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“No, but I was surprised. Today’s your day off.”

“I need to talk to you about Tuesday. I have a thing, and I just found out, and it’s kind of late notice, but I was hoping I could?—”

“No way,” Harv says. “You have to come in at noon and serve Mr. Moorland’s board. You agreed.”

I forgot all about that. “My thing is at seven at night,” I say. “So that’s fine. I was wanting to trade my shift.”

“Done,” he says. “You’re now working the lunch shift. It ends at 4.” He hangs up.

All day, no matter what I do to keep busy, I keep seeing that ridiculous rose wreath and stupid Easton Moorland smiling at me. I’m not sure where Jake went, but I’m going crazy all alone in the apartment. I open my laptop, and before I have time to think about it, I find myself typing in the search box.

Easton Moorland.

I hate myself for looking him up.

It’s not like it’s going to change anything. He’s too good looking. He’s too famous. He might not be as recognizable as Jake, because who is? But any notoriety is too much for me. Plus, there’sno waysomeone like him actually likes someone like me. I’m sure he only tried harder because I said no.

Guys like him probablyneverget told no.

I should have thought of that and found a way to just put him off. I could have said sure and then canceled. After a few scheduling issues, he’d have given up. He’d never have gone to the trouble of asking my boss for a Tuesday lunch meeting every week if I hadn’t felt hard-to-get.

There are dozens and dozens of articles on Easton Moorland.

Most of them are pretty boring. I mean, I already know he’s slaying in the business world. Reading about all the thoughts people have on why is. . .yawn. I know his parents and his sister’s name. It’s a little creepy they have them listed online, as well as the fact that his sister just married Emerson, heir to the famous Richmond fortune.

I do see the irony in the fact that I’m reading about him and yet that’s why I don’t want to date him. Because people like me read articles about him and I want no part of it.

I hate that this kind of information even exists.

And yet, I type in another search: Easton Moorland girlfriend.

I really hate myself for it, but I have to see what kind of girl he usually dates. Maybe he’s left a string of broken-hearted waitresses in his wake. It might even be his usual MO. I bet there’s, like, a warning posted online, telling all the support staff at the various places he frequents that he’s a dirty perv.

Only, every single article says he’s a self-proclaimed workaholic, and as far as they’ve been able to uncover, he’s never datedanyone.

That can’t be right.

I mean, I’ve never dated anyone more than a handful of times, but it’s mostly because no one has ever been interested in me. When you’re a mousy little nobody, people tend not to ask you out. Easton, however, is not mousy, and he’s definitely not a nobody.

There’s no mention of Miss Collagen USA, so clearly the tabloids miss some stuff. Maybe he’s been paying someone to get all the torrid stories about him cleaned up. People do that in movies. Or maybe one of his old Rutgers cronies owns a search engine, and theysuppress anything bad about him someone tries to print.

So far, the articles are setting off one red flag.

When I search for something on Amazon, and there aren’tanybad reviews, I’m immediately suspicious. Did they pay for their reviews? How do they have so many good ones? Trolls are everywhere, and they like to complain. So if not a single person has left a negative review? It’s fishy.

So it worries me that no one has anything bad to say about Easton Moorland. As a business mogul, I find it bizarre. Shouldn’t he have lots of enemies? By lunchtime, it’s still bugging me, and I realize that I have no choice.

I have to call Emerson.

He answers on the second ring. That must mean he wasn’t doing anything too important. “Bea! I’m glad you called.”

“Uh-oh,” I say. “Do I owe you money I forgot about?”

“Funny,” he says. “I wasjusttalking about you.”

“You were?” That can’t be good. “Why?”

“Remember when we were kids how you were the only one who could fix that toilet that just kept running?”

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