Page 37 of Knocked Up by my Best Friend's Brothers

“Not yet, anyway,” Sharon says.

“Not yet,” I agree. I wish I could comfort her more. I wish I could take her pain away. But I cannot change the past. I cannot bring anyone back. The only thing I can do is move on and make those bastards pay. Some of them I managed to take down on my own. The others… I don’t know, maybe the Feds will catch up on that side.

My phone rings. It’s a string of messages from Colin, probably with an update on the crypto authorizations.

“You have to go,” Sharon concludes with a half-smile.

“Yes. But I’ll call you again on Sunday. We could have coffee via Facetime. You on your porch, me on mine. How does that sound?”

“It sounds wonderful. Let’s do that. In the meantime, I’ll put the money you sent me to good use. This PI wants to pay a forensic accountant to dig through Brett’s hard copies from Perry-Sage.”

“That’s a great idea. Whatever it takes, Sharon. I’ll back you up; I promise.”

“You need to take care of yourself, okay?”

“I will.”

My stomach drops as the call ends. A split second later, I’m diving head-first into the toilet bowl, puking my guts out.

A week later and “better” seems even farther away. Every morning I deal with nausea and dizziness. I need a lot of ice-cold lemon water before I can even walk out the door. Purely as a precaution, I dialed down the coffee and switched to herbal tea.

But each day feels like a challenge.

Keeping up appearances. Doing a great job. Making the most of every sizzling-hot moment I get to spend with the Hawthorne brothers. Hiding it from Teagan. It’s a lot. Maybe the stress of it all is finally getting to me.

“Good morning,” I greet the receptionist one morning as I walk into the building, ready to grab the bull by the horns. “Any mail for me, Anne?”

Anne, the frizzy-haired but super-sweet receptionist, gives me a smile and a stack of envelopes with my name on them. Some brown, some white, some made with fancy paper—probably marketing snail mail from my favorite shops in Portland. They still send this stuff to their loyal customers, but I don’t mind.

“You probably have a couple of discount codes in there from Pink Pearl Lingerie,” Anne says, wiggling her perfectly tweezed eyebrows at me as she points at one of the envelopes. “I recognized the paper and the design. I got one yesterday, too.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, they’re doing a huge mail campaign.”

“That’s nice,” I mutter as I linger by the reception desk, sifting through the mail. “Alright… Let’s see… Bills, bills… Taxes…”

“Who doesn’t love those?”

“Right?” I chuckle lightly, but my humor fades as I see the last envelope and my breath catches.

It’s plain white. My name is written in black ballpoint ink. I don’t see the building’s address on it. No return address either. Something feels wrong with this picture, and the knot in my chest immediately tightens as I rip it open.

“Busy day ahead?” Anne asks.

I look around and realize it’s not that busy around here this morning. Most of the staff are already in their offices, and the lobby area looks mostly empty. Hence why Anne is chattier than usual. Not much for her to do. I give her a smile.

“No busier than usual,” I reply, then slip two fingers inside the envelope. “How about you? Any new or spicy gossip you want to share?”

“Honestly, no. It’s been kind of boring lately,” she says. “The novelty of Alexandra Jones has worn off. You’re so nice and squeaky clean and holed up in your office most of the time. There’s no drama here at Hawthorne Corps, Christa. We need some drama!”

I can’t help but laugh, wondering what she might think if she knew about my steamy encounters with her bosses, who are also my bosses, and still my best friend’s brothers. I shake thethought away and open the letter.

As soon as my eyes land on the handwritten words, I freeze.

The note says:DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU’D GET AWAY?

My blood runs cold.

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