my expression flat—a gargantuan feat because I’m so keen on the idea of fucking Cora, I’d make a deal with the devil at this point. If I could, I would slide right into that bastard’s DMs and preemptively offer him my soul—or a massage.

Again, I cannot overstate how good I am at giving massages.

Beverly scrutinizes me like she’s trying to read my mind. I give her nothing. Any information Beverly learns goes directly to my father, and if my father thought something was going on between Cora and me…

“Never?” she presses.

“Never,” Cora confirms a bit too readily for my ego to escape unscathed.

“Are you friends?”

Cora and I exchange glances before we look back at Beverly. “We’re not,” we say in unison.

“Well, you need to start being friends.Best friends.”

Cora’s brow locks, and I can practically see her mind turning. After a beat, she sighs. “You want to publicize any association between Everett and me because downplaying how we know each other implies we have something to hide.”

Exactly right. That’s my girl—so damn astute.

Beverly nods. “People online are asking questions—and your father is too, Everett. ‘Why was the governor’s son meeting up with a prostitute in a secluded garden? Was he sneaking her in the side door? What were they doing?’”

Before I can protest every syllable of these hypotheticals—starting with Beverly’s use of the wordprostitute—Cora laughs. “Seriously? As if I would wearthatto blow someone as rich as Everett.”

It’s a really good thing I’ve already murdered my coffee cup, because if I hadn’t, I would have reduced it to pulp in the palm ofmy hand.What would Cora wear to blow me?Suddenly, it’s the single most important question in the world.

“Regardless, we need to make the message clear: You two are good friendsand nothing else,” Beverly emphasizes, looking between us before parking her gaze on Cora. “In fact, Cora, you should get a boyfriend if you don’t have one already.”

“Unnecessary,” I comment, tempering my facial expression, but barely. In my periphery, Cora whips her head to the side. I don’t look back and instead focus on Beverly, low-key trying to shoot lasers into her brain, but mostly trying to mind-meld and convince her that Cora doesn’t need a fake boyfriend.

“Well, you can’t get a girlfriend,” Beverly comments, rolling her eyes like she knows I asked Cora to fuck me.In a hospital. “It’s too close to the primary, and there’s no time for us to vet someone. We have a narrow window to stop this from becoming a scandal, so she—”

“I’m right here.”

“You need a boyfriend,” Beverly reiterates, facing Cora now, “or a public fling. People need to see you’re not with Everett.”

Cora’s expression is cold. “Fine.”

“Fine,” Beverly parrots. “And don’t talk to anyone.”

“My parents are immigrants,” Cora assures her before ripping open one of the bags of Sour Skittles I bought and popping one into her mouth. “I’m masterful at hiding things that could undermine appearances.”

I don’t mean to smirk, but I do. I just love her mouth.

Naturally, Beverly spots my expression like a sharpshooter. Her eyes narrow, but rather than mention it, she says, “Well, good. You’ll stay quiet in the meantime, and I’ll have an NDA ready for you shortly. Do you have a lawyer?”

“Lander,” Cora replies, which is cute—but I’m her fucking lawyer now.

“I’ll review it with her,” I cut in. “What else do you need from us?”

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