Page 7 of Forbidden Harmony

Man, she hated that her friends knew her sowell.

“I’m sure. Brad’s into me, right?”

Grace’s face wrinkled like she’d eaten somethingbad. “Yeah, he’s into you.”

“Good. So, I’ll sleep with him tonight.”

“He’s kind of a douchebag, Addie.”

“He’s totally a douchebag.” Addisonsmoothed down her dress and tugged at the pearls around her neck. “Which makeshim perfect for rebound sex. I absolutely, positively will not want to datehim, even if he’s amazing in bed.”

“He does have a great body,” Grace said.

“He’s a firefighter, of course he has agreat body. Probably good stamina too. That’s important, right?”

She hated how dumb she sounded. She’d beenwith her lying, cheating dick of a fiancé for how many years, and she wasremarkably naïve about sex. She’d known that she and Harrison hadn’t had themost… rousing sex life, but she’d really had no idea just how bad she was inbed.

Her cheeks flamed bright red and thebathroom suddenly seemed too loud and too bright. A woman came out of a stall,washed her hands, and checked her makeup before leaving all while Addison stoodfrozen at the counter.

“Addie?” Grace said. “Honey, you okay?”

“Fine.”

Pain danced along the front of her skull,making her feel a little sick to her stomach.

“You don’t have to -”

“Enough, Grace!” The headache made hershort-tempered and irritable. “I’m doing this. I need to know if I’m… if I’mas bad in bed as Harrison said I was. Okay? You don’t know what it’s like tohear your fiancé, the man who’s supposed to love you, tell you that you suck inbed. You have no idea what I’m going through right now so just stop!”

“All right,” Grace said.

Grace was the one with the temper, but hervoice stayed calm and she didn’t look angry. Addison reached out and took herhand, squeezing it tight. “I’m sorry. I was being a bitch.”

“No, you weren’t,” Grace said.

“I was and I’m sorry.” Addison toyed withthe pearls around her neck again. “C’mon, let’s get back to the table so I canput my rusty flirting skills to use on Brad.”

“All right.” Grace kissed her forehead.“But if you change your mind at any time, just let me know and we’ll leave.”

“I won’t change my mind,” Addison said.

* * *

She wanted to change her mind. It wasn’tjust because of Brad’s bad breath or the way he acted like he was God’s gift towomen. It wasn’t even because her headache had grown exponentially worse inthe last hour or so.

She wanted to change her mind because Gracewas right – this wasn’t her. She wasn’t the type of girl who had random sex witha guy and then never talked to him again. She was a nice girl. She was a…

Proper lady?

She cringed at the term, could almost hearHarrison saying it in her head. Her head throbbed with fresh pain and she rubbedat her temples. Screw that. She was tired of being a proper lady. She washaving sex with Brad tonight and that was that.

But first… she really needed to do somethingabout her headache. She’d never relax and enjoy herself if her head was achinglike a rotting tooth.

She squinted around the pub. Grace hadgone to the bar and it looked like she was talking to the woman who ran theanimal rescue. Rain or Raylene, maybe…

She touched Brad’s arm. He might be intoher but even his lust took a backseat when it was the bottom of the eighth andthe score was tied. He, along with every other guy at the table, had beenglued to the big screen television mounted on the wall for the last half hour.

“Brad, I have a terrible headache. There’ssome Advil in the glovebox of my car. Will you walk me out to get it?”

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