Page 42 of You Don’t Kiss Your Brother's Best Friends

He scoffed and shook his head. “Not a chance.”

“You said it yourself: I’m smart. I’m resourceful. I can take care of myself.”

“And I stand by all that,” Bishop reassured me. “But sorry. It’s too much of a risk.”

“Yet you’re willing to risk Kayden, and not me?”

The question gave him a moment’s pause.

“Kayden’s here willingly,” Bishop eventually returned. “He knows the risks.”

“And so do I,” I replied. “Now that you’ve finally shown me, anyway.”

“Jocelyn, you don’t even know half the things these people—”

“She’s right about one thing though,” Andre cut in. “We have to intercept Emily.” He looked around, worriedly, at the growing crowds in the street. “If she’s coming in with the others, she’ll be here this afternoon.”

“Let her come then,” declared Bishop. “We’ll tell Raif the original server flaked out, and we replaced her.”

“With another girl named Emily?” scoffed Andre.

Bishop stopped what he was about to say and closed his mouth in a frown.

“Look, you know these people as well as I do,” hissed Andre, lowering his voice. “They don’t go for coincidences like that. Theyalwaystie up loose ends.”

The even lower inflection he placed on those last words gave me a dark, ominous feeling. One that Bishop seemed to share with his hesitant response.

“I… I know.”

“And what happens if they talk to new Emily, who’s really old Emily, and they start asking questions?” Andre pushed. “You’ll get her in just as much trouble, if not more.”

Bishop and I looked at each other but said nothing. His frown deepened.

“Besides, I hired the original Emily, remember?” Andre went on. “I had to vouch for her. I told them I knew her personally. We can’t just have some total stranger show up, completely unvetted, that we claim to have ‘picked up in Mykonos.’ That story will fall apart faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.”

“Then what do we do?” Bishop threw up his hands. “What’s the solution if there is no solution?”

“I have Emily’s number,” said Andre. “I can call her off. Make it so that she never shows up.”

Bishop’s mouth twitched. “And then what?”

“And then we take this Emily back with us,” Andre said, nodding my way. “She plays the part. She keeps her head down, and her ears open, and she serves food.” He pointed a finger at the ground. “And when it all goes down, she’s not involved in any other way.”

“No.”

“It’s either that, or Raif goes postal,” said Andre. “If he gets even the slightest whiff of deception, he’ll call the whole thing off. It’s happened before, remember? You wanna wait another twelve to eighteen months?”

Bishop let out a resigned sigh. He shook his head.

“Besides, having a server on the inside would really help,” said Andre. “We’re all stuck in the kitchen, but she’s out there with the guests. She’s serving food, bringing drinks. Listening to conversations…”

“Fuck,” Bishop swore.

“Fuck what?”

He didn’t just appear conflicted, he looked tortured now. Hope soared in my already pounding heart.

“Kayden would kill me,” he moaned.

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